My wife has decided to replace her 1994 Toyota Camry with a new one. On July 4, we went to Koon's Tysons Toyota, where she has had her old car serviced for the past 5 years. We picked out a 2007 Camry XLE we liked. We then spent the next 2 hours haggling over the price with our salesman (Hassan) and his supervisor before agreeing to buy the car. At that point, we were asked to sign (and signed) a paper that listed the vehicle ID numbers and the price we had agreed on. We were then taken to the finance department office where another gentleman (Hussein?) printed out a stack of papers which we proceeded to sign. While we were doing so, we asked to be shown the costs of extended warranties. Hussein brought them up on his computer screen and turned it to face us. On the screen below the line identifying the car we were in process of buying was a line that read "damaged $2773". I asked what that was all about, and that's when things got very exciting. Hussein said he didn't know what that was about, as there was no "disclosure" document in his portfolio and no damage had ever been mentioned to us, before or after agreeing on the price of the car. Hussein then excused himself and left the room. He returned with someone who introduced himself as Tom Walsh, the sales manager, who said that with so many cars in inventory, they often suffer "lot damage". I said that almost $3000 seemed like a lot of money for scratches or dings, and that we no longer wanted that particular car.
Both the finance manager and sales manager agreed that they wouldn't want it either. Hussein then said he was going to shred all of the papers we had signed, and Tom Walsh told my wife that they would find us another car and "compensate us" for our trouble. At that point we were (very politely) escorted from the showroom. One week later, we hadn't heard anything from the sales manager. We had one call from Hassan, the original salesman, offering us a different color car at the same price, or another one with more options for more money. We declined both of these offers. We called the dealership's customer service department and were told that we have no complaint, despite having been misled and having our time wasted, as we never actually bought the damaged car. Finally, after 10 days, an assistant to the sales manager called and told us that a car identical to the one we had selected would not be available for at least 2 months, and possibly not until the 2008 model year. Should we expect them to find us a similar car and honor the offer to make it worth our while to wait, or should we forget the whole bad experience and go find another dealer? Is it believable that an identical car (XLE, V-6, Aloe Green/Bisque Leather interior) will not be available for almost a year?
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