Buying a Car - Part 3 (The BAD Dealer)
Okay, I don't want to give you any preconceived ideas about the dealer...well I guess I failed at that with the title to this post! Forget it, I want to give you preconceived ideas about this dealer. They were bad to deal with and lied to me which left a bitter taste in my mouth when I was done working with them. I'll detail the story below and leave the final analysis to you.
To start us out, I thought I would run through a list of the people involved
Me - That's me!
My bride - Chris
Scott - Salesperson
Dale - Sales Manager
Chuck - Owner
Our story begins with the intrepid hero (me) deciding to go check out the Mitsubishi Outlander to see if my wife would possibly approve. You'll remember from previous parts that this rig met the requirements for a vehicle. I arrived at the dealership and found they had a 2007 Outlander with 15k miles, leather heated seats, sunroof, gps and other goodies there on the lot. I spoke with Scott the salesperson and went for a test drive. I liked this car. It drove nice, had the bigger motor, leather always feels good and I really enjoy heated seats. I called my wife from the car and told her she needs to test this one out. Scott tried to talk me into driving it home for her to check out, but I needed to look things up on it anyway, so we returned to the dealer and dropped the car off. I asked Scott how much the car is and he deferred to Dale the sales manager. Dale looked at his computer and informed me the car was going for $22,900. I then asked him what he would let it go for and after hemming and hawing around a bit, he was willing to take $300 off. This occurred on Tuesday night.
Wednesday afternoon comes and after having lunch with my beautiful bride, we run over and test drive the vehicle. She likes it as well and would be very satisfied with the machine. One again, Scott is pushing for us to make a decision right away, but I tell him I need to look it up online first. So we go to the shop and print out all the options for that VIN. Armed with the list of what came with the car, I head over to Edmunds.com and look up their True Market Value for the vehicle. It comes up $21,000. My wife really likes it and it willing to go $21,800 so they only need to come down another $800 and we have a deal. I called Scott back around 1530 and told him I would like to see the price get a little closer to $21,000. Scott told me he would check with Dale and see what he could do. I waited for his phone call, but nothing by the time I left work.
Upon arriving at home, what did I find but a coupon from this exact dealer for $1900 any used car on the lot! "This would be perfect," I thought, "but I'm sure they will weasel out of it." How right I was. Since Scott had not called me back for almost five hours, I figured I would bypass the middle man and called Dale directly. I informed him that I have this coupon and would like to apply it to the car we have been discussing and purchase it this evening. Dale's first response was that I negotiated that price before the coupon came out so I could not apply it. I then told Dale that would be fine, I would like to apply the coupon to the initial cost of the vehicle quoted to me of $22,900. That would make it $21,000 which is a fair price. Dale first told me I could not do that and after pushing a bit he told me he would check with the general manager and get back to me. The next phone call about 20 minutes later was from Scott. Scott was calling to inform me I could not use the coupon like that. I won't bother detailing the entire conversation here, but the end result is the price of the car is $24,800 if I want to use the coupon...yep, that's right, they jack the price of all their used cars up $1900 to send out a $1900 off coupon.
I realized Scott was just a salesperson and has no real say there at the dealership, so I looked them up online and found an email address for the owner. You need to know that this guy's name is on the building and the sign. I emailed him and told him the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. I was truly amazed to receive the following response from him
Maybe I am just being naive, but he just admitted to me that he lies for sales events. Whatever he wants to call it, sending out a coupon for any amount of money off and raising the price of the item by that amount of money is lying. When I get a coupon for a couple bucks off Coke products and I go to the store to purchase something, they did not first raise the price. I remain soured with this dealer and will not do business with them because of this attitude towards the truth.
To start us out, I thought I would run through a list of the people involved
Me - That's me!
My bride - Chris
Scott - Salesperson
Dale - Sales Manager
Chuck - Owner
Our story begins with the intrepid hero (me) deciding to go check out the Mitsubishi Outlander to see if my wife would possibly approve. You'll remember from previous parts that this rig met the requirements for a vehicle. I arrived at the dealership and found they had a 2007 Outlander with 15k miles, leather heated seats, sunroof, gps and other goodies there on the lot. I spoke with Scott the salesperson and went for a test drive. I liked this car. It drove nice, had the bigger motor, leather always feels good and I really enjoy heated seats. I called my wife from the car and told her she needs to test this one out. Scott tried to talk me into driving it home for her to check out, but I needed to look things up on it anyway, so we returned to the dealer and dropped the car off. I asked Scott how much the car is and he deferred to Dale the sales manager. Dale looked at his computer and informed me the car was going for $22,900. I then asked him what he would let it go for and after hemming and hawing around a bit, he was willing to take $300 off. This occurred on Tuesday night.
Wednesday afternoon comes and after having lunch with my beautiful bride, we run over and test drive the vehicle. She likes it as well and would be very satisfied with the machine. One again, Scott is pushing for us to make a decision right away, but I tell him I need to look it up online first. So we go to the shop and print out all the options for that VIN. Armed with the list of what came with the car, I head over to Edmunds.com and look up their True Market Value for the vehicle. It comes up $21,000. My wife really likes it and it willing to go $21,800 so they only need to come down another $800 and we have a deal. I called Scott back around 1530 and told him I would like to see the price get a little closer to $21,000. Scott told me he would check with Dale and see what he could do. I waited for his phone call, but nothing by the time I left work.
Upon arriving at home, what did I find but a coupon from this exact dealer for $1900 any used car on the lot! "This would be perfect," I thought, "but I'm sure they will weasel out of it." How right I was. Since Scott had not called me back for almost five hours, I figured I would bypass the middle man and called Dale directly. I informed him that I have this coupon and would like to apply it to the car we have been discussing and purchase it this evening. Dale's first response was that I negotiated that price before the coupon came out so I could not apply it. I then told Dale that would be fine, I would like to apply the coupon to the initial cost of the vehicle quoted to me of $22,900. That would make it $21,000 which is a fair price. Dale first told me I could not do that and after pushing a bit he told me he would check with the general manager and get back to me. The next phone call about 20 minutes later was from Scott. Scott was calling to inform me I could not use the coupon like that. I won't bother detailing the entire conversation here, but the end result is the price of the car is $24,800 if I want to use the coupon...yep, that's right, they jack the price of all their used cars up $1900 to send out a $1900 off coupon.
I realized Scott was just a salesperson and has no real say there at the dealership, so I looked them up online and found an email address for the owner. You need to know that this guy's name is on the building and the sign. I emailed him and told him the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. I was truly amazed to receive the following response from him
We do, however, move our pricing back to retail for this sale event. I find this practice extremely common among most retailers.
Maybe I am just being naive, but he just admitted to me that he lies for sales events. Whatever he wants to call it, sending out a coupon for any amount of money off and raising the price of the item by that amount of money is lying. When I get a coupon for a couple bucks off Coke products and I go to the store to purchase something, they did not first raise the price. I remain soured with this dealer and will not do business with them because of this attitude towards the truth.
Labels: car
posted by Pastor Tom at 2:52 PM
0 comments
links to this post
