Worst dealership/salesman experience?

This was a few vehicles ago, I was trading in my '99 Jeep Cherokee for a low-mile lease return Grand Cherokee at a Jeep dealer.
During the test drive I noted that the passenger side mirror was loose, we checked it out and decided it needed replaced. The salesman told me of course they'd take care of it.
After everything was signed, I asked when they'd deal with the mirror and he told me he'd set it up with service, no problem. Then he went back to talk to the sales manager, and got into a flat-out screaming match over the cost of the mirror (on the showroom floor no less). F-bombs were being thrown between the two of them, and my salesman walked out to his car and drove away. Leaving me to deal with the sales manager who said "sorry, I didn't promise to fix ANYTHING on that car, best I can do is give you the part at cost for you to install yourself".

Yeah, great experience all around. I should have just walked away, but I really liked the Jeep so I went with it. The next day I got a call from Chrysler corporate asking me to "rate my experience" with the dealer and I gave the lady an earfull about what went down. Apparently I wasn't the only one with complaints, they gave me an extended warranty for free and a few months later that dealer lost their affiliation with Jeep. The following year they closed.

 

Between my wife and me, we've had 4 Toyotas and 6 Subarus over the years. I've found Subaru dealers to be very honest (other than the one I described earlier that had me slamming the show room doors to be allowed to leave). Now that I think about it- they're a Toyota dealer too. lol. But they changed ownership so I won't ruin the name of the new owner, as I've heard they changed. I still haven't gone back.

 

Had a dealership service department wreck my truck, and when I went to pick it up, they tried to tell me it came in that way. Turns out, one of their lot monkeys ran into it with a van and didn't tell anyone.

 

My truck gets 12mpg and the tdi got 55mpg on the way to SD last weekend with me driving, yet somehow the wife never manages to get north of 35.

 

Those were all HARD INQUIRIES on your credit ratings. It will affect your score for a bit.

In general, not directly to you @jerzsubbie


If financing, always negotiate like you’ll go through them but always have the your best rate lined up if they can't beat it.

If paying cash, never let them know until you settle on your price..

 

Only the initial, so long as other inquiries are made within like 60 days or something. Its intended to not hurt people looking to buy cars where they shop multiple dealers, vehicles etc. The other inquiries will show up but they wont have an effect on the rating itself.

 

Bob Lamphere’s Beaverton Motorcycles.

I went in already knowing I qualified for the 0% for 60 months offer Suzuki offered. I told the sales guy which model I wanted and that I wanted it for 60 months at 0% with zero down. The finance guy ran my credit like normal but then shopped around, trying to get me on what they wanted. They then said I didn’t qualify for Suzuki’s promotion and I had to go with another option.

So I told them that I work at a Toyota dealership and I know how this game works. Because I already knew I qualified, I told them that if they don’t sign me up at 0% I’ll walk and go somewhere else. Five minutes later he comes back with the approval.

That wasn’t the worst though, the worst was the extended warranties. I purchased them at first because they offered me ‘dealer price’ because I worked in the industry (half off sale price) but a few months later I wanted to cancel them. Long story short, it took 6 months of back and forth and being ignored by the dealership to get GAP and PPM cancelled. I had to call Suzuki directly and they told the dealer to cancel the warranty. Funny enough, the Suzuki rep said he had to call them 3 times to get it done.

That’s my worst experience and I’ll never be giving that dealership my money again. Seeing as I’m young and that was my first but not last bike, they lost a bunch of sales based on that experience and now my friends are avoiding them too.

 

Had test driven a couple used Tacomas before I bought mine and was approved for financing on all of them. Decided I wanted to look at a new one so one day after work I cruised into Autonation Toyota in Irvine with my wife. Salesman flat out refused to let me test drive the truck until he ran credit (I'm assuming this is because I look so young. Mind you, I'm in my mid twenties with more than enough credit history and an income that was well above what would be needed to qualify. I work for a large auto finance company so I'm aware of what's needed). Figured fine, go ahead and run it, I'm not too concerned with the credit hit. Salesman walks away with the credit app and comes back 5 minutes later saying they didn't run it because they don't think I'll qualify and I'll need to either put 50% down on the car or ask a parent to cosign because they assumed I didn't have qualifying credit. It was so slow at this time of the day that there were no other customers in the dealership but they weren't even interested in trying to make a sale. I got up and walked out, drove 10 miles up the road to the next toyota dealership in Tustin, and drove out a couple hours later with the truck I wanted at the price I wanted and no runaround from the salesman or salesmanager that helped me out.

 

Oh man, flashback to my last purchase.
Decent dealer experience, went through them for the loan -36 months paid in 4. (Noticed all the hard inquiries to my credit ratings in a month or so.. but they cleared after a bit.

I call Key Bank asking when I’ll get my title. They say in a few weeks. Call after 4 and am told IT WAS SENT LAST WEEK. I say OK. It doesn’t come in the week and I call again. I’m transferred to a “title specialist” who informs me they don’t typically send out titles. Advised I could get a duplicate title. I ask it they’re gonna pay for it and the answer is no. I ask for a manager, 20 minutes later I speak to one and explain the whole situation. Ten minutes later she says she understood what was going on and would send it out tomorrow. I said I’ve heard that before and she said she understood, took my email and offered to send me the tracking info when it was sent . I got the tracking email the following day and title on the next day.

