What can I say? Par for the course as far as car dealerships go. But what really was lame was their customer service and complete lack of care for a customer once we drove off the lot. We traded in our car which did not start. They gave us 2k for it as a trade-in, sight unseen. I told them it didn't start last time I tried, perhaps the battery was dead. No problem. All the paperwork was processed and the deal was done.
On our way out the door, the salesmen (Nate Birch and Sylvester. Who quit/was fired a few days later...) chased us out, asking when the trade would be brought in. I said it wasn't starting, I thought they would pick it up. (I had mentioned on several occassions during the negotiations that it didn't start as well. The salesmen have selective hearing, as proven when he asked me what the mileage of the car was three times in 5 minutes...) So one of the salesmen (Sylvester, the new guy) was going to call me the following day to arrange a pick up.
The following day, (Monday) I recieved a phone call at 6:30pm. I was not able to answer it, no message was left. On tuesday, he called again. I told him I tried jumping the car, however it was not starting, so it must be something other than the battery. He then has to talk to his manager about it. He calls me back a few minutes later. As unprofessional as one can be, he says "Yeah, my manager is being a D*ck and says you have to bring the car to us." I told him it was their car now, and I was doing nothing of the sort.
So his manager (Scott) calls me back. Says Sylvester tried calling me all day on Monday. I corrected him and said that I recieved ONE call on Monday night, and no message was left. He then says that they were told the battery was dead by us, and since it's not the battery, it's then our responsibilty to get the car to them. I told them if they were going to be foolish enough to "buy" a car sight unseen (or trade in, as it were..) then they should be expecting this. I said it was their car, and they'd be lucky if I didn't just push it out into the middle of the road and let the city tow it.
Scott then huffs and puffs about this and that, and I tell him that if it's easier on everyone, I'd just return the new Mazda and we could forget about the entire deal. He says they may just do that and he'd have to talk to his manager. (Car salesman apparently can't even go to the bathroom without "talking to their manager.")
Well, we knew there was no way they'd take the new car back, although we secretly hoped they would. But they didn't. Then came down about a week later and towed the car off our property.
Meanwhile, we were securing our own financing instead of using the dealer's financing. The dealerships make a good portion of their $ off the amount they can finance. (Which is why they will always talk "payments" instead of talking "total price." By this time, even though we had a low-interest contract through one of their banks, we didn't want them getting any more of our $. So we financed through our insurnace agency, State farm.
Because we used State Farm, we got gap insurnace for free. This brought down the over-all cost of the car, which urked the finance officer. We also declined their extended warranty, (which we had agreed to earlier. But revoked it. Just so they would not get more of our $..) which urked the finance officer even more.
At the end of the day, they only got what the aggreed upon price of the car was. No upsell on anything else. And even though we paid a bit more of a % rate through State Farm, the extra. 76 cents a month we're now paying is well worth it, as we get free gap insurance and best of all, BURGE doesn't get more $!!!
Unfortunately, the car has been back to the shop multiple times. The stero system is poor, and of course, they say "there's nothing they can find."
I will never go back to Berge, even for maint. I'll use the manufaturer's warranty that comes with the vehicle and go somewhere else!
Car buying sucks whereever you go. Best we can do is try and make it less painful!
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