Worst dealership/salesman experience?

White Bear Ford (White Bear Lake MN) 2015
Was looking for a 2500 GMC at the time and went to look at a 2010 Duramax. The dealer was over an hour away so I called ahead to verify that they still had the truck on the lot. I got there and it wasn't there we drove around for 20 minutes to other lots and finally found it at the body shop. Ended up test driving it and checking it over and decided I wanted it. When we got back we talked financing and was told I got approved 4.5% but the guy said the computers weren't working properly and I wouldn't be able to drive it home. He called me a couple days later saying I would be able to pick the truck up tomorrow. On my way to the dealership I called to verify everything was ready to go and he responded with yes we got you approved for 10% interest (5.5% more than I was told the day of the test drive) Apparently they ran my credit again and received worse results or something. I'm not to sure on how that happened. I told him to shove it. He then tried to sell me an f150. Who in their right mind thinks that someone looking for a heady duty diesel would be content with a ford and a half ton gas at that? When I did buy a truck from a different dealer a few months later the finance manager told me that on my credit report White Bear Ford ran my credit 15 times to get approval on a new (2015) f150. A "truck" i had absolutely no interest in. I was livid!
I wish that dealer nothing but the worst in the future.

 

Hyundai of Auburn, Auburn Alabama.

Around 2010ish we were looking to buy a vehicle for my wife to commute in. We were looking for used, nothing new. The salesman we spoke with said lets ride over to used lot. So we did. We get over there and this jack leg shows us a 2004 piece of crap Pontiac Grand Prix. Saying and I quote "Dis a very fuel efficient car." I said please take us back to our vehicle. We're not interested in being lied to today. Awkward ride back to the new lot but we got out of there quick. To this day when we see a P.O.S we say "Dats a fuel efficient car." I guess we got a good laugh out of that trip.

She's in 4runner. What were we thinking back then? Good grief.

 

Broke it up, hopefully it’s alittle easier now as I tried to keep the same situations together per paragraph.

 

Much more readable. Well done...

 

Some years back my wife and i test drove a toyota highlander but really wanted a rav4. the salesman was my cousin's son. We went in the office to talk price so we told him what another dealership had quoted us. He wen to talk to his sales manager and said they couldn't do that , so later on the sales manager came in . We told him about the other dealer's price he looked at the price and said there was no way they could or any other dealer could sell that car for that price. He started ranting and raving about being a CPA and that he thought we were lying about the price, so i told my wife let's go, He started screaming and hollering at us to "get out' . We got up and while we were walking out the showroom he was still screaming at us to get out. I told him we were leaving and not coming back. My wife was embarrassed but i was laughing out the door. We found out about a week later that guy was fired. I think i was still laughing.

 

Goudy Honda in Alhambra wouldn't give my wife and I the time of day when we stumbled in several years ago to replace her aging civic. It had been sideswiped by an honest driver, and we had just cashed an insurance check worth far more than the difference in resale value for repairing the superficial damage that had occurred. Furthermore, I had just discovered that the head gasket was leaking at only 170k miles. So much for Honda reliability, right?

Nonetheless, it was her first and only car, and all she wanted was to replace it with a new one of the same color. However, the civic model had endured several years of unprecedentedly terrible looks and performance, which we knew first-hand because her sister had wound up with one. It was god awful, with a buzzing plastic digital dashboard, noncommittal sponge gas pedal, blaring incomprehensible-noise stereo... I could continue, but that's not the point. It was a terrible car.

Perhaps if we'd spent less time behind the wheel of this abomination, we might have embraced buying one of these straight-jacket Civics in its final production year. But alas, we knew the disappointment that awaited us, and had nearly ruled out the Civic until we discovered, just as we cashed our downpayment-sized insurance check, that a new generation of Civics was rolling out to dealerships across the country.

We could see them glistening in the morning sunlight as we pulled into the parking lot of our local Honda dealership -- once again that's Goudy Honda in Alhambra. I had every expectation of driving home in the red one, regardless of price. But our path was littered with obstacles. There were at least three rows of prior-year models, and before we made it half-way through, a salesman intercepted us. He directed us to the models we had already passed. He explained how they would better fit our lifestyle. We even test drove one. It was terrible.

I insisted, we were here for the newest model. I walked up to it and pointed to the window sticker. He wouldn't even run our credit. We drove home in her dented coolant-leaking civic, wondering what we had done wrong.

 

I might never know what we did wrong at Goudy Honda of Alhambra, other than not being the offspring of some well-known Asian millionaires.


But our next experience would be even worse. We headed to Sierra Chrysler Dodge Jeep of Monrovia, intrigued by the specs of the then-new Dodge Dart. It had just been unveiled amidst great fanfare, through an overzealous advertising campaign that ultimately succeeded only in alienating the young and the elderly alike.


Yet we were soon behind the wheel of a decked-out Dart, finding it more palatable and fun-to-drive than yesteryear's Civic. Soon after, they had run my credit and were salivating at the prospect of a sale. Finally, our frustration was giving way to the excitement of owning a new car!


But my enthusiasm turned out to be premature; within two minutes of stepping into the sales office, the scam artists at Sierra Dodge had laden our deal with 16 additional tons of total bullshit that no Dodge Dart could possibly carry. What's worse, they kept trying to redirect our conversation to a monthly payment rather than the actual cost of sale.


