Car Dealership Rant!!!!

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JasonC

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So, ive been looking around at used 2014+ Buick Regal Turbo's and I found one on the website of a local dealer. I proceeded to contact them about it, make an appointment the following day to look at. I even got an email that morning making sure I was coming. I get there and before I even see the car they are trying to right up a deal. I stopped them and said I want to see and drive it before I even think about buying it. Then, im told that the car is in another state, over 4 hours away! Needless to say I was very upset! Talk about totally wasting my time. I will not step foot on that lot again!
 
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Valuable lesson for everyone. Make sure to confirm the vehicle is available on the lot before driving down. With today's internet postings, who knows if the car even exists.
 
Could you post a bad Yelp review? Anything to let the next consumer know they cannot be trusted. I posted about my local Walmart having a lot of scanners not working and no one to help. The review was polite and factual but Walmart flagged it and had it removed. I must have hit a nerve :)
 
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Originally Posted By: JasonC
So, ive been looking around at used 2014+ Buick Regal Turbo's and I found one on the website of a local dealer. I proceeded to contact them about it, make an appointment the following day to look at. I even got an email that morning making sure I was coming. I get there and before I even see the car they are trying to right up a deal. I stopped them and said I want to see and drive it before I even think about buying it. Then, im told that the car is in another state, over 4 hours away! Needless to say I was very p*&$$#d off! Talk about totally wasting my time. I will not step foot on that lot again!


Probably wanted to try and sell you a different car.

"The Buick Regal is not here.... but we have an excellent low mileage Ford Fusion we can show you".....
smirk.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Oldtom
Could you post a bad Yelp review? Anything to let the next consumer know they cannot be trusted. I posted about my local Walmart having a lot of scanners not working and no one to help. The review was polite and factual but Walmart flagged it and had it removed. I must have hit a nerve :)


This is why Yelp is often useless. The bad reviews usually get flagged and removed. Same with the Better Business Bureau. Companies can often pay them off or wait a period of time and stuff goes away.

There is a family in my area who owns quite a few car dealerships. They are scumbags, and a lot of people have had problems with them. If they receive a bad rating somewhere, it is usually mysteriously gone within a few days.
 
The businesses you review on a website are that websites paying customers, or they will become their customers in order to get out of bad reviews.

The sites are going to back up their customers, not you. BBB is a straight up gangster racket. They have contacted me several times asking for greater information about my business, gently threatening me that if I don't comply and pay into their system, they would document my business as being non-compliant. They were none too impressed when I told them I don't care.

Vehicle sales these days is such a mess. People advertise things they don't have, have no rights to, and dont even exist sometimes.

There's a "rent to own" dealer down here that advertises cars that they literally have never seen, touched, or negotiated. They tell people who call that the car or boat was "just sold!" but they can "find another just like it" if a person comes in and pays a partially refundable deposit.

A lot of people looking to buy have asked me about that dealer and I always tell them what to expect.
 
I had a similar thing happen to me once.

Went to look at a 2011 Sonata for a great price at a local Kia/Hyundai dealer that I saw on their website and on AutoTrader. Turns out they hadn't even looked at the car yet, just snapped some pictures and created an ad. They couldn't sell it because their shop hadn't looked at it and the car was filthy. But they did try to sell me a newer car for more money.

Classic bait and switch.
 
I’m not surprised at all. Shortly after high school I sold new Chevy cars and trucks. I didn’t know it at first but the dealership that hired me had a pretty bad reputation. I figured out pretty early on that it wasn’t going to be a long term place for me but I wanted to stick it out for at least a year so I wouldn’t tarnish my work record. A guy called in one day and said he lived 50 miles away and was looking for a new truck and he had a very specific set of options he wanted. I checked with the sales manager who confirmed that we had nothing remotely close to what he was looking for but he told me that I had better tell the customer we had exactly what he wanted. I expressed my concerns and told him I didn’t think it was right and that this customer was going to be mad if he drives 50 miles to see us and we don’t have it. He made it pretty clear that I would be shown the door if I didn’t tell the customer what he wanted to hear. I did as I was told and I told him that my sales manager says we have it. When the customer showed up I walked him up to the front desk and said, “Gaylen, your customer is here for that truck. Can you show him where it is?” His eyes got all wide and he started stumbling for something to say as the customer ripped him a new one on the sales floor in front of everyone. I didn’t last much longer at that dealership but watching that sales manager being put in the hot seat was worth it!
 
It's a common scam dealerships pull. You have to read the reviews to see how often they do it. When I was shopping, I wanted some very specific options and I'd check with the guy a couple times before actually going down there. Also called up the dealership a few times so I got different people telling me it was there. Lots of times they pull the "it just sold" thing. After I bought my car, I noticed it was still up on various sites for about a week and half before they finally pulled it. Cargurus is good for telling you how long the car has been listed. You have a good shot of it being there if it's been less than a week. More than that, who knows.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
I had a similar thing happen to me once.

Went to look at a 2011 Sonata for a great price at a local Kia/Hyundai dealer that I saw on their website and on AutoTrader. Turns out they hadn't even looked at the car yet, just snapped some pictures and created an ad. They couldn't sell it because their shop hadn't looked at it and the car was filthy. But they did try to sell me a newer car for more money.

Classic bait and switch.


I got that story on a hyundai accent, except that it was a trade in and the buyer wasn't making payments and they might have to be put back in their old car. I'm thinking, meh, that's not how it works.

Salesman was like, hey lets take this sonata for a drive... it was a few grand more. So we did. He blathered about how his shop went through everything. I rolled down the window and then it wouldn't roll up all the way. LOL, no sale, but I wasted his time good enough. Maybe he should go sell cars at a dealer with better inventory.
 
Originally Posted By: fisher83
I’m not surprised at all. Shortly after high school I sold new Chevy cars and trucks. I didn’t know it at first but the dealership that hired me had a pretty bad reputation. I figured out pretty early on that it wasn’t going to be a long term place for me but I wanted to stick it out for at least a year so I wouldn’t tarnish my work record. A guy called in one day and said he lived 50 miles away and was looking for a new truck and he had a very specific set of options he wanted. I checked with the sales manager who confirmed that we had nothing remotely close to what he was looking for but he told me that I had better tell the customer we had exactly what he wanted. I expressed my concerns and told him I didn’t think it was right and that this customer was going to be mad if he drives 50 miles to see us and we don’t have it. He made it pretty clear that I would be shown the door if I didn’t tell the customer what he wanted to hear. I did as I was told and I told him that my sales manager says we have it. When the customer showed up I walked him up to the front desk and said, “Gaylen, your customer is here for that truck. Can you show him where it is?” His eyes got all wide and he started stumbling for something to say as the customer ripped him a new one on the sales floor in front of everyone. I didn’t last much longer at that dealership but watching that sales manager being put in the hot seat was worth it!


One thing I like about MB is that they have a very good VIN decoder so you can see exactly what options it has. Most sites now make you post the VIN so I could see what options it had. Most dealers had no clue. Ford use to have a good one, but then they pulled it.
 
Originally Posted By: Artem
Valuable lesson for everyone. Make sure to confirm the vehicle is available on the lot before driving down. With today's internet postings, who knows if the car even exists.


How can you tell for sure. Clearly, speaking with someone at the dealership can not be used to confirm. Maybe the used inventory on their website will show it. Not sure I would necessarily believe that either.
 
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