JessePS

Got any that you have heard or happened to you?

I have one story. Makes my sick to think about it or even talk about it.

A couple years ago when Mercedes Canada started selling the Smart Fortwo. I was one of the first people that bought one in Quebec. Had some many problems with it. Took months for them to fix the problem. One day the sales person spoke to my father and told him to come at 10 AM. My father shows up and the sales person, freaks out on him saying WTF you doing here I am busy. After that happened my father called the owner of Silverstar Mercedes asking to meet him and told him what happened. After the owner meets my father and gives him ****, saying WTF did you say to the sales rep to make him upset. After that happened my father left, but had to come back to give the keys to the loaner. My father heard the owner like, we do not need him as a customer (my father) he heard that and gave them back the keys to my Fortwo and was like you are not getting another penny of mine.

I know it is too late to complain. I wonder what Mercedes HQ here in Canada and HQ in Deutschland would have done about these two ****ing idiots.

All in all, I am never getting a Deutsch made car.

Worst part is, the owner at the time or owner now still is Jewish. Guess I have to become a self-hating jew.

Hope someone posts something as bad as mine.

All in all, I am happy with Lexus. They don't care if you buy 1 car every 3 years or a dozen a year. They treat you the same.

mmarshall

Two incidents stand out....though they are somewhat different from what you and your dad went through.


Once, at a BMW dealership, I was getting ready to test-drive a new Bimmer. They handed me the keys and a dealer-license plate, and when I was out on the back lot looking for the car, standing near a fenced-off area, I suddenly heard the loudest, most vicious-sounding bark and snarl you would ever want to hear. Scared the ****** out of me. I turned around to see this big.....and I mean B-I-G...... German Shepard just on the other side of the fence, not four feet away, obviously attack-trained, just waiting to turn me into a piece of hamburger. His teeth could have been used for the JAWS movie.

I went back inside and mentioned it to the salespeople.....they smiled and said, "Yes, he is very effective.....we don't have much of a thief or vandalism problem here."


The other time involved a dealership in the Tysons Corner area, not far from my house. Apparantly a police sting was in operation...I, of course, was not involved in the sting itself and missed part of it, but got in on part of the spectator part. Apparantly uncover police officers and detectives were posing as drug dealers and offering to buy cars right off the lot and showroom for drug profits (cash). The salespeople said they didn't care.....they were in buisness to sell cars, not be concerned with money laundering or illegal funds. They told the "customers" to just hand over the cash.

Well, within a couple of minutes, a whole slew of FBI agents raided the place.
I got out of there, just in case any bullets flew or they started rounding people up (I don't remember hearing any shots). They made a number of arrests, including two sales managers, but did not actually shut down the dealership. That incident, BTW (and perhaps a few others) led to the "$10,000 rule", now universal in my area, where all cash sales of $10,000 or more, especially for new cars, are recorded with police departments.....even for people that have nothing to to with drugs or money laundering.

mmarshall

So I take it your dad got the car fixed somewhere else? I sure would have.

My advice...and you can pass this on to your dad if you want......is to get a car that is a little more substantial, especially if you drive on more than just narrow city streets. Mercedes-engineered or not, a car that small is just not likely to be safe in anything but a minor accident....and Canada's safety-regs for new cars are less stringent than in the U.S. to boot.

I know that the harsh-talking, obstinant, arrogant, big-city Jew is a Hollywood movie sterotype (just like Italian/Sicilian Mafia roles), but there is no need for you to become Anti-Semitic over this.........that kind of behavior, despite stereotypes, is not characteristic of Jews as a whole. There were just a few of them at that place that were jerks, that's all.

JessePS

We got the car fixed and sold it the next day.

I am jewish, once in a while some people of my religion **** the hell out of me.

mmarshall

Your quotes and mine accidentially got mixed-up above.......in each other's "quotes".....but I understand your response. Glad it all worked out for you.

iKenn

iTrader: (1)

Um i have a story to tell. My sister was looking for a BMW to replace her 98 Honda civic. She went to the dealership and saw a few used one. She test drove and they said she could keep for the day so she did. Now i didnt go to the dealership the next day but when she got back home, she had the BMW still and was looking for Lawyer. Apparently they filled out the form where she agreed on buying it and she didnt want it. I was kinda crappy and still needed to be serviced. So they were going to sue her and for about 2 days there was so much arguing and end in the end they took the car back there was no case.

