New car shopping advice

Good advice. Thanks. :-)

Hey thanks for the useful advice.

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Yea, but...

If you have 2-3 dealers close by, and the lowest rated dealer has the lowest price, why not save some money? You can still take your car to the highest rated dealer for service. Leaves a bad taste, but hey, it's money. -

Bob

I would agree with this if I really could get the best price at the dealer with the low BBB rating. I am prone to believe that the dealer got that low rating by screwing over the buyers or attempting to screw over prospective buyers.

About a month ago a local dealer had a left over 2007 advertised at a VERY low price. I called the fleet manager and asked if I could really buy the car at that price and if he did still have it in stock. He answered yes to both questions. When I arrived at the dealership he pulled out the infamous four square cheat sheet. (He wans't even really the fleet manager, He was sent oout later) I told him to forget the 4 square sheet but he didn't.

I haggled and argued and they then went into the game of sending out a series of different salesmen to give me a try, (The one that claimed he ws the sales manager was not the sale manager.)

When I insisted that they sell to me at the advertised price and they refused to sell me the car at the advertised price they pointed to the fine print in the ad. The words were to the effect that any dealer installed items would be added on at retail price. They were trying to add on $3000 for fabric treatment. I told them I didn't want the fabric treatment. They said that they had already sprayed it and could not take it off so I had to buy the $3000 fabric treatment in order to buy the car at the price in the paper.

Obviously, I left without buying. This is the kind of shady dealings that earn a poor BBB rating for a dealer. I did go to the BBB web site and write down my experience with this dealer.

Old_Timer

You should be ashamed of yourself. They spent at least $1, maybe $3 plus labor to spray that fabric treatment. Their only consideration was your protection and you just walked away.

I went to a dealer to buy a car only to be told it was just sold a half hour ago. They wanted sticker price for anything else available on their lot or any around the region. I walked and went to another dealer who said that same car was on the list, but it had sat for a few months and they'd get me a "fresh one." I walked from that dealer also when he gave me pricing.

I don't care what their rating is when I buy the car, I am going to pay what I want or I walk anyway....as far as service, I think your observation is a good one! On a similar note...how many people check their local health department web site before eating out? Believe me...it's an eye opener. You will also find that many of the schools have the worst records.

Where did you see these letter grades? I checked out two local dealers, one of which is honest and the other which is a thief. Both were rated "satisfactory", which really tells you very little and shows that their ratings are very reliable or useful.