I had a horrendous experience here. This was the end of May 2025…read more
I saw online they had a used Kawasaki Mule. I was shopping for one. It was listed at $5900. It had about 150 hours. Looked to be in good shape. Sold. I told them I would pick it up that day.
I drive 45 minutes there and am greeted. We look at the Mule and it looks basically brand new. They said the previous owners were Atrox and only used it to take out trash. I asked if we could test drive and they said "we have a no test drive policy." But they let me ride in it in the parking lot while a younger salesman drove. Great. I still wanted to buy it. We sit down and the manager who just moved from Arizona gets really chummy with me. No problem. We have a good chat, and he goes to get the papers. He puts them in front of me, and I get slapped with $1200 of "taxes and fees." But it was mostly fees. The fees didn't make sense to that extent. But I said let's do $7k. Okay deal. So far so good other than the fees were shocking. But hey, you guys are a big name, and you inspected the machine, and I trust that it's in good shape. Great.
I sit there, and sit there, and sit there. I am the only customer in the entire facility. One person walked in briefly but that was it. I sit there. Finally, the manager from Arizona says "we are doing one final inspection to make sure everything is good to go including tire pressure." Great. Well... 45 minutes go by. At this point I'm getting antsy. I had been there 2 and a half hours, with no reason this transaction should have taken more than 45 minutes. I didn't even look around. I knew what I wanted to buy.
Anyway, no big deal right? I go out to my truck and lower the tailgate on the trailer and wait. A few minutes later, the younger salesman quickly drove the Mule onto the trailer and turned it off. A bit odd he didn't even ask. But anyway I was finally on my way. Happy with the purchase, but not happy with the price. I drive 45 minutes home. This trip took 4-5 hours.
I get home (I am a small scale farmer. I run Genesis Gardens in Chelsea, and this was a big upgrade in equipment for me) excited. I sit in it and it won't crank. It won't crank. It won't crank. I call them and they say "oh it just runs cold, and you have to hold the choke." Okay. No problem. (Up to this point I have given these guys the benefit of the doubt the whole way.) I have driven a lot of equipment and have never had to do it to this extent before. Well I crank it, and it conks out. I do it again. It conks out. It conks out. So I quickly change gears the next crank and get it off the trailer before it conks out and drove it a bit. Every time I stopped it conked out. Every time. All I could think was "It passed our inspection standards." And I started thinking how the guys never let it idle when we test drove it and when he drove it quickly onto my trailer without slowing down. I started to realize that they knew it wouldn't idle without conking out. There is absolutely no way they didn't know. A 4-year old would have said "what is wrong with this?" So anyway, before I called them again, it completely died. It wouldn't even turn over. Dead. So here I am fresh from getting this clean, low hours, fully inspected Mule from Hall's Motorsports in Trussville. Just hours after dropping $7,200 on this Mule. And I am PUSHING it back onto the trailer.
So I call them. I say what happened. I speak to the guy fresh from Arizona who I quote, "Yeah, we don't want to have a bad name."
Wow. "Yeah, we don't want to have a bad name" he says.
All I can think is how apologetic I would be in my business. And embarrassed. And how much I would be willing to do to make it right with the customer. I would be running in circles to make this right.
He tells me he was with a customer and that I needed to call him back (I didn't have his direct number) to let him know when I can bring it in so they can fix it. I was driving down the road at the time and couldn't take a phone number. I asked if he could call me when he was done with the customer. He said "Yes."
The whole time he made me feel like an inconvenience to him.
Well... I never received a call. It was Saturday. So I show up early the next week because I never received a call. Mule on the trailer and all. I walk in and am told to come back because they had a "very important meeting with their supervisor who does millions in revenue." This was my third 45 minute trip. I told the Arizona guy that he didn't call me back, and he softened a little. But I was a huge inconvenience to them the entire time I was there. They were having a Zoom online meeting and acted like the building was going to collapse because I was there. I said to Arizona man "You need to have a word with your maintenance staff because the tire pressures when I got home were this: 3,6,7, and 9 psi." (Remember he told me to my face they were checking tire pressure right before I took it home.)
(The rest of my review will be on Google).
