Let me start by saying that my most common rating is 3-4 stars. So.. 3 stars isn't bad. I know some people see three stars and think, "eww", but that isn't the case here.
We bought a Mini Cooper from Marx Auto Center and dealt with Marc this past December. He was very open to us taking it to a mechanic to have it looked at. My mechanic wasn't available, so we ended up taking it to an official dealer. There were some issues, such as a rusted out exhaust system, some slop in the transmission, ad lower tread on the tires. Marc agreed to put a new exhaust system as well as rubber on the car. The slop, the dealer said, was minor and didn't need immediate attention unless it was grinding (at the time it was not).
The vehicle we purchased was in wonderful physical shape, $2k under blue book, and had super low miles (under 75k and it's an '02). Aside from some wear on the driver's(leather) seat backrest, the car would physically pass for new in my book. Marc even delivered it about 120 miles since we had one car at the time and it wouldn't get plates for another week. One thing to note is that you will have to go to the RMV if you buy from this dealership. They are not licensed to do this paperwork for you (we recently moved to MA and you guys do things a little differently than in the states we've lived previously).
We did end up replacing the gear shift linkage (cause of the slop) because there was some grinding going into second. My mechanic (who had time this time around) said since there was grinding, it would essentially wear the gears faster ad recommended swapping it. The work was $500 and required dropping the exhaust. I wish I would have been more vocal about this originally, since apparently 90% of the labor (the part was $120) was dropping the transmission. This isn't the fault of Marx, and, frankly, even the Mini dealer said it likely wasn't an issue.
The reason I dropped to three stars from four was that Marc called us multiple times while we were deciding on finances and what we wanted to do about repairs. After the car was purchased we had absolutely zero contact from Marc or the dealership. This was our first used car from an actual used car dealer, but when buying from new car dealers we have always been contacted and asked how we were feeling about our new purchase. I feel it is just a nice, usually final, part of customer service that shows that the dealership actually cares. We did get an automated text message that reminded us that the time for our first oil change was approaching, which is nice, but nothing like a personal call or quick email. read more