I hate dealerships

[MrH]

The amount of incompetency with car dealerships is incredible.  I don't even know what to say anymore.  Let me take you on this journey.  I'm at a lost for words at some of this.


So Accords are discounted pretty big right now, trade in value on the 4Runner is massive but will be taking a big depreciation dive next year, it's pretty much a one for one trade and I'd get a vehicle that's 3 years newer, 55k fewer miles, $100/month better on gas, and tons of autonomous driving features that should make my hellish commute less painful every day.  I don't totally have my mind made up, but it's intriguing enough to get quotes.


Dealership #1 (Joe Morgan Honda, smaller in size):

- Stop in on my way home from work.  They are short sales staff.  Meet a nice guy, ask for a test drive.  He throws me the keys and I go out for a drive.  I come back, get his card.  Overall, pretty pleasant.  Look at the inventory later.  They don't have what I want, but I emailed him asking for a quote.  That was a week ago, no response

Dealership #2 (King's Honda.  MASSIVE dealership that has just about every OEM you can imagine all in one place.  Biggest dealership in Cincinnati by far):

- Send an email to them asking for a quote and even pick a specific car on their lot.  Zero response.
- I go to the dealership in person a few days later.  Walk around for 15-20 minutes, no one there to wait on me.  No one approaches me.  I walk the entire lot but can't find the one color I wanted to see in person.  Walk out frustrated.





Does nobody want to sell me a car?! What is going on.

Then I made the mistake of asking for a quote through TrueCar.  Here are the responses I get from the 3 participating dealers:

A.  King's Honda
- They have 5 different people reach out to me, through text, email, and voicemails.  Absolutely insane.  They're all asking the same thing worded different ways.  I responded to the first one, asking for a quote, and got nothing back.  I reach out to another and tell her to call off the cavalry, I can't keep up with the assault on all forms of communication, just give me one name to email.  I now get a response from the first lady apologizing for the confusion, asking me if I have any questions.  I literally just forward the same email I sent her two days ago.  Radio silence again

B. Castrucci Honda
- I put down I would prefer to get contacted via email.  I get a long winded voicemail with lots of "uhhh" and they call me Mark the whole time.

C. White Allen Honda
- A reasonable girl responds!  At least so I think.  We exchange a few emails, she gives me a pretty solid price on the Accord, asks if I want to trade in.  I said maybe, provide 4Runner info.  She asks for VIN, mileage, and payoff amount.  I told mileage and VIN, told her don't worry about payoff, I can calculate my loan situation. I would be up for using the promo 1.9% for 36 months from Honda if she gets a kick back and can get me a better overall price.

She then responds with my monthly payment with no trade in, and asks if I have a trade in?  I feel like I'm in Ground Hogs day.  I tell her yes, see above, give me a quote on the trade in.  She responds asking for the VIN and mileage again.  I tell her to read what I just sent her two emails ago.



I'm just in total disbelief.  Why are they all so bad at this?  Why do all of their websites look like a newspaper ad from 1990?    I'm just going to keep the 4Runner until I die.  This is too painful.

[giant_mtb]

Dealership websites are certainly atrocious.  Don't understand.

Sounds like a lot of mismanagement, both on the side of the salespeople and their managers.  Lack of training, perhaps.  Dealerships are like Best Buy.  They're either hounding you when you wanna just be left alone and browse, or there's nobody to be found when you actually do have a question.

[Soup DeVille]

Hey, Best Buy has been way more professional lately- as long as I talk to the big guy with the gauges.

[MrH]

This is even worse than Best Buy customer service.  This ranks right up there with Lowes, Sprint, Kmart, and Burger King.

[Xer0]

Weird, I've never had these issues with getting a quote.  When helping my dad buy his new Accord Sport like three months ago, I had quotes from 4 local Honda dealers, and 3 competing Toyota dealers for the Camry, within two days of requesting.  Maybe try and get a quote from a Chicagoland dealer?  If they are this incompetent they probably won't notice its nowhere near them 

[shp4man]

Sounds like Honda might be needing to do a little regulating on their dealers. 

But seriously, incompetent employees are a big problem at some stores.

[MX793]

If you really want to throw a salesperson for a loop, try to keep the discussion to OTD price instead of monthly payment.  And/or tell them you're not financing.

[HurricaneSteve]

Wow, that's unfortunate that the dealerships in your area are so difficult to get a proper response out of. My guess on the poor customer service is the high turnover rates at car dealerships. When I went to the local Mazda dealership the other day, the guy who sold me my MX-5 last year is no longer there and I didn't recognize anyone else. Last year when I was looking into a Fiesta ST, I asked a Ford store for the person I had been in touch with and they said that person was no longer there and I had gotten an e-mail from him only 2 weeks prior.

