Moving goalposts at Family Mazda. Be aware…read more
After my daughter's car was totaled and during the second weekend of car searching, we eventually wound up at Family Mazda. We own a 2023 CX-9 and the dealership experience back then, under the Moffitt name, was excellent. After a poor visit back in 2024 under the new ownership, we decided to give them another chance. Unfortunately, that was a mistake.
Over two weeks, we worked with Owen on a new CX-50. Early on he assured us the trim included heated seats (key feature for my daughter), only for us to discover later that it did not. He blamed the Mazda website, tried to upsell us to a higher trim despite knowing our budget, and even pushed a CX-5 despite knowing we were not interested in that model for her. So the deal stalled for a couple of days. Despite all that confusion, eventually we decide to move forward with the original numbers we agreed on, contingent only on seeing and test driving the vehicle after they completsd the dealer trade for it. My daughter drove in from out of town for this, based on the assurance that the deal would be honored.
When we arrived to finalize everything, he suddenly "forgot" the special promo this entire deal was structured on - being the same promo we'd discussed consistently over the life of this negotiation (ice storm also delayed things). After multiple trips to the sales manager, he returned with numbers nowhere near what we agreed to. He even "forgot" the down payment amount the entire deal was built on. His final attempt looked correct at first glance, until we noticed he'd quietly increased the down payment by $1,533 to force the monthly payment into that original range.
At this point, it was clear..either the original, "agreed" deal was never real, or they were hoping we wouldn't notice the changes. This wasn't just some misunderstanding..it was a low level tactic used only by salespeople who do not respect the customer's intelligence. Inexperience mixed with ego is not a good combo in sales, and it cost them our business. The situation even got my wife (who is very non-confrontational) visibly confrontational. That fact alone says enough.
There is more I could say about how this was handled, but for the sake of keeping this review as brief as possible, I'll leave it at that. Between this and my experience in 2024, I can confidently say: we will never return to this dealership. Moffitt Mazda, you are dearly missed.