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Baller Witness Bro posted:Why are you letting them do that when you already replaced them? He's waiting to  when he tells them they're stuck to get him to take the car again.
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Feb 24, 2014 23:00
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IOwnCalculus posted:Some dealers (like every Earnhardt shop here) are just scumbags the whole way down. Who I bought my SRT from. Buying it was a nightmare and getting it serviced was a nightmare. I wish I could find the picture I took of the stock boost gauge reading 3 PSI with the car off and the service invoice said "Cust states boost inop. No fault found."
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Feb 24, 2014 23:17
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Baller Witness Bro posted:Why are you letting them do that when you already replaced them? Because I wanted to show them that they were not actually stuck, and inform them of a problem with the service they provided, i.e. rub it in their stupid faces. It was kind of a dick move, but they gave my family members a completely unsafe to drive vehicle, so I think they deserved it.
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Feb 24, 2014 23:24
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Tell us what happened 
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Feb 25, 2014 01:10
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Well, I talked to the service writer a bit and asked why we needed to replace all the calipers plus the master cylinder and booster, and got a written estimate for $2574 to do all of the work. He said that he was told all the bleed screws were rusted and stuck and offered to put the car on the lift to show me. I said that would be great. He came back in about ten minutes later pretty confused about how the calipers all had brand new bleed screws. So then I told them about how I had changed them all, that only one of the screws could be considered "stuck," and bled the brakes myself (and I even did the abs pump with a snap-on scan tool). He was pretty surprised, and as a service writer and not a mechanic he can really only go by what he's being told by the tech, who was nowhere to be found. He assured me he would talk to the service manager and that they would talk to the tech about it. I also mentioned the pre-bent line kit I had ordered and told him that it didn't make sense for us to have any more work done at their dealership. Hopefully they will do something to correct this or try to do a better job in the future but it's a huge place and I kind of doubt they care a whole lot after the attitude I got from the service manager last week. I did not mention that I'm writing a letter to GM. Personally, as someone who has been a mechanic and a service writer and now owner of a parts/consulting business I would much rather have someone tell me about the problems they have and call me out on my mistakes instead of just disappearing (or bitching about it on the internet. oops). jamal fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Feb 25, 2014 |
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Feb 25, 2014 01:58
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Who else could you talk to about that? The State AG? That seems like a pretty good case of fraud.
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Feb 25, 2014 02:26
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FatCow posted:Who else could you talk to about that? The State AG? That seems like a pretty good case of fraud. They're listed as A+ on BBB's website and they've been registered since 1990, so that might be a good place to nail them. Ears usually perk up when the BBB gets mentioned.
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Feb 25, 2014 02:33
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xzzy posted:They're listed as A+ on BBB's website and they've been registered since 1990, so that might be a good place to nail them. Ears usually perk up when the BBB gets mentioned. I work for a company that has absolutely nothing to do with automotive but cares a lot about its BBB record, and this is 100% true. poo poo hits the fan around here when our rating is threatened. If they pride themselves on that rating, and you'd think they would if they've had it that long, that's a good avenue to take to get a fast and satisfying result.
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Feb 25, 2014 02:50
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Feb 25, 2014 02:57
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The fact that despite everything they decided to throw an apostrophe in there, and managed to misplace it so badly, is what really sells it for me. ninja edit: wait a star of david? what in the gently caress?
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Feb 25, 2014 03:57
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Slavvy posted:The fact that despite everything they decided to throw an apostrophe in there, and managed to misplace it so badly, is what really sells it for me. Jesus was Jewish, mane.
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Feb 25, 2014 04:01
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Maker Of Shoes posted:Who I bought my SRT from. Buying it was a nightmare and getting it serviced was a nightmare. My favorite Earnhardt experience was riding along as Car Guy on a go-back with my mom. She assumed she was getting the "stupid middle-aged woman" treatment. I assumed she was too. And then her service advisor proceeded to tell me that the neon green explosion emanating from around the low-side fitting couldn't possibly be a refrigerant leak because the dye is invisible. So I pulled the cap off the port and asked him to explain the same clearly visible, neon green Mopar dye on the valve. "I don't know what that is or how it got there," he answered, "but it's not leak detection dye and it isn't coming from the HVAC system." He then made some hilariously sexist comment about women being car-stupid, even if they're your mom, and dismissed himself. Up until that day, I'd never been seriously concerned about my mother murdering anyone. The service writer at indie shop down the street, through some kind of uncanny superhuman mutant powers, identified the problem as soon as he popped the hood.
