I responded to a national advertisement on the AUDI website and leased an Audi All Road Quattro in July from Baillargeon Audi. The ad on the Audi website stated the terms of the deal - 399 per month $ 3400 due at signing taxes as applicable. The Sales person (Jack Adkins) elaborately calculated the Sales tax as 6.25% of the value of the car and added $2700 to the down payment. He told me that it was Texas law to pay sales tax on the total value of the car - which in this case was around 43000. I checked that out and this was indeed the law.
I took the car and when I called the dealer back after 7 months to get the Sales Tax receipt - I was rudely informed that there was no sales tax paid for the car. They showed me a Sales tax receipt for a transaction that showed a trade-in equal to the amount of the new car - implying that no tax was paid - this piece of information was not provided to me when i leased the car. The owner - Bobby Baillargeon - acknowledged that I had been charged $2700 more than I should have paid and that he would not do anything about it, since he was "within the letter of the law". He went on to tell me that he did not care what a customer thought about this deal and that is how he did business.
Legally speaking, any transaction in the state of Texas requires the payment of sales tax. There is a possibility that this dealer may be playing funny games with the Sales tax law, showing a trade-in on a new car in order to avoid paying sales tax -as it happened in my case.
The owner of this dealership was a Ford dealer earlier and has carried over his sleazy practices to the Audi dealership. It is probably due to dealers like this that Audi seems to be doing so badly in the US. Clearly, selling a F150 truck and selling luxury cars are not the same thing - they require a different mindset.
Considering the facts of this case - reneging on a nationaly posted deal, potential sales tax evasion and no concern for keeping customers happy - i would stay away from this Audi dealership. If you are thinking of buying an Audi, you will be better served talking to some other dealership.
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