My first experience was calling them for an ad I saw on cars.com which listed a price that was a bit less than the price on their website (something you see quite a bit when looking for a car online), Craig answered the phone and when I asked if the cars.com price was the real price, he wouldn't answer, finally after I pushed a bit, he said "Yes, that's the price", sounding annoyed (what's that all about? -not a good first impression).
So, I head down because they happen to have the car I was looking for (only one is Seattle) and are literally right down the street from my house. I am immediately greeted with a very aggressive salesman that is very quick to tell me that he knows nothing about cars, is good friends with Craig (the owner) and how they don't get commission so, no pressure and all that. A few minutes it, it is obvious that "having no game" is this guy's "game", almost to a fault. Very much like "I don't care if you buy the car, I don't know much about any of this car stuff" and then in the next breath telling me things about that car that only car geeks know (like how much they increased the horsepower between the different model years, etc.). I mentioned that their Yelp rating was not so great and he got very annoyed and told me that they don't care about Yelp, or what people think (really, he said that).
With regards to the car, he gives me this story that all of their cars are on loan and they only keep them for 90 days before re-auctioning them and that it just so happens that the car I am looking at is at 85 days and that they will be auctioning it within the next week. Also, shows me a spreadsheet that shows a bunch of numbers like how much they have into the car and how they are selling it for less than that. Uhh... sounds like a crappy business move to me, but ok, I'll go along with it.
I then ask if I can take the car to my mechanic to do a pre-sale inspection, he tells me that the car has been through three inspections already. THREE!! and that we can take it over to their mechanic right now and have him go over it... a fourth? ...but also says, "hey, if you want to take it to your guy and spend more money, go ahead.", Right before I took it, I asked to see one of the previous inspections... "Uhh, we can't find it, here go for a test drive and we'll look for it." ...so, I did. When I get back, they found it, or one of them, etc. Of course it says everything is perfect, etc. (in my mind I am thinking, did they just fill out a new blank form?? I think all of us are damaged by the auto industry a little, but I want to expect the best, so I play along).
I take it to my mechanic.... About 20 minutes into the inspections, the guy comes out and sits down next to me and I can tell is very carefully choosing his words. When I tell him that I may be buying the car and want to here all the nastiness about it, I see the relief.
What he says:
So, if you get down and look under the front of the car you can see a slight buckle in the front bumper, well, after we put it up on the rack we can see that the entire skid plate (that protects the bottom of the engine, etc. is cracked and split all the back along the same line as this buckle in the bottom of the front bumper and held together in places with zip ties. Then looks like someone cut a hole in the skid plate to get to the ABS linkage and wires and duck taped them all in a clump, the front tire on the side of the damage is the spare (the ware is completely different than the other tires, the tire that is in the spare compartment is flat and on the bottom is all split, looks like an impact. Then we checked the computer, a bunch of faults stating that the computer has had trouble communicating with the ABS system, etc.
So, looks like it's been in some sort of curb hopping incident and then hastily put back together.
Inspected THREE TIMES??? Come on!
So, I get back to AutoQuest and am not visually pissed, but calmly tell them about what I found and how I don't see how the car could have passed any inspection. Either their mechanic is lying to them, or they are lying to me. I don't know, I am not placing blame, just stating the facts. I just wasted half a day and $120 on an inspection.
The ONLY reason i am giving them 2 stars instead of 1 is because they did pay for my inspection.
However, I notice that the car is still listed on their website! 90 days my ass!
They seem like a bunch of typical, crooked, lying car salesman to me...
Don't be fooled by the "we have no games" act. You better believe they got game. ;)
They seem to carry a lot of exotics that you can't find elsewhere, so just be careful when dealing with them, definitely have the car inspected by a third party before giving them any money. read more