Bad Dealership Experiences -- Post em here
 

Over the last month, I have been doing some car shopping...
I currently own an 03 Civic Si
I started by looking at the 2007 GTI, but realized I couldn't do another hatch
It then came down to the Sti, RX-8, and 350Z

1) When I test drove the STI, the salesman said "Do NOT (<===Emphasis intended) take it over 3k RPMS, so I tooled around in it for about 3 minutes feeling like I was driving some old beater. The salesman killed the excitement for me so the STI was out of the question.

2) Next, it was to the Mazda dealership. I walked in, told the manager I was interested in purchasing a car, and he said "lets go for a ride." He wasn't too pushy and I fell in love with the 8 after I drove it.

3) Then it was over to the Nissan dealership to check out the Z. When I arrived, a salesman suspiciously approached me, and I gave him the same story about wanting a car within the next month. I asked for a test drive and he looked concerned and went to "ask his manager," only to return to say "we don't typically take these out unless we have some numbers floating around." I gave him a confused look, as if we were discussing a Ferrari or something comparable. He gave me his card and a brochure and I threw them away before leaving the building.

I finally decided on the 8: Red, Grand Touring, Spoiler, Sand Leather, Sirius
I pick it up on the 15th. 32.4L MSRP, got it down to 30K

The point of this long blabbering post is how surprised I was of how the overall dealership experience can make or break a decision.

Post any good/bad experiences here, it'd be fun to exchange stories

While I'm delighted you got an 8 and hope you have many many happy years and miles with it, it's not clear to me that your shopping strategy makes sense. You toss a car completely off your list just because of a bad experience with one dealer? Yes, the STI and Z dealers were toads and deserved to be left flailing, but why not go to a couple different dealers to check out those cars? While I personally do think the 8 is the best of that bunch, you never did really properly test drive the other two, so you'll never really know which was best for you.

already been done. check out the good guy/bad guy section.

It's sad that some dealers dont demo out their cars so that people can try them out before buying them, i mean how are you suppose to know if those cars are right for you if you aren't given the opportunity to drive it the way you would. I could understand maybe porsche or some other high end car.....but its a friggin 350Z and STI......but glad to know you had a good exp with Mazdas. So far i think Mazda dealers in general are more friendly and more willing to let you drive their sports cars.

My experience with Rosenthal at Tyson's corner was great. When I wanted to try a Miata, then later on the 8, the salesman pretty much tossed me the keys and recommended a nice twisty road.

Bought the 8. (Obviously.) When my license plates came in, not only did the salesman put them on for me, but he washed the car and filled the tank.

BMW of Fairfax put me off buying a BMW. They kept insisting on showing me used instead of new. Let me drive a used Z4, but I had to fill out an enormous amount of paperwork. I then got three annoying phone calls over the next couple of days - salesman, sales manager, and BMW marketing.

Funniest dealer experience was about 20 years ago when the Honda dealer in Manassas told me that a Baltimore dealer, with better prices on Accords, was selling grey market cars. Smuggled in through Peurto Rico, didn't meet US safety and emissions standards.

(Comment on thread: It's not a good guy / bad guy thread. But it probably would go better in the lounge or general automotive.)

Ken

Why dismiss a car because of a bad dealer experience? try a differant dealer or place a call to the GM of the dealer and explain that you are serious buyer but you have not been given an opportunity to properly evaluate the car before you make an informed decision. good chance after that conversation they will treat you very differantly.

I have to admit that my buy experience with Mazda was very good. No hassle low pressure just great all around. Then I had to bring it in for service and the other shoe dropped.

In summary:

Buy experience - Great
Service experience - Very poor.

I should clarify...

The Rx-8 was already at the top of the list of what cars I wanted, so the 350 and and STI dealership experiences jsut put the icing on the cake. This was the first time I went car shopping and I was just surprised at how salesman would completely dismiss me as a potential buyer.

I had a horrible experience with Santa Ana Honda. I was 21 at the time so I think they were trying to take advantage of my naiveté.

