We were in the market for a used Ford Fusion, and saw one online at Honda West. I wrote the internet manager for more info and a true "out the door" price. I do not like surprises when buying a vehicle. It seemed like a good deal, and I was able to negotiate one of the dealer "features" I did not want (for theft protection) to be removed. With the quote in hand we went down to the dealership. We met our salesperson Gregg. This is where the mixed bag came in, all during the transaction it seemed like our salesperson was distracted during much of the conversation. He did advise he had another deal coming in later, so this also made us feel we were not as valued a customer as the one coming in for a new car. The entire experience was odd. He would bring us numbers at first, that did not match the e-mail quote, then go into the office. He would come out 5 minutes later with something else. We would then have another question about something. Again he would leave, go in the office, and come out later. This behavior went on for financing questions to general ones about the extended warranty, to promos on their web site. Had we not felt from our extensive research on this model car prior to visiting, that it seemed like we were getting a god deal we would have walked out, but decided to stay in hopes it would get better. It did not. We were trading in a Kia Sedona Van, and got a decent offer which was one of the reasons we decided to stick it out. We also found a promotion on their mobile website that said, "Fill out this form and get an extra $500 on your trade in!" Prior to going down, I filled out the form. Once I got the quote for the Sedona, I mentioned this ad. Our Rep knew nothing about it. He asked me to screenshot it and mail to him, which I did. That didn't seem to work so he asked for my phone and, you can guess where he went - back into the office. This time it was for quite a while. None of the sales people knew about this promo, None of the other managers seemed to know about the promo, and no one from the internet department knew about it. So at first they tried to play it off like, well we don't know about it, so we cannot do too much. Since the form was on their direct site, and there were no terms (such as must be on a new car, etc.) we advised this was unacceptable. Back in the office he went... I want to also note at this point both my wife and I felt uncomfortable and more than a bit put out, that we had to defend ourselves to prove this item was on their website. Finally our salesperson came out of the office and advised they cannot match this offer for the car, but would take $600 off the extended warranty that we had asked about previously. Our agent quoted us $2500 for this item, but would sell it for $1900. Honestly I didn't trust some of the numbers he was pulling out for costs, since I didn't have anything that showed this warranty was $2500 to start with (or price levels of other warranties). We asked some questions about the warranty, such as coverage (back in the office to bring out a laminated list). We asked, "Is this a plan you can bring your car anywhere?" Our dealer replied, 'No you bring it back here and we fix it at no cost to you." When we asked about not being near the dealer how would that work? Do we pay first and get reimbursed?" He told us this was not the case, just bring it in, and it would be fixed. Eventually after hammering out some numbers, and many more trips back to the office we had reached a deal. By this time his other client had arrived, so we were placed with his assistant, he was nice, but again, didn't make us feel like we were valued as customers. Even with all this we knew we were in a decent place for a deal, so we stuck with it and agreed. During the final step in the contract finance office we reached 2 more issues. First there was only one key. Since my Wife and I would both be driving this car, this was a problem. 2 Keys are also required to reset some of the security features of the car. This is currently being worked on. However when we reached the contract for the extended warranty the deal almost fell apart. As I sort of suspected there really was no $2500 plan to remove the money from for the phantom used card trade in bonus. Even worse, the plan he stuck us on had a $500 deductible! This was never mentioned, and was completely unacceptable. We mentioned to this person we were told we could bring it to them, and it would be fixed at no cost. Both parts of this were wrong, he told us we would go to a Ford Dealer, not a Honda one, and there was this $500 deductible. Even though we were probably 4-5 hours in the deal at this point, and the dealership was closed, this was a deal breaker, and we were ready to walk. The finance manager seemed truly upset over what we were told,so looked at options. The best that could be done was a Warranty plan that would be around $300 more than agreed to but would have $250 deductible. Although this was not ideal, or what we were promised we decided to go with it and complete the deal. To be honest had we known what a general hassle this would have been up front, from dealing with the disconnected attitude of our rep, to the constant "Back to the office" for every little question, to the "misinformation" about the warranty and pricing we would have never left the house. At the end of the day they only reason we stuck with this was the deal we got which was good compared to other dealers. It's just too bad that customers have to jump through so many issues to get a deal at Honda West.
Snooptoo
Jun 21, 2016