"I know how money works, and I want to talk about the actual cost of this car, not the monthly payment. I refuse to pay for Lojack or any of the other added charges. Why is the final price so much higher than the sticker price?" I asked in a pathetic whimper.


But Sierra Dodge kept trying to tweak the down-payment and interest rate, hoping desperately to conceal over $2500 in markup, while refusing to converse in terms of the actual cost of the car. Finally, I had to tell them that if they said "monthly payment" again, I would walk away.


Meanwhile in her boredom, my wife had set her eyes on a used V6 mustang in the lot. It was... inexplicably used. That generation had only been out for a month or two, yet here was a car with 60k miles on the ticker. And also... it was just a V6... a grocery getter, a poser car.


But then we test drove it. We had both driven our fair share of peppy 4-bangers and Detroit-V8 street-yachts of yesteryear. We had even just driven the latest turbo-charged 4-banger Dodge coupe. But nothing had prepared us for the modern V6 ponycar. I nearly killed us at least 4 times, just to go around the block.


I marched in to Sierra Dodge and demanded our IDs back. Then we drove over to Advantage Ford.


I found the shiniest, most poser-ass grocery-getter V6 Mustang on earth, in color red, and I bought it for my wife. We paid the sticker price, $250 over invoice, with no haggling over monthly payment or dealer mark-up. I tried to hold out for invoice, but eventually I caved for warm pizza. Then I let them underbid my credit union’s interest rate


The wife still loves that car.


F*ck you, Goudy Honda of Alhambra


And Super-duper f*ck you, Sierra Chrysler Dodge Jeep of Monrovia

 

I remember it like it was "yesteryear". Man, you're choice of words make the story so detailed. The imagery made me feel like I was there lol

 

Thanks man, your complement made my day.

 

Thats your fault.

 

Let's see, my worst experience with salesmen and dealers? Oh, yea, every one of them.

 

Back in late 2005 we were shopping for a new Tacoma trd OR Access 4x4, we walked into Auburn Toyota and cruised the lot, I found a dark blue Tacoma fit the bill, we drove it, walked inside and sat down, I don't fool around with salesmen, I gave them a bottom line figure, which is around 400 under invoice, they shot back with 1800 over invoice, no lower, then the hate began, from most the sales employees inside the dealership, we slowly got up and walked the gamut of sales buzzards out the door with several smart mouthed comments from several sales people to us as we walked out, we went to Roseville toyota and bought a new 2006 Tacoma Offroad access for 400 under invoice in about 2 hours haggle. Once they had the fleet manager in the room with us I know I would be a buyer. Small dealerships like Auburn toyota, don't have the buying power of a large dealership like Roseville, so the bottom line can vary quite a bit it appears, but the nasty hate from the salesmen was uncalled for, never saw such in a business before. We were cordial the whole time in there, never did make any negative comments.

Since that time we have bought several new Toyotas at different (large dealerships) in the local area at around 400 under invoice, I plan for about 12% off msrp beforehand or I walk.

 

I went to a ford dealership to look at used toyotas and the sales kid calls the owner over. Big fat white dude.

The write a price in PEN of a sheet of paper and draw a line and tell me to sign it.

I tell them "There is no way I'm signing that line."

Had to walk.

 

I went w/ the gf to buy a used kia once. We agreed on 13k OTD, price sheet had TTL at like $900, salesguy explained that they estimate high and refund difference. Get to finance guy and TTL comes out to like $500 bucks or whatever, so $400 difference. Told them great we'll write the check for $12,600 since the $400 coming back on the estimated TTL.

They didn't want to do that. Sales guy came in like "I never said anything about you getting the difference back", finance guy like "lets split it", three of us do a borderline shouting match for 10 minutes before they finally just cede the $400 bucks. Sales guy was red af and looked legit angry with me like I scammed him out of something. No way my gf was leaving w/o that car so really all they had to say was "no", but I kept telling them "we're only gonna pay what we agreed to out on the floor". Still to this day think it could have been some theater act to try to squeeze an extra few hundred out, but I'm aware of my bias against dealerships.

Also TBH I guess you could make a case for the "13k OTD" meaning "we don't want the TTL difference back", but it didn't feel right to me.

 

I used this strategy when buying my truck. Made both the sales and finance people stay about 30 minutes late after closing, but you know what, I only had to say no once to the "extra add ons"

 

I swear, every time I’ve test driven a new car the gas light was on! Wtf?!

 

My wife had put a good bit of miles on her 2016 Nissan Rogue and was looking to trade it in for a Nissan Murano. We both knew she wouldn't be getting what we would like due to mileage but the car was the highest trim and we had a set amount in mind to get for it due to a couple days research. We find a 2019 Nissan Murano same color as her Rogue and decide to trade in.

We tell salesman the price we are thinking and he gets another salesman to go out and inspect her old car. Other salesman comes in and says they can't offer that bc the sunroof wont open all the way and that "scared him". They drop their offer down $3k bc of that. So I say no way and walk out with that salesman and inspect it myself. This snake was only pushing the button to move the sun roof back and not also pushing button to move it down for full opening of sun roof. When I did it in front of him his face was ghost white. This was a Nissan dealership so I know he knew what he was trying to pull. We got the offer we wanted.

 

So true! Haha

 

No rangy test drives I guess!

 

All of them. I get nauseated every time I pull on the lot.