June I reluctantly purchased a used 2006 Dodge Stratus from Tim Dahle. This is not the car I originally wanted but the car I was trying to purchase was off of a neighboring lot and ended up being different in price at the sale than was quoted on an internet inventory ad. Tim Dahle Nissan explained that because they didn't actually own that lot, and that they swapped cars back and forth with this "buy here, pay here" lot they were able to negotiate on cars they had that folks may want, but that the internet pricing was different from what they could get it for from that smaller dealer, thus they had to raise the price from the internet price to cover their cost of purchasing it from the other dealer. This should have been a huge red flag for me but since having been screwed, blued and tattooed by Larry H. Miller and his in-house Prestige Financial Group I was willing to deal with anyone other than another Miller owned dealership.
I could not find a car I was willing to purchase for the payments I was willing to make. They showed me one last car, which was a 2006 Dodge Stratus. A decent car, but definitely not the car I wanted. However, having a bankruptcy on my credit report, I didn't have a whole lot of cars to choose from in my payment range. The finance manager told me he could finance me through Chase Bank, at a little higher interest rate to start, but I could go back to Chase within 12 to 18 months, as long as I made my payments on time, and refinance at a much lower rate, saying this as though Chase had said it themselves. He said he had many people who have done this through Tim Dahle Nissan and Chase Bank and it was common and that is why he wanted to work the deal to get me into the car.
This sounded great since my bankruptcy held me back at other dealerships, so this would establish my credit with a "normal" bank with "normal" financing after establishing my credit worthiness with them.
I have now paid on this vehicle for 16 months and my credit report has not changed, only to add the good payment history that I have with Chase themselves. I called Chase Bank to see about refinancing the vehicle at a lower rate, and possibly even purchasing a different vehicle. Chase said they COULD NOT refinance me despite my payment history and they would never agree to a claim such as this.
The lady I talked to at Chase Auto Finance told me that it was common for dealerships like this to make statements like that to rope people into a sale at a rate that they determine themselves. She said that Chase Bank will give the dealer one rate and the dealer will raise the rate to whatever they want to get more money. This finance manager misrepresented everything in the sale as I am coming to find out.
Although I take responsibility for not getting those statements in writing and letting myself get suckered into another bad car deal, I hope this will at least open the eyes of potential Tim Dahle Nissan customers to the underhanded practices that this dealership and its employees engage in and they will do themselves a favor and stay away from this type of dishonest establishment.
At the time I posted this report I am still waiting for a call back from the General Manager of the dealership. I don't think he is going to call to be quite honest. The finance manager who made these statements and wrote the deal up on the car is no longer with the dealership and I wouldn't be surprised if the entire sales staff was different from a little over a year ago. The only thing that has worked right so far is that I, so far, am getting my 10 free oil changes. Can't wait to see what happens when I go in to get new tires on the "free tires for life" deal that was part of the sale. May be adding more later, so stay tuned.
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