The amount of incompetency with car dealerships is incredible.  I don't even know what to say anymore.  Let me take you on this journey.  I'm at a lost for words at some of this.


So Accords are discounted pretty big right now, trade in value on the 4Runner is massive but will be taking a big depreciation dive next year, it's pretty much a one for one trade and I'd get a vehicle that's 3 years newer, 55k fewer miles, $100/month better on gas, and tons of autonomous driving features that should make my hellish commute less painful every day.  I don't totally have my mind made up, but it's intriguing enough to get quotes.


Dealership #1 (Joe Morgan Honda, smaller in size):

- Stop in on my way home from work.  They are short sales staff.  Meet a nice guy, ask for a test drive.  He throws me the keys and I go out for a drive.  I come back, get his card.  Overall, pretty pleasant.  Look at the inventory later.  They don't have what I want, but I emailed him asking for a quote.  That was a week ago, no response

Dealership #2 (King's Honda.  MASSIVE dealership that has just about every OEM you can imagine all in one place.  Biggest dealership in Cincinnati by far):

- Send an email to them asking for a quote and even pick a specific car on their lot.  Zero response.
- I go to the dealership in person a few days later.  Walk around for 15-20 minutes, no one there to wait on me.  No one approaches me.  I walk the entire lot but can't find the one color I wanted to see in person.  Walk out frustrated.





Does nobody want to sell me a car?! What is going on.

Then I made the mistake of asking for a quote through TrueCar.  Here are the responses I get from the 3 participating dealers:

A.  King's Honda
- They have 5 different people reach out to me, through text, email, and voicemails.  Absolutely insane.  They're all asking the same thing worded different ways.  I responded to the first one, asking for a quote, and got nothing back.  I reach out to another and tell her to call off the cavalry, I can't keep up with the assault on all forms of communication, just give me one name to email.  I now get a response from the first lady apologizing for the confusion, asking me if I have any questions.  I literally just forward the same email I sent her two days ago.  Radio silence again

B. Castrucci Honda
- I put down I would prefer to get contacted via email.  I get a long winded voicemail with lots of "uhhh" and they call me Mark the whole time.

C. White Allen Honda
- A reasonable girl responds!  At least so I think.  We exchange a few emails, she gives me a pretty solid price on the Accord, asks if I want to trade in.  I said maybe, provide 4Runner info.  She asks for VIN, mileage, and payoff amount.  I told mileage and VIN, told her don't worry about payoff, I can calculate my loan situation. I would be up for using the promo 1.9% for 36 months from Honda if she gets a kick back and can get me a better overall price.

She then responds with my monthly payment with no trade in, and asks if I have a trade in?  I feel like I'm in Ground Hogs day.  I tell her yes, see above, give me a quote on the trade in.  She responds asking for the VIN and mileage again.  I tell her to read what I just sent her two emails ago.



I'm just in total disbelief.  Why are they all so bad at this?  Why do all of their websites look like a newspaper ad from 1990?    I'm just going to keep the 4Runner until I die.  This is too painful.

[cawimmer430]

Sounds like a typical case of massive incompetence.

I've never experienced such lazy or incompetent behavior at the BMW dealership which services the 1er. In fact it's almost annoying the way they will phone me up a week or two later after a service asking me if I am happy with their work and what I would improve etc. But you get the feeling that they listen to their customers and take my feedback seriously, which will only help improve their overall service.

Do dealers in the US do that? Phone you up asking you how satisfied you are with the car, their service and if you will purchase a future model from them bla bla bla?

[Soup DeVille]

Sounds like a typical case of massive incompetence.

I've never experienced such lazy or incompetent behavior at the BMW dealership which services the 1er. In fact it's almost annoying the way they will phone me up a week or two later after a service asking me if I am happy with their work and what I would improve etc. But you get the feeling that they listen to their customers and take my feedback seriously, which will only help improve their overall service.

Do dealers in the US do that? Phone you up asking you how satisfied you are with the car, their service and if you will purchase a future model from them bla bla bla?

I get the feeling that you would be appalled by how dealers in the US operate.

[cawimmer430]

I get the feeling that you would be appalled by how dealers in the US operate.

Tell me about it.


I am lucky that my BMW dealer has won awards for offering the BEST SERVICE in all of Germany; it's the best BMW dealer in the country. Can't complain. Very friendly and competent people.

www.bmw-vogl.de



Already had a good experience at the Mercedes dealer in Munich when I ordered my new car there. The salesman went out of his way to get me all the data I need regarding a discount for a small business owner etc. He also gave me the advice to get my winter "AMG" wheels from Rial (M10) and save a ton of money. Honest and friendly guy.

[93JC]

B. Castrucci Honda
- I put down I would prefer to get contacted via email.  I get a long winded voicemail with lots of "uhhh" and they call me Mark the whole time.

