I am writing this report because I feel that Sunrise Volkswagen has been sneaky and dishonest. They have used an old tactic of offering free items or better prices to get people into the dealership. Nothing wrong with that except for the fact that the offer is not honored. With that they use questionable sales tactics to rip you off. Here is what happened.
On Sunday February 21st I went in to Sunrise Volkswagen to buy a car. I sat down with the salesman and he gave me a price. I said it was too much and off he went to talk to his boss and, "see what he can do to get the pirce down"...
On a side note, a car dealer sells at most a handful of models. If you are selling those cars five and six days a week how do you not know how much the cars cost and how low a price you can give. Why do you need to check the price with you boss five times during the coarse of the negotiation? Its B.S., they know the price. All an act.
... Anyway he brings the price down a little. I tell him I have a trade in and he goes off to appraise the trade in. Comes back and tells me the car is n great shape and is worth $5500. The car is only 3 years old with 50,000 miles on it and as per them is in great shape, how is it only worth $5500? So I put my coat on to leave. Then he tells me to wait and he would make some phone calls to see if he could give more for the car. Magically he came back in and let me know that they have a buyer for the car somewhere and they would give me $7000 for the car. Still about $1000 less than it is worth but I agreed. They didn't have the car I wanted on the lot but they were going to locate one and let me know.
During the next week I recieved a post card in the mail from the dealer. It was an advertisment for a Presidents day sale. They were offering 110% on your trade in, $6000 below MSRP and a free Ipad. Wow nice. Now the fine print. You get 110% on a trade in if car is in excellent condition. That will never happen. Only $6000 off on a certain car that probably no one wants. Now the Ipad. You get it if you purchase from dealer stock on Presidents Day weekend and accept delivery same day. Okay that would be me. I am thinking I can get a free Ipad. I knew in the back of my head that they would try to get out of giving it away and I was right.
Well on Monday the 21st (Presidents Day) I went in to purchase the car. I presented the post card to the salesman and right away he started saying no. First excuse was that you cant do this after the fact. He was saying that I had already made the deal a week before. I said that was incorrect and I haven't made the purchase yet, I just told you I wanted the car at the price we set. I said very adimantly that that day was the purchase date. Of coarse he was off to see his boss. Comes back 10 minutes later saying that they cant do it and his boss would come to speak to me. When his boss came in he started in with, "Well we bumped up the price of your trade in so we have no room to move on this".
First of all what does the price of my trade in have to do with getting my free Ipad. Besides they told me they had a buyer for the car at a higher price. Then he stated that the price of the car has been set they have no room to move. What does that have to do with it unless you are jacking the price of the car up to cover the cost of the Ipad. That is not a free Ipad. That is the customer thinking they are getting a free Ipad and actually paying for it in the price of the car. Then they told me that they had to pay a driver to go get the car from another dealer. Well I found out that they traded one of their cars with another dealer for the car they needed for me. Sounds like a cost of doing business to me.
Ethics is dead if it ever existed at all in the auto industry. While negotiating the price of the car, when ever I began to have the upper hand the salesman would run to his boss. Boss would come in and talk to me with the salesman. I didn't realize it at the time but they were double teaming me. It was two salesmen against me. They were very polite which was a cover for their questionable sales tactis. As I was leaving the dealership the salesman had the never to ask me to give him all tens on the customer servey. What are these guys thinking.
At this point my only recoarse is bad publicity and this is just the begining!
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