I don't understand the requirement to assign a star rating but I will do so in order to post this review. It should actually be zero stars but if I could give negative stars, I would. Absolutely the worst experience in over 45 years of purchasing cars. As background, I am currently leasing a BMW 330 which will expire shortly. With Mazda offering 0% financing and wanting to move up to an SUV type car, figured I would make the switch. I went into the dealership on a Thursday morning, found a particular model, color combination and trim line I liked, and spoke to the sales consultant, Vincent. We discussed and documented a price for that specific car. I already expected that I would need to deal directly with BMW to disposition my lease - but Vincent suggested that Riley Mazda might get me out of my lease as they have done this many times before. He had someone inspect my car and committed that he would let me know by the next day, Friday, whether Riley could/would take the BMW. I was clear in explaining that I needed to know quickly so I could make a decision and finalize the deal. And that's where the issues began. He assured me this wouldn't take a lot of time and I could expect a next day response.
The next two days passed with no word from Vincent, so late Saturday afternoon, I called his cell and left a message. By Tuesday midday, I still heard nothing from him. I then sent an email to Vincent and Curtis, sales manager, outlining my frustration with the lack of communication and timeliness. At the end of the business day, I finally received an email from Vincent apologizing for the delay and explaining that he was "caught up in his moving for the past few days". (He never mentioned that there might be a delay or that he might be unavailable to work on this). Then he asked for my BMW account number since "his guy was having a problem getting a payoff number without it". If the dealership had done this so many times before, why did it take five days for them to ask for this? He finally responded Wednesday afternoon so I was at least pleased to understand how the BMW piece of the transaction would work. I responded immediately, as I still had a few questions on the actual price of the new car so again emailed asking for some clarification. I also asked that given the delays that were clearly their fault, whether they could do a little better on the price or do something to make up for the frustration and initial unresponsiveness.
Their answer was what sealed the deal for me. First, my follow up questions weren't answered clearly. Worse, their bottom line was that while they were sorry for the delays, there was nothing they would do to compensate me for the lost time and frustration - the price was the price. Most importantly, I was then told that while I was waiting for them so I could finalize the deal, the car we negotiated was sold. This meant that I would have to take a different color with a different interior - a combination I specifically said I did not want. Bottom line for me - after a week of wasting my time and being frustrated, there is no car.
I sent a final email yesterday to Vincent, again copying Curtis, this time expressing my anger at the dismissive nature with which I was treated. I left them with two questions:
- Why should I now purchase a car in a color combination I don't want after we negotiated on a different car?
- Why, after all the frustration and delay that I endured through no fault of my own, would the dealership be unwilling to do anything to create some goodwill?
Throughout this whole process, Vincent apologized several times which means nothing to me unless he actually planned to do something to help the situation. If you need to say "I'm sorry" or "I do apologize" at least five times, it becomes more than a little patronizing. Further, the sales manager never bothered to get involved to try and "right the ship", so I don't expect that I will hear from them. That would be keeping in character with their dismissive unresponsiveness. It would be interesting to see if they respond to this review. But then, if they wouldn't respond to me personally, why should they do it publicly? If they do respond to this, it will probably be to discredit my account, but I stand by it 200%. In addition to both their behaviors being disinterested and dismissive, I would also call it deceptive and disingenuous since they didn't appear to have any interest in seeing this transaction through to closure. read more