I had been looking for an SUV for the past week when I found one at Keifer Kia that I liked. I inquired about the vehicle, asking for its history and what not.
They ran my information to acquire a loan for the vehicle, about 10 different times. Other dealerships ran only once, so now I had about 14 hits for credit. I didn't find out until a month later when I received letters in the mail.
They told me the price was great and had been lowered by about 5000. I researched after I left and saw that the "extremely discounted price" was still on the high side. When they presented my loan information they had lowered the price by about 2000 more for my loan to go through.
When signing my documents later, my friend looked them over and saw that the gap insurance was far too high. They claimed it was correct. Later, after I had the vehicle in another state, as I travel for work, they contacted me saying that the loan documents needed to be resigned, as the gap insurance was too high. On the phone, the guy who I talked to spoke very negatively about the guy in their finance department, which I found really unprofessional.
They said they would send me new documents to sign. I told them I would be going out of town and they would need to have them to me by a specific date, they didn't. I was gone long enough for the documents to be returned to them by the post office. When I returned, they had impounded my vehicle.
Thinking it had been a mistake, I called all over looking for my vehicle, even the police in case it was stolen. I found it at an impound lot. I called the dealership, they directed my call to the owner who yelled at me, put me on hold came back and was calm, then talked at me some more. I repeated the conversation that I had with another person in the company, about me being out of town. The owner yelled at me some more and threatened me. Then told me that the vehicle would be released to me after I had paid the hundreds of dollars to get it out of impound.
I was almost in tears. I had just come back from a work trip to find that they didn't uphold their end in providing me accurate documents to sign, sending the new documents on time and had practically stolen my vehicle. I began contacting lawyers.
After them calling me multiple days, and the owner yelling at me more times, then being transferred to a friendly woman who worked there, who actually tried to help me resolve the issue, they agreed to overnight me new documents, that I returned immediately and my vehicle would be released. I ended up paying $100 of the $600 impound fees.
I HAD DONE NOTHING WRONG AND POINTED OUT A POTENTIAL MISTAKE TO PREVENT ANY ISSUES.
I erroneously believed that "Certified Pre-owned" meant the vehicle was going to be in better condition than most dealerships. Im not the most knowledgeable when it comes to vehicles, and didn't notice that it had been in an accident. I found out about 2 months later when having the oil changed. Im not sure why I was suprised that a dealership that had already been aggressive and rude to me was also deceptive.
About 3 months later the vehicle broke down in a snowy area, where it took hours to get a tow truck. The mechanic said that there were many issues that usually were prevented with preventative maintenance, looking at the documentation from the dealership, they said all of these things had been completed within months of me purchasing the vehicle. The mechanic claimed that was impossible. I took my vehicle to another mechanic who said the same thing. I saved all of the parts that needed to be replaced to show a mechanic friend back home, just to be sure, he said that everything looked like it hadn't been replaced in years and needed replacement.
Overall, through my experience, I learned that Keifer Kia is dishonest, throws coworkers under the bus to clients (which is probably why a sales person told me he couldn't wait to be out of there), they rip people off at any possible moment and the owner has extreme mood swings (I hope he gets the mental health he needs).
I enjoy my vehicle and am glad I have it, but if I had to do this all again, I would have gone with a different dealership. read more