Someone almost similar happened to me this past friday. I was at the Acura Dealership because my parents thought i was too young for a lexus so i just agreed and decided to buy a used tsx or something. I went to the dealership and they had 3 in stock and they were not what i was looking for(navi). So he asked i we wanted to see the new one and i said i couldnt afford it and the sales rep said they help us keep the monthly payment low, and to at least look at it. So i did and i still didnt like it. He told me to test drive one, i wanted to leave and i said no thanks and he said "well i get 10 bucks everytime someone test drives so we can just go around the block" and i said ok but i dont like it. So we test drove it and i was saying how it was "differnt" i didnt want to say "i hate this car" (i was haveing a bad day). So we get back to the daelership and i was like "well ill have to look up more about the car and ill get back to you later, do you have a card" and the guy looks at me and said "I thought you were going to buy it" and i said uhhh no. So i ask him for a card agian and he stood there (he wasnt a very good salesperson) and after five mins he said "k let me get you my card" so im standing there and all i know is that he went to get the general manager and the GM walks up to me and asks "whats the problem" and i was like "Theres no problem, i just wanted to get a card to contact u guys back" Well he starts talking to me and keeps asking me questions and they were like the same questions but worded differently. So i got confused which got them confused. So they walk off and starts talking to my mom and she dosnt speak english and im standing there laughing becuase they are still trying to talk to her even when i told them. My mom told me to just buy the car so they would leave us alone and i was like HELL NO, im not going to buy a car form this dumb dealership. So they wouldnt let us leave untill we scheldualed a appointment for the next day because it was 30 mins till closeing. And i said ok ill be back SAturday at 4:30 and the GM says"How about 4:35" and i was like uhhh sure whatever and i left and never went back.

AM1

iTrader: (6)

dont you hate it when dealers wont take no for an answer?

Lil4X

Back in 1960 my parents had a '57 Chrysler Imperial that was the love of any schoolboy's life - luxury, sporty (Crown Southhampton), legendary Hemi power, long, low, and beautiful. When it started to fall apart after only three years, it nearly imploded. We had go shed it fast. Dad was on assignment in Argentina for six months and that meant I - a 16 year old - had to trade the family car.

We had a friend at an Oldsmobile dealership Dad had bought several cars from - I'd even bought my first one there a few months earlier. He didn't have anything on the used car lot, but would call us when he had a good one for us. Meanwhile I went looking elsewhere. I found a red and white Olds 98 on another Oldsmobile dealer's lot - it was a '59 model and it was REALLY nice. I left the Imperial with the dealer and took the Olds to a mechanic friend who discovered it had been in a flood (mildewed inner door panels, beginnings of rust under the trunk mat). It was going to be a LOT of trouble over the next year or two and needed to be junked out.

I drove back to the dealership to get the Imperial back, and after an hour or so of waiting, haggling, threats, and mutual offers to get the cops involved, I finally got the Imperial and drove off the lot. About a block away, I discovered why I had been delayed so long at the dealership: the car had been in the shop - having the speedometer turned back. Our 45K car now showed 33K.

A few weeks later, a police action at the dealership overturned a whole ring of thieves who were rolling back mileage and selling well-used cars as practically new. Some with over 50K were going out the door as "demonstrators" with 6-7K miles showing.

I may have dodged a bullet when the mechanic found my potential new car had been in a flood - but I now had a car with fraudulent mileage I had to sell. Fortunately it all worked out when our friend at the first Olds dealership called with a car for us. Not as flashy or powerful, but a good solid used car. He took the Imperial - even after we told him about the odometer and all - in trade. I guess it evened out - one good guy and one thief. Guess where we bought our next three cars?

mmarshall

Back in those days, Lil, it would have been a simple matter to just hook up the drill to the odometer cable and add back the miles that the crooked dealer took off your Imperial...and it wouldn't have been fraud; just correcting an earlier one. Could have been done in a few minutes. Did you or your dad suggest that? It would have made the car honest again.

I agree with your assessment of the '57 Imperial as big, impressive, luxurious, and powerful.....sporty, no. The car was too heavy and too slow-reacting to its steering, like most American-made cars in the 1950's.

Also, unlike most other Chrysler products (and here's something you may have forgotten), from the late '50's to the mid '60's, the Imperial had body-on frame design, like Ford and GM cars, instead of unibody like most other Chrysler products. The factory just couldn't get the low noise and vibration levels, with the engineering in those days, on the unibody-framed cars with torsion bars, and, of course, they wanted the Imperial to match the Cadillac and Lincoln in that area. That's why unibody Dodge and Plymouth models, for years, were noisier and firmer-riding than their competition...but also offered generally better handling and more freedom from rattles.

SCRUFFDOGG

Mine was at Lexus of Seattle in '02. My IS300 had a recall item and the I on the trunk had fallen off. I called to make the appointment, our first service experience with the dealership. I was told it would take 4 hours, I picked a day when my wife could drop it off at 8 am and get a loaner until noon, they confirmed all this ahead of time. She got there at 7:30 to drop the car off and waited for her loaner. About 8:15 they pull up an older Dodge Caravan from the rental place down the street, ask her to pay for the rental and they will reimburse us. She refused the rental and called me to come pick her up. We ran her errands, had some lunch and got back to the dealership at 12:30 but the car wasn't ready. They told me it would be done by closing time. We went home and I called them about 3:30, and they tell me it will be ready by 5:00. I reminded them they told be it would take about 4 hours and they said well that's for the recalled item, you added the missing emblem to the service and we didn't know about it. That's BS but ok whatever i'll pick it up at 5:00. We get there to pick up the car and WTF, the emblem isn't fixed so I ask the same guy why it's not done after that was the reason for the extra time and he tells me they didn't have one in stock and have to order it. So basically they got behind or just made a mistake on my car and couldn't just be honest about it. I made my complaints and was assured that this will not happen again, I was told I was going to receive some of those Lexus license plate frames that never showed up, blah blah blah. So 2 weeks later I get a call from a service advisor that my emblem is in. I ask him to just mail it to me, ok I need your credit card number, it's $36.79. Now they want to charge me for an emblem that fell off after 2 months well the car stayed an S300 and I was done with this dealership.

geko29

Look on the bright side.....you now have the most reliable late-model S-class on the road!

