I'm seeing that other people have had a poor and similar experience with Taylor Kia. There are legitimate and honest dealerships (Grogan Towne comes to mind), Taylor Kia is not one of them. Do yourself a favor and read this entire review it will help you understand what to look for when car shopping in general. IF YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO READ ALL OF THIS, JUST DON'T DEAL WITH TAYLOR KIA. We (a close relative) were taken in just about every way possible (insert your favorite swear words here) .
It started with our trade-in. Per NADA, the trade in ranged from about $3,000 for rough shape to $3,700 for good condition. We agreed to accept $2,000, it was enough to pay off the remaining loan. Instead, they gave us $250 and added $2,000 to our new loan! On the paperwork, it showed as negative equity which was presented as the amount for the trade in (he even circled it, how helpful!) . We are out $2,000 just for that part of this scam (more and creative swear words here).I spoke to Moe Bean (sp?), manager, about this to work it out... No returned calls despite several tries. Class act, right? But there's more!
Interest rate. Our credit score is over 800, this is A++ credit. If you have a score over 720 or so, you should get a rate in the 2% range. They contracted the loan at over 6%. Did you know that the dealer gets an incentive from the bank to increase your interest rate? For example, if the lender approves a 2% rate and they cheat you, Oops, I mean sell you a 6% rate, they can earn $thousands depending on the size of the loan. It is being paid by you via the higher rate. Research rates online before you go to the dealer so you know where you should be on your rate.
Service contract aka maintenance agreement. Have you ever purchased one of these, only to discover that the dealer is hell-bent on not honoring it? They blame it on the service contract company. The truth is that when they sell you one of these, a large portion of the amount you paid is put into a reserve account in the dealer's name. If you don't file a claim, or the claim is "denied", the dealer keeps the money on reserve. I recommend that you DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT unless you are working with an honest dealer! Check your paperwork, they probably snuck it in. They are required to issue a refund if you cancel it. In our case, Taylor Kia represented it to us that the car "comes with" the service contract, the suggestion is it was free... it wasn't pointed out that these add-ons would cost $thousands!
GAP. This was also slipped this in by Taylor Kia to the tune of $900. This is a good product in the event the car is in a wreck, it pays the remainder of your loan that your insurance might not. However, you can get this for a couple hundred bucks at your local bank or credit union. The dealer keeps the markup. You can cancel this for a refund as well. By the way, GAP coverage is limited and all those additional $thousands for products they added can put you out of range for GAP to cover the entire amount of your loss.
A $250 document fee? Really? Your bank or credit union likely wouldn't charge you for that. Taylor Kia does.
We went back to get refunds on all those products that "came with" the car. This is in the thousands of dollars. We are refinancing the car with a nice credit union. This will save us thousands as well. If we didn't take this action, we would be out $8 or $10 THOUSAND dollars. Unless I'm wrong and this Moe character has any scruples we are out the money in the trade-in unless we sue. We might.
It's my hope that, by reading this, at least a few people won't get hurt by Taylor Kia or other dishonest dealers. We don't buy cars very often, so it's easy to get cheated. read more