I have been a BMW owner for over 25 years and have thoroughly enjoyed every BMW I have ever owned.infact I have converted most of my friends and family members to becoming BMW owners. I have always bought from dealers in the San Diego area. Namely Brecht BMW.in the fall of 2007 I decided to treat myself and step up and buy a 750LI. Because of some service issues with Brecht and that I heard that the old BMW dealership in Oceanside was just bought out and the new owner Fritz Hitchcock, also owns one of the largest and most successful BMW dealerships in the United States (South Bay BMW Torrance Ca); I decided to give them a try. I have always been a straight shooter, so when I went into the dealership, I asked to speak only to the manager who was in charge of the Sales Dept. The Sales Manager's name was Greg. My first impression of him was that he was a low energy, laid back kind of guy. I soon realize that nothing was further from the truth. This manager was one of the most professional saleman that I have ever met. He not only ran the sales team, he also was the primary person who did the paperwork in finance and was the go to man with the banks. I told him I only wanted to deal with him, no sales people. He told me he would agree to that, up until the point of delivery. This was because he was running the floor, and needed a sales person to do the actual delivery. It was a very pleasant experience. He showed me the car I wanted, we negotiated the deal and then I told him because I was on my way to a meeting, I would need to come back and would not be able to be back for 3 days. I was told no problem. He showed confidence in his numbers and that I was leaving, which caused me not to bother to shop him, nor did I want to because he sold him self to me. On the third day, I called him and requested that they get the car detailed, I was on my way. Everything was perfect except Greg handed me over to one of his salesman an older gentleman who could not properly deliver the car. Greg was busy with other deals, so I just drove off with the car I loved but did not know how to work the features. 2 days later I get a call from Greg asking how I was enjoying my car, I told him everything was great but the salesman did not properly deliver the car. He told me he was sorry he was still in the process of retraining the salesman, but he would get his Internet Manager to redo the delivery process. He then explained to me that he, Emilio (Internet manger), the service manager, the master technician and a service writer all transferred from South Bay BMW. Since that store has a wonderful reputation, they were transferred to make sure the new store performed in the same manner. I came back and was shocked to find that Emilio had all the knowledge available for all of the BMW products. He spent 2 hours explaining the features of my 750LI. Then he introduced me to Ruben the Master Technician, who also answered all the questions I could think of. It was just a wonderful experience. I knew this store had the right people in place.in the spring of 08 I came back to the store, met up with Greg and was happy to hear that the store was starting to sell more cars than they ever had and there was new sales people and alot of energy in the air. I then became distraught to hear that the service manager had left (you could also sense service was going down hill in performance) and that Emilio had left. Greg just said Emilio missed LA. At that time I felt something was going to go wrong in this store, but since Greg had managed to increase production significantly I shrugged it off. Then came the disappointment.in the Fall of 2008 I went in the store to buy a 5 series for my wife. I then learned that Greg had left. No more energy, it felt like a dead store. The new Manager was Mark. Mark also was a laid back kind of guy but he was in over his head and in the process of trying to buy a car from him he lied to me and I felt I was in a buy here, pay here type of place. Though both Greg and Mark just happen to both be from the south, Greg came across as well educated and a professional, while Mark came across as a sleazy Redneck. To top it off the only sales person that was still there since it was open was an old guy who use to be a manager at Harloff and I never trusted him. I ended up buying a 5 series at Brecht. Afterwards I found out Emilio works at a BMW store in Beverly Hills which I would of taken the drive if I knew that. Greg has seem to be off of the map. The way I was treated by the new management led me to do some research while I knew the GM was Ted Hitchcock (the owner son), I started to learn some interesting things about Ted. Apparently Ted managed to push out every quality professional out of his store. The 5 that came from South Bay and took risks in helping start the store were all pushed out. They all had worked several years at South BMW and had good reputations with them. The other partial owner of the store reliquished his investment soon after the new management came in. I then heard that Ted had once ran his Dad's Toyota store in Puente Hills and something happened and his dad kicked him out of the company. Starting this new store was his chance of proving he could be successful. Well he did not do a very good job because as of Feb the store was shut down and will only reopen after the new store is built in Vista and is going to be renamed BMW Of Vista. This means because of his mismanagement, employees, many who have families have lost their jobs, yet the entitled "Ted" I am sure will be taken care of. I have only met him twice, but each time you could tell he does not have the work ethics of his dad. One employee told me that his kids went hungry for a day, because Ted left the store early on pay day and forgot to sign the checks and refused to come back in to sign the checks for the employees. Of all the years of being a manager, I never heard of such a thing. They said he often left the store early in the day and did little work. So the question is on the table for me. When the new store opens, it will be right when my 7 series lease is up. If Fritz has a new team with a new General Manager, I will visit the store and may buy from them, if not I will not buy from these people. The ironic thing is that back in 2007 Ted had a Newspaper interview and to quote him"this store can go only one way, and that is up"; well he proved us all wrong. It went down, because it was shut down. The reason their changing the name, is in hopes their reputation of what they could not do these past 2 years will not follow them, and this is because the leader (GM) made some very poor decisions. Mr. Fritz do yourself a favor, find your most successful employees in your company and bring them down, and this time let your son work somewhere else!
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