I went to test drive the 05 Civic Si, and they happily let me take it out. Afterwards, they invited me to talk price, which I thought was a good idea if I were to compare the prices with other makes before I bought. I told the salesman that I was not interested in buying a car yet and just wanted to compare prices. So we settled on a decent price, then the salesman asked me to sign the paper saying I agreed with the price. I asked him, "this is the price I would get if I wanted to buy this car later, right?" and he replied yes, so I signed the paper and was going to leave. However, he stopped me and said that I'm now obligated to buy the car. I was like "WTF are you talking about??" He told me since I signed the paper agreeing to the price, that it was a contractual obligation to buy the car. I yelled at him "I just told you I didn't want to buy a car yet!!! I was just comparing prices!!!", and he had the balls to reply "calm down, mister, now what color do you want?". I even complained to the manager and other salesman but they also backed him up. Furious, I ripped up the paper in front of him and stormed out of the dealership. I was pretty scared at the time because I didn't know if I had really broken a contract. Later I found out that until you drive the car off the lot, you can walk out on the deal anytime.

Don't deal with Santa Ana Honda!!!

Wow... That sounds bad.!!! I hope I never come across one of those dealerships.... I'll shove the papers up their asses!!

Ok, fair enough. :) I agree that it's surprising what a bad job the guys you ran into did. I've never had that kind of problem.

mazda: best test drive ever. RX8. they had this whole course practically. we went down the S filled road and into a tight and curvy parking lot thing. the guy said, "take it deep, don't be afraid redline it, try to heal toe around this turn. awesome.
lexus: not great. IS350. the guy had no idea where i should go, so i ended up making a lot of rights and stopping in traffic. he said "take er' easy" when i finally found an open straight away and switched to paddle mode. so i couldn't really get a feel.
chrystler: crap: 300c. drove basically around the dealership once at low speed, then he wanted me to take it back.
bmw: good. x5 with heads up and used m3. was allowed to open em up a bit, but the drive was short and the dealer nervous.

I had decided to buy one of those cars (except the x5) before leaving the the house. I had folders for all them with TMV, rebate info, quotes, etc. Mazda won my business. They let me drive the car like i would want to drive were it mine. still, i think i would have taken the 8 anyway. one minute in it was enough to know it was like nothing i'd ever driven in a most pleasurable way.

I've been refused a test drive only once and probably for good reason. I wanted to test drive a lambo. i was 17. the guy asked if i knew anything about them. i said, "oh yeah, tons. my dad races them (which was a lie)." he asked what class my dad races in. a blank stare came over me. then he told me to have a nice day. Turns out, the bastard gave me a trick question. I think the answer is, lambos are in a class all their own.

by the way, how old are you? i think sometimes young people get treated poorly in high dollar situations because generally youngsters don't have high dollar.

I was thinking the same thing...

Perception is everything. I once went to a Mazda dealer to test drive an 8 with a friend to help me comment on the car/experience. I was more or less treated like crap, even though they still let me test drive the car (they more or less ignored me for the first few minutes, even though we were the only customers there). For all they knew, they probably thought that my friend and I were just a couple of 20-somethings looking for a joyride.

I went back to the exact same dealership a few weeks later on my own and from the start established that I knew a lot more about the car (I had done a lot more research by this point) and was a serious looker. When that happened, I was treated infinitely better and everyone was really polite to me.

All I can say is, your experience depends more on how you approach the situation than how good/bad the dealership is. There ARE some dealerships that are worse and will try to pressure you into a mistake (I've definitely seen them)...but even those I was able to deal with because I knew exactly what I wanted.

yeah, I went to mazda w/ a friend and they treated me akwardly until I told them I was going to buy one within the next couple weeks, then everything changed...
as far as the other dealerships I went to (Nissan, Subaru) I went by myself and got bad service..maybe because I just look too young

Nope. They're all pretty much pooh regardless of your age. Actually, to try to be fair, you simply have to understand that they want to make money. That said, there are certain tactics that are egregious in the pursuit of that money. Which brings me back to pooh...

The BIGGEST deal thing is: Knowledge is Power. You want to go into a dealership knowing what you're doing; if they detect ignorance, they'll walk all over you.

"Knowledge is Good."
--Emanual Faber

^+1.
Looking up their inventory online, coming in with a list of options and what they cost, etc... is definitely key.

"He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien, and powerful. So don't listen to him. Remember that - do not listen."
-Father Merrin