I've been mistakenly addressed as Mike many times.

[93JC]

Car dealers are by and large just awful, no matter what brand, no matter what kind of "buying experience" they offer you. My buddy who bought a Genesis G70 went through a preposterous rigamarole when buying his car. The sales guy was a twit. He specifically asked to have a portion of his trade-in withheld from being applied to the car, and to have that difference remitted to him as a cheque. He had two years left on the loan on his truck.

Genesis didn't pay off his truck and give him the cheque for six weeks. The bank he had the loan through kept debiting his account for three extra payments! Genesis had the trade-in truck up for sale before they paid off the loan!

It finally took my buddy talking to Hyundai Canada and telling them, "Pay off my truck and cut me a cheque, NOW, or I'm coming to repossess my property tomorrow."

The sales guy took forever to give him a number for the trade-in in the first place, repeatedly sending emails asking for the make, model, year, VIN, etc. Even though my buddy have him that information days earlier. Eventually he just replied to the sales guy's emails with "see attached, from X days ago..."

Even delivery was a colossal fuck-up. He specifically instructed the sales guy to drop the car off at the office. He got a call about 15 minutes before they were supposed to show up, and sales guy said "we're on our way to your house!" Buddy was like "I TOLD you to deliver at my OFFICE..."

"Oh. Uh, we'll be 15 minutes late..."

[Payman]

Car dealers are by and large just awful, no matter what brand, no matter what kind of "buying experience" they offer you. My buddy who bought a Genesis G70 went through a preposterous rigamarole when buying his car. The sales guy was a twit. He specifically asked to have a portion of his trade-in withheld from being applied to the car, and to have that difference remitted to him as a cheque. He had two years left on the loan on his truck.

Genesis didn't pay off his truck and give him the cheque for six weeks. The bank he had the loan through kept debiting his account for three extra payments! Genesis had the trade-in truck up for sale before they paid off the loan!

It finally took my buddy talking to Hyundai Canada and telling them, "Pay off my truck and cut me a cheque, NOW, or I'm coming to repossess my property tomorrow."

The sales guy took forever to give him a number for the trade-in in the first place, repeatedly sending emails asking for the make, model, year, VIN, etc. Even though my buddy have him that information days earlier. Eventually he just replied to the sales guy's emails with "see attached, from X days ago..."

Even delivery was a colossal fuck-up. He specifically instructed the sales guy to drop the car off at the office. He got a call about 15 minutes before they were supposed to show up, and sales guy said "we're on our way to your house!" Buddy was like "I TOLD you to deliver at my OFFICE..."

"Oh. Uh, we'll be 15 minutes late..."

Yeah, when my son traded his 200S on a Challenger, he got dinged for a payment on his traded in car. The dealer didn't pay it off for 3 weeks. Luckily his bank reversed it when they finally got the cheque.

[MrH]

If you really want to throw a salesperson for a loop, try to keep the discussion to OTD price instead of monthly payment.  And/or tell them you're not financing.

Yeah, they can't seem to keep up that I'm telling them to not worry about loan pay off. I'll figure out my loan situation. Just give me sales price and trade in price.

[MrH]

I will say, I've had one good dealership experience ever. There's a Subaru dealership north of me that I bought my BRZ from. My salesman was an autoX guy that knew some of my friends. Zero pressure to buy, really relaxed atmosphere. But they were actually competent too! It was great. Owner was a really nice guy too. I was spoiled on that purchase.

[12,000 RPM]

It might be a Honda thing. Buying the Civic (from a big Honda dealer in SC) was easily my worst car buying experience. The guy filled out all our forms by hand and had us dictate and spell everything out. I think he refused to work off my license Carmax by comparison had us in and out in an hour

They may do so much volume the customer service doesn't even matter. And all the repeat buyers are just used to the incompetence.

[MX793]

When shopping, I've had mixed experiences.  I had some places where I hovered around a car I was interested in and was completely ignored by sales staff.  Others where the sales staff were utterly clueless.  Several where they demanded a down payment for a test drive (when the Hyundai GenCoupe came out, dealers here thought they were worth their weight in gold).

My actual purchasing experiences were generally pretty good.  Staff knew what they were doing when filling out the paperwork.  Both Mustangs were factory orders because the dealers didn't have and couldn't locate a car spec'ed how I wanted.  They were also bought on X plan, so the price was the price.  My Mazda was bought off the lot and I recall that being pretty painless.  The VW had a minor hang up with the title and registration, but they gave me a dealer plate and said they'd call me when they got the registration/title straightened out and had my actual plates (took about a week).

[68_427]

Ide Honda here in Rochester has very favorable reviews.  Buy from them, and I'll deliver the car to Ohio in about two weeks when I head to Norwalk again.


https://www.google.com/search?q=ide+honda+penfield&rlz=1CAHPZS_enUS706US707&oq=ide+honda+penfield&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2.6207j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[shp4man]

There are for sure some damn clueless salesmen but the job is high turnover and cutthroat as hell. 

