Long and short: incompetent salesmanship and lack of integrity.
We had come a lot closer to a deal with them on a brand new Sonata than I'd like to admit.
We originally came because they had a specific model we were after that no one else did. I made a phone call and Jonathan picked up - I asked to put a deposit down of $1,000 to hold the car while we amass the remainder of a very large $13,000 down payment. When we showed up, they made the sale with the understanding that they'll hold the car while we do that. But they made the sale, and I should've known something was up. Reality check: we should not have to sign anything to have a week and a half hold.
Jonathan did not conduct our sale, and we were given some other guy who was a HOPELESS hard sell. Since he was such a hard sell, we sailed right on through the confidence tricks and nailed down most of the money-for-nothing charges they wanted. We got a really good deal.
But the deal was too good, apparently. Their finance liasion tells me when I call them, as advised, to let them know when I'll be coming in to pick up the car, that he's "having some issues verifying income." I had already sent them our pay stubs and everything is as we warranted. He told me it was an extenuating requirement from Hyundai because we got the recent graduate rebate of $400. I still believe that was a genuine clerical error on our part, but only because other dealerships have told me qualifying for that is weird and potentially not our best avenue. I still think it was unacceptable that it came up now.
His first story was that the amounts didn't add up. Some bullshit about year-to-date pay that we never heard about on the sales floor. Then he called me back, allegedly talked to the bank, and told me that Hyundai Bank had noped out of the deal, but he got another bank to approve some 4.2% APR when Hyundai Bank had us at 0% for 48 months. Total horseshit for a married couple with 730+ credit scores each. But y'know, I would actually believe that Hyundai Bank really did nope out - because of them, not us. Probably suspicious to them of upselling, which is exactly what they were doing.
Here's my best reconstruction of what the real problem was: Sport Durst had sold a brand new 2021 Sonata SEL+ with a sunroof and premium audio for only $34,000. They were just not making enough money and they were bound and determined to either swindle some more cash for nothing out of us, or cancel the deal and find some sucker who will take it for something closer to the ridonkulous $38.5K the first salesman came back with for us.
The salesman went hard sell with us, and disgustingly, the finance liasion went so too when he pulled this garbage up on the phone with us. He even suggested that Hyundai Bank wouldn't give us another loan since "they already have our information and rejected it." The truth is, the application he submitted wasn't to his liking, and so he fudged our income and lied to us that some of it "didn't count." I gave him an out and didn't buy the BS for a minute.
Hieu, if you won't do the deal, someone else will. I am not a moron. This dealership is an embarrassment, all the more so for how close you were to closing a deal. Maybe next time take what you can instead of being greedy. I wouldn't have written this otherwise. read more