The thing I hate about dealing with car dealerships or salesmen is that they'll sometimes go out of their way to spin the "we aren't like other dealerships" storyline, then do exactly what all the other dealerships do. Smart Auto Leasing feels just about the same, despite their claims to the contrary.
The first clue should have been that all the pre-auction off-lease inventory on their website is listed as "please call for price." In other words, "we want to chat a bit so we can ask a bunch of questions and then come up with a price to give you."
So I did the deed: called in expecting to get jerked around talking to a salesman. I was hoping they'd just give me a price so I knew whether it was worth considering or not. I was feeling a little chatty on my drive to work, so I mentioned that it was for my wife, and that we had been working on buying this same car form another dealership but that the dealership pulled some shady stuff at the last minute and we backed out.
Not surprisingly, the data mining began, with the salesman trying to learn as much as he could about me to figure out how to go about selling me one of their cars. Here are the questions he asked me up front:
* My name
* My phone number
* My email address
* My wife's name
* What kind of car she drives
* What kind of car I drive
* The price of the car we were going to buy at the other dealership
I understand all of that: it's a perfectly effective way to sell a car. But guess what I never got from him? A price for the car we were interested in. He needed to go do some research and get back to me with a price.
He was also very direct in letting me know up front that they are also a FINANCING COMPANY and that if I buy my car from them in cash instead of financing, there is an additional $595 fee. Who does that?? "Fine," I said, "I'll just think of this as adding $600 to the price of any car you tell me."
I made one and only one request of them at that point: to please email me the car information rather than calling me, since I would be in and out of meetings all day and would like to be able to get the information quickly without taking more time on the phone.
Sure enough, an hour later, I was in a meeting and missed a call from them. So I sent another note using their contact form again asking to have the information emailed: I missed another call from them shortly after that. So I called back and left a message AGAIN on the salesman's direct line asking them to please just email it to me.
It's now 5 hours later and although they've got all my information, I've got absolutely nothing from them.
In short, seems like just another sales operation trying to move cars.
EDIT: I called them at the end of the day and spoke with someone else who had no qualms about telling me the vehicle price over the phone without trying to learn my entire life's story. It was more expensive than comparable vehicles I've seen at traditional dealerships so I don't think I'm so interested. read more