[Lebowski]

Dealerships are almost universally terrible.  Best experiences I've had involved buying remotely (used a buyers service for c6 and bought the m3 from a CA dealer I found on a forum). Best bet imo is find a make/model specific forum and see if there are any participating dealers.

4Runner actually went really smoothly and salesman was great, right up until finishing up when they forced me to sit down with the idiot who tries to sell you all the bullshit add ons, refused to stop his spiel no matter how many times I said "I am not interested in anything you have to sell me other than the car". Next time I will insist before coming to pick it up to avoid that and will get up and leave if they insist.


Why are you getting rid of the 4Runner so soon?

[12,000 RPM]

Kia dealer was pretty good. They had a huge touchscreen to do all the paperwork on. Went really quickly.

[Payman]

Dealerships are almost universally terrible.  Best experiences I’ve had involved buying remotely (used a buyers service for c6 and bought the m3 from a CA dealer I found on a forum). Best bet imo is find a make/model specific forum and see if there are any participating dealers.

4Runner actually went really smoothly and salesman was great, right up until finishing up when they forced me to sit down with the idiot who tries to sell you all the bullshit add ons, refused to stop his spiel no matter how many times I said “I am not interested in anything you have to sell me other than the car”. Next time I will insist before coming to pick it up to avoid that and will get up and leave if they insist.


Why are you getting rid of the 4Runner so soon?

Gaaa I hated that part when I bought the Focus. Sat in an office with a young chick and she kept trying to sell me the add-ons. "Do you want the Ford Plus super duper warranty?" "No." "May I ask why?" "I don't plan on keeping the car that long." "But yadda yadda resale transferrable yadda." "I don't want it." "Okay, would you like the comprehensive bullshit something something?" "NO." "May I ask why not?" "NO." "I need to know why not." "Are we done here, because I'm really getting annoyed. I don't want this extra stuff, and don't ask me why not."  Honestly, I was getting fucking pissed and I let her know it.

[12,000 RPM]

I would honestly be OK if they just put "$1000 margin" in as a line item to skip all the damn rigamarole

[Lebowski]

I hated that part when I bought the Focus. Sat in an office with a young chick and she kept trying to sell me the add-ons. "Do you want the Ford Plus super duper warranty?" "No." "May I ask why?" "I don't plan on keeping the car that long." "But yadda yadda resale transferrable yadda." "I don't want it." "Okay, would you like the comprehensive bullshit something something?" "NO." "May I ask why not?" "NO." "I need to know why not." "Are we done here, because I'm really getting annoyed. I don't want this extra stuff, and don't ask me why not."  Honestly, I was getting fucking pissed and I let her know it.

"May I ask why?"

"Sure. Because it's a ripoff."   

[giant_mtb]

Would you like a "paint protection package" for $749?!?!?  We'll have some fucktards throw paint sealant on it and tell you that "you don't need to wax it ever again!"  While true, no car ever needs to be waxed........

[veeman]

I suck at negotiating price and try never to do that at the dealership but instead at home on the phone and then get an email confirmation with summary price including all fees (like vin etching all windows) and taxes.

I wish the Saturn/Scion way of nonnegotiable pricing took off.  I think Tesla does it.

[Lebowski]

I suck at negotiating price and try never to do that at the dealership but instead at home on the phone and then get an email confirmation with summary price including all fees (like vin etching all windows) and taxes.

I wish the Saturn/Scion way of nonnegotiable pricing took off.  I think Tesla does it.

Yeah I never negotiate price at the dealership, always from home over email or phone.  Some dealership groups have a no haggle policy, the local Honda dealer where we looked at the CRV is one such dealer, I prefer that - the his is msrp and this is our price.

[Payman]

"May I ask why?"

"Sure. Because it's a ripoff."   

Yeah I never negotiate price at the dealership, always from home over email or phone.  Some dealership groups have a no haggle policy, the local Honda dealer where we looked at the CRV is one such dealer, I prefer that - the his is msrp and this is our price.

I hate how they seemed to purposely use the young cute "finance" girl to try to sell me the extras. They made me feel bad for raising my voice to her. They also make a point of doing this in person, as final purchasing details. I think they know it's easy to say no and fuck off over emails.

[Lebowski]

I hate how they seemed to purposely use the young cute "finance" girl to try to sell me the extras. They made me feel bad for raising my voice to her. They also make a point of doing this in person, as final purchasing details. I think they know it's easy to say no and fuck off over emails.

I have no problem saying fuck off, but this guy would just keep on rambling and would not finish the process. IIRC I was leaving town shortly after otherwise I probably would have walked out.