I found a car I was interested in if they would take my price, and explained that I'll save myself the time and gas money as that's the highest I'm willing to go. Now sure, my offer was fairly aggressive, but it was very reasonable as I have found the same car with more options and fewer miles lists at the same price that I offered. And they agreed.
The car itself was clean, except TMPS warning was going off for one tire not having some air in it. Considering that they knew well in advance I was coming to look at this specific vehicle, one would have thought this would have been taken care of. I can let that slide.
However, when it came down to talk price, they would not honor the agreed upon price over the phone, and they gave me a trade estimate that is about two-thirds of what other dealers have got me, and all they're going to do if I accepted was clean the car, and put it on the lot for double of the trade value. Perhaps if they did not lie to me about the price, I could have accepted their joke of a trade offer. Or if they were willing to match 80% of what other dealers have already offered me.
Other dealers I have dealt with have always honored their agreed upon price. But these guys said that wouldn't be a problem just to get me in there and hope I was uneducated and impulsive enough to do something I'd regret.
Finally, they gave me a monthly payment estimate over 72 months which was more than I pay for my current vehicle over 60 with an outrageous 8.1% interest rate for the same amount financed. I figure that must be around a 15% interest rate which I am going to assume is some in house scam. My credit score is well over 800 and I qualify for 2.99% from my local bank and I simply know better, so they're not going to be taking advantage of me. Plenty of people can't turn a dollar amount into a payment however, and might not catch the fact that they're being scammed. Of all the sketchy dealers I've seen, these guys were the worst, it was just one thing after the next.
So at the end of the day, they just wasted my time and gas money. Not lying to me in the first place would have saved myself the time, and saved them from a one star review.
EDIT: There is no need to communicate and waste any more of my time than you already did. There is no need to reply either with some generic reply to try and cover your own shady business practices to attempt to save your reputation with less suspecting prey who fall for your scams.
Now they are asking $24,995 for the same car they agreed to take $26,000 for on the phone but would not honor, telling me they owned it for $29,900 (which was far above auction value). Great business guys.
For the record, I did find a car at another dealer and I did get 166% of their trade offer for my old car in the trade, and I'm pretty sure I probably could have asked for more if I really wanted to. I ran into some other sketchy dealers while I was car shopping as well, but few of them were anywhere close to as bad as Fairfields Cadillac Buick GMC. read more