I bought a new 2007 Jeep Wrangler to replace my 1998 Wrangler. Now please excuse while i vent.....*ahem*
Jesus H. Christ, has anyone else had to deal with a useless AAFES Overseas dealer? I'm in a remote location in europe with a small PX and the local AAFES car dealer is frustrating as all hell.
Mid March-I was at Ramstien AFB for a day and saw the 07 Wrangler I wanted on their lot. When I got back to southern Germany I told the local AAFES dealer. He can't find it on thecomputer system but tells me to order one from the US. Not only will that cost me a few grand more, the car won't ship here until freaking July. Forget that.
So I call the AAFES dealer in Ramstien. I know the vehicle is there, I just saw it 24 hours ago! He tells me its a sales model and not on the computer system...however if a customer wants to buy it they'll make it available. I tell him I am interested in the vehicle.
BINGO! The next day the AAFES guy HERE calls me saying he found the car I wanted. No shit, I think, I did What YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE. I mean, I told you WHERE THE CAR WAS! Still, its easier to deal with this guy because he's physically here, rather than a sales guy in Ramstien who is six hours away. What a mistake that was.
I gave this guy a check from USAA paying for the car on April 13th. The car is still in Ramstien. Now around the first week of April I had signed an intent to purchase, put a down payment down, and gave him a letter from USAA verifying the fact that they would cover the car loan. You would think that a reasonable dealer would, hmm...I don't know.....ARRANGE FOR THE CAR TO BE PUT ON HIS LOT! You know so when the check gets there I can have my freaking car. I won't even go into how he gaffed up some paperwork so badly that the military car sales team in New York contacted me because it looked like the vehicle was being shipped from the US. This guy took so long in arranging for the car to be moved that a friend told me "I'll just drive you to Ramstien myself and we'll pick up your car."....
Nope....even though we told the dealer five days prior to us going to ramstien thats what we were going to do, he waits until the night before I'm leaving to tell me that for some reason I can't pick up the vehicle on a weekend there. Now I'll go ahead and say that its almost my fault for this. I should have checked what he was saying for this simple reason: I know the dealer is open on saturday and I have already paid for and registered the car. So technically its my f****ng car. Theres something else going on.
AAARGH! So now this guy says he'll pick it up himself. Great. He just needs the plates. I give them to him. Then i go into the PX for a minute and he comes in behind me to tell me that he can't drive a vehicle with USAREUR plates so he can't drive the car here. WTF? YOU'RE A GODDAMN CAR DEALER!? How can you work for AAFES Europe and not be licensed to drive a USAREUR vehicle? He says he needs some crazy dealer plates that he doesn't have right now. But he'll get them in a few days.
Now this guy is old, I mean like old man old. He's retired military too. So I keep my temper and natural inclination to strangle him in check. Plus i'm in the PX there'd be witnesses. So I say fine, when can i please have the car I just paid 24,000 bucks for? He tells me middle of this week.
So now he calls me to tell me he expects the magic plates tomorrow and he'll go get the car Thursday. But...but...he spent all of the money in his sales account and needs me to loan him 150 Euros to take a train there and buy gas for the trip back. I say "ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!!!?". He says he'll take care of it. GOTT IN HIMMEL, where did they dig this guy up? He could have avoided all of this drama if he had simply done something about moving the car three weeks ago!
Has anyone else EVER had to go through something like this buying a car from AAFES?