On this forum, i think we are lucky to have a group of nice sponsors and they seem to be real stand up guys and i'm sure they run a good dealership. Unfortunately, there are those of us didn't buy our cars at Fusz, Fontana, or Koeppel or any of our great forum sponsors. So for those of us who happened to have bad dealer experiences POST them up, but please do not include any specific information about the name/location of the dealer, as often times, these bad experiences can be caused by accident, or the fault of one person, and its not fair to punish an entire dealership and hurt their reputation because of something that could have just been a misunderstanding. Needless to say, here is mine:
First, i'd like to mention that working with the general managers and the people who got me the car was an absolute pleasure, however my experience with financing dept at my dealership has left me feeling frustrated.
1. When i bought my altima, my dad cosigned on the loan with me so i could get a better interest rate. The finance manager accidentally put the loan in his name, and I got 0 credit for paying the loan.
2. Several days before picking up my Z, i was in touch with the finance manager at my dealer. all i asked was for her to get me the best interest rate she could and let me know what it was. I told her i was financing 10k and paying the rest down. She sent me a bunch of BS dealer options and stalled on sending the rate. by the time she got it to me (5.75%) i had no time to get financing elsewhere. Then i spoke with one of the GM's there and explained and he called the bank and got me 5%
3. This car being the 5th car between my parents and myself that we had bought from this dealer owner (nissan/infiniti), the week before i picked up the car i asked if i could pay with a personal check, or if i needed a cashiers check. The GM asked the owner and the owner said 'are you kidding, a personal check is fine, they are some of my best customers'. So after waiting to hours and watching the financing manager pace arond the showroom and joking around with the salesmen, i finally get seen, we do the transaction and i go to take out my personal check for 29k, and she looks at me like i just pulled out a severed human hand and says with an attitude 'you can't pay with a personal check.' i said go ask the owner, she says he's not there, but they can do one contract now without my downpayment, and then IF my check clears they'll rip up that one and make the one with the downpayment live. i'm like... NO thanks, call the owner. He bitched her out on the phone and she was like... 'you can pay with the personal check' BUT did not apologize.
4. During the meeting with the Finance manager, with an attitude, she noted to me that i would receive TWO loan declination letters because my credit wasn't good enough to qualify (because i had little credit history b/c the LAST finance manager ****** up). However, i still wondered how i could have gotten declined for a 10k 3 year loan.... long story short i get the letter and she had applied for my loans for 18k for 72 months.... surprise.
5. a weeks AFTER i have my car, she calls me and tells me that my first payment was late. i'm like ... 'i haven't even had the car 2 weeks, much less a month... and you haven't sent me the coupon book or billing information yet' turns out she put the first payment as DUE on the date of purchase by accident, skewing the whole contract and interest calculation so she now needs me to come back and sign a new contract. i tell her, send me the address of the bank, and i'll send a check, i'm not coming in to sign another contract.' she says i have to or my car could be repossesed. She said they would send another contract via fed ex. ( i was away from home at the time, so i asked them to send a copy of the OLD contract so i could compare to make sure nothing was changed outside of the slight difference in financing charged based on the due date of the first payment.... of course, she forgot'
