I thought long and hard about whether to give one star or two but ultimately decided it wasn't fair to slight my salesman, Brian Cook, by looping him in with everything that went wrong with this transaction. I do genuinely believe he's a great salesman, just buried under an incredibly disorganized and apparently inept company.
With that said, I can now say (since my transaction is finally complete after over a month of dealing with it) that this is unequivocally the worst car buying experience I have ever had. With more than 20 vehicles in my company's fleet, plenty more personally and for family, I have been involved in dozens of transactions with car dealers and I'm astonished by how bad this one went.
It started with the assurance that I could trade in my leased vehicle and it would be no problem. I heard a conflicting story from another dealer so I went back and forth with these guys to verify 100% that it would not be an issue prior to driving over 1,000 miles to trade that vehicle in towards the truck I was planning on buying and leaving with. They again assured me it was no problem so I made the trek from out of state to get it done.
Fast forward to a couple days later, I arrive at the dealership to see the beautiful truck I was expecting waiting in the sold bay. Much to my surprise, the paint was absolutely riddled with hard water damage. It was hard to see at first because the truck obviously hadn't seen a wash since it left the plant. As a former detailer who specialized in paint correction, I just saw the dollar signs adding up on the black metallic paint. Brian apologized profusely and negotiated a modest price reduction to compensate for the damage. The real surprise was the identical truck out on the lot with perfect paintwork that must have come with the same shipment just judging by the limited production of this particular truck. They claimed it was sold, but it definitely wasn't identified as such so I still wonder whether that was the case and if they intentionally sold me the damaged one knowing I was some young kid coming in from another state to buy a fancy truck. I admittedly settled on a lower figure than I should have, but figured I had already come too far to turn around over something I knew I could fix with enough time and effort.
Jump ahead 4 more hours, I'm still waiting for them to figure out what to do with my trade-in. Apparently no one there knew what to do after all, and they ended up calling my local dealer back in Arizona to get some guidance. I ended up having to go to that local dealer when I got back to buy the car I already traded in to Castle Rock Ford just so they could have a clear cut trade in and payoff. An absolute nightmare in paperwork and rigmarole for something I was assured wouldn't be a problem.
Finally, over a month later, I've just left the DMV and took the time to write this review. This is the first time out of all the many vehicles I've bought from a dealer where the DMV called me on my cell phone and asked me to come in for "additional paperwork". Come to find out, it wasn't only paperwork (that Castle Rock Ford didn't submit properly), I had to pay an additional $1,300 for registration that they somehow didn't account for. This, too, was a first.
Although I was nickel-and-dimed on the staggering $100,000+ all-in price tag on this truck, Castle Rock Ford cost me a more precious commodity that I can't make back: time. I run a small service business and it was hard enough leaving a few hours early to get a headstart on the drive there. When you factor that time to drive to and from Colorado, the excessive wait for them to get their act together, the ridiculous process of buying out my trade-in twice, all the back and forth of signing documents three different times, and now this nonsense of re-applying for Arizona registration after all that, the price tag of this truck is no longer measurable in dollars. So, thank you, Castle Rock Ford, for monopolizing weeks of my time and for showing me what a truly terrible car buying experience is. read more