I feel compelled to write a review of our recent experience. I'll try to make this as short as possible which is difficult. Essentially we found a van we liked online, my husband went and looked it over, took it for a test drive, and said we will take it. (This was a rainy evening) The salesperson, (who was nice and professional) advised it hadn't been detailed at all yet, it just went through inspection by their mechanics and will be detailed before purchase-delivery. We were pre-approved buyers already with financing in place and just had to close on our loan. We closed with our bank, got the check to give to the driver upon delivery of the vehicle and arranged for delivery. I had it scheduled so that the private buyer of my old Odyssey would come to pick up his family's "new" van from us about an hour after delivery of our van from Berlin City. (Delivery is a nice option however it doesn't make up for what comes next). We live 2 hours north of Portland. The dealership was running later than expected, so it ended up they would be bringing my new van after the family came to buy my old van. I thought, no problem, I'm not going to push back my buyer... what could go wrong. So, my old van leaves my driveway to its new family and about an hour later with baited breath and 4 young children shouting "it's here! it's here!" Our "new" (2010) Odyssey arrives. I go out in the driveway, "love the color, look-how roomy (8 passenger! moonroof!) yay! Before we hand over the check of course I'm going to look it over carefully and take it for a ride. I begin to walk around the van and come to the rear of the vehicle. Looking at the tail lights I notice these flecks of what look to be dirt in the reverse light. I look closer and see that the reverse light is half full of water! The whole right tail light is full of condensation as well. I call to my husband to come see this right away, and I open the rear deck to find that water starts dripping out of the plastic access panel to the electronics and fuses in the back!!! Further the piston that goes up and down with the rear deck is all rusty looking on that side. The flecks of "dirt" visible in the bottom of reverse light are in fact RUST! Indicating long term water damage in the door. There is absolutely no way this could missed by the "inspection mechanics" down there. Further, the car should have had a final walk around before leaving Berlin City that morning to be delivered and the water half way up the tail light would have easily been seen. Mind you this is a $14K van. Also, the car was in the same interior condition (i.e. was not detailed) before delivery. This may have been listed as a 2 owner local trade in... but it was clearly either a flood car someone traded to them or had been in an accident, repaired and had a leaking door gasket long term. We would like to give the benefit of doubt to Berlin...but difficult to do with the evidence. The delivery driver was very nice-no issue at all...completely understood. We obviously did not accept that van and sent it back. When we called the dealership (a couple times in that 1/2 hour) we were in shock and very disappointed in this. I called after a couple hours went by and spoke to our sales person.
I advised that we would not be taking the van regardless of what they can "fix" as if their guys missed this, it had not instilled confidence or trust to do things right by us or fix the car properly.
I further advised, that this has left me with 4 young children until who knows when, to get to and from school and activities without a vehicle. This was this past Saturday. My husband works out of state and when he left for work Monday, we will have no car. The salesperson said "he was sorry the vehicle was not in the condition we had hoped for." He asked whether Monday when they had a chance to see how to fix it if we wanted a call. I advised he could call if he wanted but I'm pretty sure we were done with it. I also tearfully explained that because the dealership was late arriving I now had NO vehicle! My husband texted him Monday morning we were out.
However, one would think that a large company such as this would care a bit more about its customers (lost customers now) especially knowing that this left this family without a vehicle, we would have received some followup call from a manager, explaining how this could even happen, an apology and some offer to assist with a loaner until we could purchase a different van. That of course never happened. It is now Wednesday night, no followup. I'm happy to report that we have purchased and picked up a new (to us) van from a great dealer in Salem, NH. read more
