I contacted Texas Direct concerning a beautiful 08 Hyundai Santa Fe with extremely low miles. Car looked absolutely immaculate in the pictures, and the price was right. Their Ebay feedback looked good and they seemed responsive to my inquires, so I felt pretty good. I missed the first clue to any issues when I gave them a $500 deposit over the phone rather than through Ebay. My bad, now I had no protection through Ebay and they knew it. I questioned the salesguy about the car and was informed of one dentless repair to passenger door, otherwise, car is near perfect. Car looked so good in pictures that I believed this to be true. Stupid, stupid, stupid, should have paid the $100 bucks to get an independent inspection before I flew out. So I fly out to pick up the car, they pick me up from the airport and bring me to the dealership. Now, I don't have the same nitpicking issues that some of the people do. I can see they are a LARGE wholesale used car dealer, doing tons of Ebay business. Tons of people coming and going, also have to wait awhile, no big deal. Car also didn't have a full tank of gas, so what, I filled it up later. Car looked really nice in person, until you start examining closer; passenger quarter has two decent size dings on the body line, dash has a break in the plastic molding under the radio, plus a couple of normal door dings and three small dings on the roof. Was pissed, but decided to let it go and finish the deal, price was still good, just not as good. Tried to figure out how a brand new car had some of this damage. As a matter of fact, I didn't ever bring it up with the dealership. I knew I was between a rock and a hard place, that's how they get you. You give them a non-refundable deposit and spend the money to flew halfway across the country and then are trucked 30 minutes out into nowhere, what are you to do? I figured it was actually cheaper to take the car and have it repaired rather than take a taxi to airport and fly home, then try to fight for my deposit. Thankfully, the car had no mechanical issues, drove it home from Texas with no issues. Once I got home, I was able to do a more careful inspection and found more damage that I missed. Bottom of rear driver's door had a nice fist sized dent all the way in the bottom corner. Because of the angle and height, you can't see it unless it's right in your face. Also, Someone had complete a repair to the driver's side arm-rest that I missed, car also only came with one key and alarm fob, and to top it off, the car had been over-buffed and has swirl marks all over it.
What am I looking for? Nothing. This is just a friendly warning to all planning on doing business with this company. Don't do what I did, only trust them as far as you can throw them. From my experience, they are unscrupulous in how they present their auto's on the internet. The pictures look great because they show the best side of the car, not all sides of the car. Don't trust them, they are classic example of the stereotypical used car salesman. You still see a car they have for a great price, thousands below blue-book and still have to have it? Don't give them a dime until they provide a detailed panel by panel inspection or you pay to have your own.
And for Christ's sake, stand there with the salesman for an hour going through every nick, ding, crack and tear that he said wasn't there.
The old adage still holds true, "IF IT LOOKS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT PROBABLY IS"
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