First off, this review would have been a 1 star review if I didn't get to work with Kyle Lowe - he…read moreis responsible, communicative, and holds to his word. Now, to get to my review of my experience at Sale BMW, which was quite the lengthy journey.
I purchased a car end of November, before traveling from Atlanta to Kinston, I made sure to confirm all the things with Kyle and the dealership which included
1. How I'm going to finance
2. The price of the car
3. My itinerary
some pros and cons
Pros:
- Kyle Lowe ; picked me up in Raleigh, great conversation on the ride, and was just easy to work with and knows a lot about BMWs and the process
- Price: The price was reasonable and fair; it did take light negotiation but ultimately this was a fair discussion and I appreciate where we landed
Cons:
- Danny, the finance manager, will straight up tell you that you have to use the BMW financing.. This is not true, and I did not use it. Remember my point above, I had already confirmed with Kyle and Kevin (the manager) that I'd be using my own financing and if they could beat my rate (they couldn't, their rate was 3% more than what I had with my local bank) but if they did beat I would use theirs. Danny, in a confident voice, said I had to use their rate. This is not ethical nor right. He tried to tell me its on their website, but like most of America, I use autotrader or cars.com, which has no mention of this. Please if you are sitting with the finance managers at Kinston, stick to your understanding of the law and what is and isn't possible. Danny gets a 1 star review because he also made me wait 90 minutes before seeing me (no one else was in the dealership) and after I told him I had my own financing, had me sit in his office for 30 min until I opened the door and asked what was going on.
This is where it gets interesting.
Kevin walks in - and says "Just use our financing then refinance with your bank - this is a great option" to which I replied - no.
Then Kevin said "Well where is your check from the bank, you have to have the check in hand along with your cashiers check to get the car today"... I showed him a text message convo with Kyle that exactly said "Is it ok for us to finalize the deal and then I have my bank overnight (with photo confirmation and tracking number) the check to you all? - to which Kyle responded "yes" - in showing this to Kevin he stuck by Kyle's words - once again, thank goodness for Kyle - but had I not had that text convo with him or it documented, I know Kevin and Danny would have not let me push forward - this is why they both get a 1 or 2 star review.
After agreeing to the numbers and price for the car (which happened at 11:30am) it took me working with Danny and through all this mess to drive away with my car at 6pm. This is absolutely ridiculous. Also - reminder, I'm from ATL and planned to drive 8 hours home that night, which they knew, and they , what seemed like purposefully, dragged the financing experience out for 6 and a half hours.
I got a good price, and Kyle was great - but would I buy from them again at this point - absolutely not because of primarily Danny; but Kevin didn't step in and take care of the customer until I had to show him messages confirming what we had already discussed.
At this point - I have to get my bank involved and they ask for a commitment of funds, which my bank, who does 1000s of these deals, has never heard of, unless it was the depths of Covid where more deals were handled virtually. They were adding friction to the process.
I finally get out of Kinston, with a 30 day tag for my car.
30 days later I call Sale BMW asking where my tag was, and I got 2 stories "Oh, we sent it in Dec 21st." or " it was sent Dec 23rd)" It was clear that now I'd have to park my car and not drive it until the tag came. They didn't process it for a whole month - which is problematic if you are an out of state buyer.
Update - I got my tag on January 18th.
I'd recommend Kyle if you go to this place, but don't recommend going unless they have the exact car you want