Blows my mind a bank would hold on to a title....

/end rant

 

Huh, didn’t know they didn’t count but they were listed in my report..
Thanks for the info!

 

Yeah otherwise car buying would destroy peoples credit. I usually do this. Hit my Credit union as I know 99.5% their rates will crush. But let dealers try to beat it since it wont hurt so long as youre within whatever the window is 30, 45, 60, or 90 days (that I cant remember).

 

14 days according to Experian:
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-...multiple-loan-applications-cannot-be-removed/

Back to original programming...

 

For auto loans you have a 7(?) day period, all hits within that period count as 1. For home loans I’m pretty sure it’s 30 days.

But your other advice is spot on and I’ve successfully done so multiple times! I treat a vehicle purchase as 3 separate transactions: vehicle price, financing, trade. No chance for the dealer to shuffle dollars around.

 

In my experience, dealers will just be less flexible with the other parts of the deal if you get a good deal on one. So if you settle on a good purchase price, they will try and lowball on trade, or if you agree on a good trade in price, they give you less slack on new vehicle price.

IMO, there is no way to game their system. You just have to be firm with where you stand, make sure all three aspects of the deal are reasonable, and make it clear you will walk out if you don't like any of the numbers. But I do agree with you that it is best to treat it as three separate transactions, that way it's easier to make sure you aren't getting screwed on any of them.

 

the Wife and I were looking at a 2017 2500 Ram Cummings and was told the Truck we liked was 10k off sticker price(2016) the came back with a price that was 5k over sticker . When My wife asked why she was told Dealer add on's we both Laughed and started to leave.
The sales guy asked how he could still make the sale, my answer was take off the add on's and lower the price .
his reply, this is wear it get funny and very bad he looks at my wrist and asked me how much was my Rolex and if I could afford that kind of Watch I could Afford the truck. we walked out I worked for this same Dealer WV in the passed and my wife is friends with the owners wife so I made a call and the problem fixed its self they called us back and we were told the truck price would be 10k under MSRP
thanks but no thanks have a Grate day and ended the call

 

So my experience was this last time just a couple months ago. I just recently went through divorce and am in the middle of bankruptcy. I was driving a 2015 Explorer with lots of options that was paid off and I really didn't want it as it was not what fits my needs and really the Ex was the one that wanted it when we bought it new. Due to my situation I can't finance and based of research I new how much my vehicle was worth between NADA, KBB, TrueCar and black book. I was looking for something that was in the 15k range and looking for an even trade type of deal. I found a dealership that had a Tacoma on lot in my range and scheduled an appointment for after I got of work to come see it as it was about a 30 min drive away. I get there and ask for the guy I had set up the appointment with and he pawns me off to some other sales lady. Which out of the hole ordeal was the good eye candy. She proceeds to ask me what I was looking for and how much I could spend and then told me the Tacoma I wanted to look at had been sold. At which point I was like thanks for wasting my time all it would have taken is a phone call. I am trying to be upfront knowing I am not in the best spot right now and I don't appreciate being jerked around. Then they want to try to show me another truck they have on the lot that was in my price range so I said sure I will look. They then proceed to take me out back to show me a truck that is so utterly disgusting I think a bunch of pigs owned it as it wasn't even cleaned up yet. I said no thanks I will be leaving now. And on my way out they were like why do you want 4wheel drive we have some of what you are looking for in 2wd we could work with. And I just say because that is what I want.

A week later a local dealer had a brand new trade in that they placed on the internet and I reserved it to check it out. Went in took a look hadn't been on the lot for a full day yet and looked over some numbers and ended up working out an almost even trade. And they ended up replacing the windshield, tail light assembly, two new tires, front wheel bearings, and undercoated it and also fixing a loose bed bolt that was missing a spacer. Overall not to bad for 17.5 when they also made a mistake cause resale value was supposed to be 21k. The sales man told me the manager wanted to sell it to me for 20 but he showed him that I had inquired about it prior to them realizing their mistake so they had to honor it.

 

You are correct, they will try to make their money somewhere.

I've had excellent success in leveraging 10+ dealers against each other via email, moving to phone once I have acceptable offers in writing, negotiate the lowest possible vehicle price assuming cash, choose the dealer I like best and go in, tell them I have financing available at x.xx% but they are free to try to beat it, and give them the option to buy my trade at $xxxx price. If they can't meet any of the terms, I am 100% prepared to use my alternative (another dealer, my own financing, cash down & sell car myself). If you're not actually prepared to do this, you don't have full leverage and they will figure it out.

I did this with my friend's 19 4Runner last month, entire process took 3 days. I like this process a lot, some dealers especially old school ones, hate it.

 

I'm glad you were able to make a deal on the brand new trade in. As for the divorce and bankruptcy, I hope things get better for you!

 

I think I suddenly want to trade in the taco for a colorado. I'll make sure I ask for Nickolas to hear everything he has to say!

 

I have had numerous good and numerous bad experiences with car dealers. One of the worst was was at a Mercedes dealership. I walk in to look at a car and literally the first thing this blonde bimbo in heels says is "Are these in your budget?" I said "Yes, but not from you with that attitude." and left.

I'm in my early 30s and in summer I'm usually in shorts and have exposed tattoos. Living in Utah, that usually gets me blown off or ignored. That is unless they see me roll up in my LC500, then suddenly I have a gaggle of salesmen tripping over each other to try and greet me first.