Here¹s my e-mail to the owner of Exeter Subaru in Stratham, NH:
Hi David,
>
> This is Larry Weil from Salem, I bought a car from you in 1997, and have
> shopped there several times since.
>
> I came in today (Fri 4/4) to look into buying a new Impreza, and trading in
> my old one. My experience was most unpleasant.
>
> The salesman, Jim LaFlame, refused to talk to me as an adult. If I hear the
> word ³awesome² from him one more time I think I¹ll puke.
>
> But the worst part was that when he spoke to the sales manager (Jason), he
> came back telling me I should just get some prices from other dealers and you
> will beat their price. I find this highly insulting. Is this man too lazy
> to get off his ass and do some work and appraise my car and give me a price?
> Why did I waste my time and gas going there just to get the bum¹s rush? >
> At this point I feel like I wouldn¹t want to buy a car from you if you were
> the cheapest dealer on earth. I was told you were out of town for the
> weekend, otherwise I would have spoken to you. But the people you left in
> charge are doing you no favors with their lazy attitudes.
> Thanks for your attention to this matter.
>
> Larry Weil
I¹m wondering if others find similar experiences at other dealers?
I¹m so fed up with the car shopping experience that I think I¹de rather just walk!
You may have appeared to be a looky-loo. If you had sat down and said "I want to buy an impreza with X , X,X. I will pay this much. I expect $x for my trade I bet you would have a new car and found the experience pleasant. I love car shopping
Family member is a retired car salesman. He loved it when I guy came in, said he had done all the background computer shopping and told him what he would pay for the car. He'd get his car at his price but family member said he would have sold it to him cheaper otherwise ;(
Thank you, I'm always happy for the opportunity to share my experience with the Carlock Automotive Group. I made the mistake of telling this dealership that I would have to have my offer accepted before I left for a ten day trip to lock them to the sale. If not, that was fine, I would route my trip to check with several other dealers. Well, they accepted the offer, I didn't shop the other dealers on the way, and below is the result.
That's CARLOCK AUTOMOTIVE GROUP. A large multiline dealer in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
June 8, 2007
Carlock Toyota
1700 South Gloster Street Tupelo, MS 38801
Attention: Brian Nguyen, General Manager
Dear Mr. Nguyen:
I wish to express my disappointment with the treatment I received from your dealership while attempting to purchase a RAV 4.
I'll not repeat the story in detail, you know it by now. A written offer to buy; verbal acceptance by your salesman; two additional confirmations of that acceptance; an attempt to renege and add $425 to the deal, then repeated deferrals blamed on the individual who did the locating/ordering being out of pocket for various reasons; and finally, closure in that the offer would not be accepted at that price under any circumstances. As discussed, the process wasted three weeks of my time and caused me to miss other opportunities.
In defense of David, I got the impression with the first vehicle I purchased from your dealership and with this one that he was very inexperienced and would do nothing important without authorization. He indicated when he accepted the offer that he had "gotten approval from the managers that were on site". Additionally, I'm pretty good at reading faces, having managed people all my adult life. My impression, when I walked into your dealership on that Friday morning to find out if I had a vehicle on order, was that both your sales manager and your closing/finance/ext. warranty manager knew exactly what was going on. Of course, I couldn't prove that, but it was in their eyes. Did they lead him astray and leave him hanging? I'm not condoning his deceit, just wondering if it isn't somewhat of a Carlock Toyota policy.
And where did I get that "lowball" price in my offer, from which you were going to "lose" money? Edmunds true market value, what others are paying in this region. I discounted it a whopping $26 because we are so near the end of the model year, but would have given that back to make the deal. So there was a small margin showing on the surface, plus whatever your volume rebate or holdback is, plus if ordered as it probably would have to have been, zero use of any floor plan or credit term allocations, with no cash tied up from your dealership. I felt the offer was reasonable, so I left on my trip fully confident that your dealership would honor the agreement.
Your choice was to either honor the agreement I made in good faith and your representative accepted, whether independently or, as I suspect, with at least the tacit authorization of your organization, and have a satisfied, multiple unit customer, or to not do so and have a disgruntled ex-customer who will never fully trust your dealership and will certainly pass that opinion on to anyone who asks. You chose the latter. In my opinion, that is a very poor business decision, but certainly yours to make.
Regards,
However, this experience led me to Subaru. I discussed the purchase of a Forester with two dealerships, Jim Keras Subaru of Memphis, TN and Paul Moak Subaru of Jackson, MS. I bought from Paul Moak. The sales people and sales managers for both of these dealerships were knowledgeable, responsive, and honest. The buying experience was the most pleasant I've ever had in my long car buying history.
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@e67g2000hsa.googlegroups.com:
Being that they knew I had bought aa car from this dealer in the past, why would they make such an assumption? I was too early in the process to demand a price, I had to know how the prices were running first. A lot of the dealers these days seem to have an attitude that if they can't close a deal in the first five minutes after you arive they aren't interested or willing to put in the effort to make the sale.
Regardless of other factors, dealers should extend the basic courtesy to anyone who walks in the door. If they make assumptions before they even get to find out where you are comming from they are the ass!
Frank wrote in news:G4qdnW9g0- pHP2ranZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:
I don't care what the salesman likes or dislikes, that's irrelevant. They need to earn my business, and there's more to that than just qupting a number.
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:a9c05828-345d-4db8-a622-096b3b269906 @f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:
I did do a lot of research on the model, options, etc.. I walked in with a printout of exactly the model and options I wanted. They still treated me like shit.
Pretty much everyone has a 'bad car dealer' story these days. Most of us (myself included) also have a 'good car dealer' story or two as well. Too bad we don't share those as well as the negative ones.
I'm curious. Larry - is this dealer a Subaru-only dealer, or do they carry other brands as well? I've had a few dealings with my local dealer, a small, family-run Subaru-only dealer, and they have been excellent. I've bought parts and had service done on my son's car. Anecdotally, I have heard that single-brand dealers tend to be better than the large, multi-line shops.
Indeed they should. However potential customers should also show respect to the salesperson.
EG Those who spend 2 hours at a dealer to fill in time doing nothing but stealing valuable selling time for "real" prospects.
Prospects who do "research" prior to attending the dealership and can't accept that their research is wrong and what their asking for is just plain stupid.
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