My worst car buying experience yet.
I have purchased over 100 cars in my lifetime, and I can absolutely say that my experience with Driven Autoplex stands out as one of the WORST.
There were two good parts. First, I am pretty happy with the vehicle and, while not exactly as described, the car is in good shape and was mostly represented accurately (I was purchasing the car from another state, so relying primarily on the word of the dealer and their descriptions and photos). Secondly, I worked with the salesman, Chance and he was responsive during the sale and helpful.
Unfortunately, the good was far overshadowed by the bad. During the purchase discussion I asked Raul, the Finance Manager a direct question about the state of the car's title. In my state if you have a title that is not endorsed by the dealer, the sales tax is much lower. Raul assured me that the title was a "pass through" and as such would not result in me paying a huge amount of sales tax. Now I should be clear, that I have purchased a number of cars through dealers, and I have always asked about the title condition, and legally the dealer should endorse the title, however for whatever reason Raul committed to the title not being endorsed. I committed to the purchase based on the information provided by Raul and arranged for the car to be shipped to me.
A few weeks later the title showed up in the mail, and contrary to what I was told by Raul, it was not a "pass through" title. For me, this meant that the sales tax increases from $90 to about $1,000. And not only was the title endorsed by Driven, but it was processed by the dealer 2 weeks prior to my purchase, clearly showing that the commitment that Raul made was completely false. When I called he was very defensive and rude. He threatened me by saying that he "knew where I lived" and I "should be careful." I am not sure why he would have even considered saying such a thing to a customer, but it was clearly confrontational, and completely unprofessional.
To Raul's credit he did call me back later, apologized and told me that he did recall making the commitment, and that he would talk to his Title Clerk, Florence and that she would take care of getting a duplicate title. I did hear from Florence about a week later, and she let me know that "getting a duplicate title would be just too much work," and was not going to happen.
I then spent 3 weeks trying to contact Raul (who was really skilled at dodging me) to see what he would do to make this right, since he knew he'd made the commitment to me. Finally he told me that his owner Kevin would talk to me. After a few days and several texts, I did finally get Kevin on the phone who denied that Raul ever made a commitment regarding the title, even though he was not present during the initial discussion. Kevin was very defensive and did not want to hear my side of the story, nor even consider any fair resolution.
After dealing with Kevin, I can certainly see why Raul is comfortable using misleading sales tactics. It is clearly condoned by Kevin the owner of Driven Autoplex. I can only imagine that if the owner is okay with a certain misleading approach, the management will follow their example.
When I told Kevin that I planned on leaving a negative review regarding Driven Autoplex, he also used threats of retaliation. That cemented my commitment to leave this review.
Bottom Line: I had the "pleasure" of giving Driven Autoplex $14,000 of my hard-earned cash only to be misled, lied to, bullied, and then threatened. I would advise anyone working with them to proceed with caution and get details in writing. read more