1995LS400

Dude, thats horse****!Dealer gave you the runaround. I swear that all these stealership people go to some special school to learn how to push us around. Im glad that you didnt go back.

1995LS400

Mine happened at one of the many internet auto brokers in Denver, back in early August. The car that I truely thought I was going to buy that day was located in a pretty nice area in southwest Aurora, close to Littleton. Every car at this stealership was nice, Benz, BMW, Lexus, Acura, Jaguar, etc.

Well, there she was, a 99 black on black LS 400 . Now let me remind you that I had been in Denver all day since 10 AM test driving LS's all over the city, and it was now 4:45 PM, 15 min. to closing. I get into the car and it is nice. So my dad and I take off down the road for a test drive. First thing I notice wrong is how the duct system for the AC/heat must be disconnected somewhere under the dash because there is like no air coming from the vents on the highest speed. Ok, I could probably fix that in the future. Next thing wrong, I park the car to take a really good external look at it. WTF, this thing has chrome wheels right? One of the wheels, passenger rear, is all aluminum while the rest are chrome . Then I notice that there is a healthy scrape/parallel dent on the rear passenger fender, (The kind you get from a shopping cart). Oh yeah, the tint job was ****ty too.

I take the car back, dissapointed, and told the dealer I wasnt interested. He was like wait, whats the problem. I told him about the defects. He offered me a discount for the wheel to get chrome, and for new tint. I said I need a car now with no defects because I was heading back to SD tomorrow morning. Well, he kept on trying to sell me the car with all these problems for more than book, and he wasnt gonna give me jack for my Acura Legend. I finally walked away. BTW, this 99 had 140,000 miles on the odo and they were asking $12,990.

The good part of my story. The first LS that I had test drove in Longmont on my way down to Denver was the one that I eventually bought. A 95' with 95K for $8750, not bad huh?

mole

iTrader: (3)

MIne was at a Honda Dealership in so cal, RSM. They were so crooked from the beginning, showing me the Kelly Blue Book print out on my car. It was $3K less than the print out I had carried in with me. When I said they left features off of the car and we should go to the computer they were using to do this, they stated the computer was in a secure area and I wasnt allowed in that area?

I finally go them to the price I wanted, and so I agreed to buy. While in the financing office, the manager kept putting the gap insurance in front of me to sign, and I kept reminding him that I didnt need it. He would say, "oh yeah, right, of course" since I was only financing like 40% of the car. The damn form ended in front of me like 5 times. He actually called it something else a couple of times and when I caught him and said thats the gap insurance again isnt it, he would say it was late and he was tired. The last time he put it in front of me I drew a big X across it and wrote the words decline in big letters and set the document to the side, he was pissed! He did this with other documents as well. In hindsight, I should have walked out, but it was 11:30pm and I didnt.

While trading in the car, the manager said to me so many times that there was no way my car would ever be sold on his lot because of its mileage. He repeated this over and over again. But, the day after I bought the car, my trade in was online and when I pulled into the dealership, it was up on the raised stands on the corner as their premium used car. When I asked him about it, he wouldnt make eye contact and walked away from me saying nothing.

The last deal was there were aftermarket rims on the new car. I told them I didnt want them, they said no problem, we will take them off but cant do it tonight, we will have to do it tomorrow so please be careful with our rims in the meantime. I signed a document stating that I would bring the car back. The next day they said they would make me a deal on the rims, I said no, I dont really like them. They badgered and badgered, saying that they would give them to me at thier cost. I went online and printed out cost for the exact tires and rims with pictures and showed up at the dealer and showed it them. They said their cost was much higher than that and they couldnt match it. Than they started saying they were sure they could take them back since I drive off with them on the car, that they had made a mistake and I may just have to pay for them. After backing the sales manager into a corner physically and letting him know I was about to call a lawyer and the newspaper they promptly exchanged the rims.

The bottom line is most dealerships feel like they have to lie and cheat thier customers. I love cars, but I hate new car dealerships.

Pearlpower

iTrader: (2)

Once at a Pontiac dealer so many years ago when I was 18...the salesperson and I haggled over a white Pontiac Grand Am turbo.such a nice car back then. Salesman told me to give him $700.00 to show to the finance manager that I was serious.
15 minutes goes by and I walk out and start to look for this guy whom could not be found. After getting everyone there to look for this guy it was found that he stole one of the trucks from the used car section and took my money with him! Dealership coughed up my $700 on my word and the police were there in short order. Never found out what happened after that. Never did buy that Grand Am after that.