This was the worst car buying experience of my entire life. Arrived at 12:30, 3 hours into a multi-state trip and did not leave until 6:30pm. We arrived knowing what we wanted (saw the car online), decided while test driving we wanted it and secured financing within 30 minutes. Mark the salesman told us 3 people were ahead of us, and they were using a new system for financing, which could slow things down. I have bought many cars before and figured, 30-45 minutes per customer, so perhaps 2 hours.
Two hours later when my wife was asked for a time update, she was told by Mark patience is not her virtue and the finance guy is not too be disturbed. By the way, our three kids were with us and we were buying a car because our 2018 Honda Odyssey was acting up on a cross country trip. We asked Mark if we could leave to get our kids some food (late breakfast, no lunch) to which he told us we would loose our place in line if we left. We were stuck.
Two and a half hours later, my wife again asks for an update to which Mark raised her voice at her saying he already told her it will take a while, it is not their fault because they were struggling with a new system and the finance guy was not to be disturbed with a question about estimated time...essentially we have no right to be upset because it is "not their fault." My wife said this situation is becoming disrespectful to the customer, which Mark then said he took issue with her calling him disrespectful...which she did not say. He further raised his voice, and my wife said "do not talk to me like that," to which he stepped into her space and she put up her hand and said "do not talk to me that way." At this time, the general manager showed up and started raising his voice at her, and essentially told us we can leave if waiting is a problem. Lest they forget, it is now 5pm, our current car is failing and the time we could have spent at a different dealership was spent sitting in Mark's office waiting for the magic moment we would sign the papers, whenever that time was. Then the finance guy walked through, joined in and yelled at my wife. Not once did she raise her voice, use profanity, call anyone names, she just wanted a time update so we could get our kids some food. By this moment, my wife was shaking and started crying.
Soon after, the finance guy called us back to his cubicle, defended himself, telling us why we are being unreasonable about being upset for waiting 5 hours with no time updates. He said they were helping us out because of our situation...we bought the car for sticker price, our trade-in was $3,000 less than CarMax offered and they were helping us out by completing the purchase of a $48,000 car? After a while the finance guy apologized, saying Mark can be a hothead and it is true he gets upset when the salesmen disturb him. After making a mistake on our financing paperwork, he told my husband to go get our kids some food while he started it over.
We left the dealership 6 hours after arriving. The only nice person was Susan who gave my kids some snacks. My kids spent 6 hours watching Daniel the Tiger in Korean (we do not speak Korean) and even other customers offered to get out kids some food. Hindsight, I wish we would have had lunch delivered, but we never in our right minds expected it to take 6 hours to purchase a car. I cannot tell you how shocking it was to be treated this way. The customer does not always have to be right, but in this case we almost felt abused and taken advantage of because of our desperate situation. Also, where was the general manager? Has he and the owner lost complete control of the the dealership? In what world is it okay for a salesman to yell at a customer? What an incredibly toxic group of people. read more