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Feb 25, 2014 08:20
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Molten Llama posted:My favorite Earnhardt experience was riding along as Car Guy on a go-back with my mom. She assumed she was getting the "stupid middle-aged woman" treatment. I assumed she was too. Earnhardt stories are always "terrible car stuff". I once managed to get one of their sales reps (at the Chandler Earnhardt Ford / Mazda shop) to blow up mid-showroom and storm off because I wasn't playing his stupid four-square game. At the time I was pissed too because we'd just wasted hours trying to negotiate on any of the ~10 2004/2005 Mazdaspeed Miatas sitting on their lot (this was in 2006 mind you, and these were all new, unused, never-titled cars that had been there for years) but in hindsight I think he was just mad that his magic tactics of writing numbers in different ways and sticking a bow on the page didn't work. Earnhardt Dodge once sold my aunt a previously-salvaged minivan without disclosing it. They decided not to sue when they took the van back and gave my uncle what I understand was a beyond-smoking deal on a Cummins-powered Ram. I'm pretty sure it was also Earnhardt Dodge that worked on a friend's Sebring. It wouldn't start, and aside from the painfully obvious problem of being a Sebring, it seemed like it wasn't getting any fuel. Lacking the tools / desire / time to do any more than that, I told her to take it to a shop, where they ever so helpfully made her pay for a new $150 battery before they'd look into anything else. Nevermind that the battery was merely soft from all of the repeated and failed attempts to start it. So, yeah, gently caress Tex Earnhardt and his entire chain of lovely dealerships.
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Feb 25, 2014 18:41
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IOwnCalculus posted:Earnhardt Dodge They hosed me so raw. Suckered me into the 4square game, tried to sneak a $750 no name alarm in during finance, drilled for a front plate after me asking them specifically not to and dicked me around on a lot of service calls. The alarm one was full of wtf. I noticed it on the option sheet and I asked "This car only has one option from the factory and it isn't an alarm. Take it off." They fought me for 15 minute about removing it and they finally relented. 6 or so years later my car wouldn't start. I hear a strange clicking noise in the steering column. I dig around and find this:  Among other things, it was bypassing the ignition. Disconnected the battery, cut the mystery box (which was the alarm they never took out, just turned "off") out with a knife and repaired the stock harness over the course of a weekend. Car continues to start fine now. gently caress those assholes so hard.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:09
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So the only way to avoid the 4 square bullshit is to come in with a price you want to pay for the car, a price you must have for your trade-in and preapproved financing correct? I was surprised when I bought my 11 TDI that I didn't get much runaround at all. I told them how much I'd pay for the car and what I wanted for my trade. But then I made them pay for the cost of moving my full custom stereo from the trade-in to the new car and put the factory system back in the trade in. Ended up costing them 1800 buck. This was after getting the car for invoice. It's kind of nice to actually get one over on the dealership for once.
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Feb 26, 2014 16:10
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How did moving the stereo cost 1800 dollars?
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Feb 26, 2014 16:18
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Probably running amp power wires, fuses, custom speaker sizes, and associated labor charge for such.
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Feb 26, 2014 16:37
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veedubfreak posted:So the only way to avoid the 4 square bullshit is to come in with a price you want to pay for the car, a price you must have for your trade-in and preapproved financing correct? I was surprised when I bought my 11 TDI that I didn't get much runaround at all. I told them how much I'd pay for the car and what I wanted for my trade. But then I made them pay for the cost of moving my full custom stereo from the trade-in to the new car and put the factory system back in the trade in. Ended up costing them 1800 buck. This was after getting the car for invoice. It's kind of nice to actually get one over on the dealership for once. VW runs their dealerships differently, the norm is they don't push sales tactics as hard. When I was car shopping last year I was considering a TDI and the sales guy basically dropped the keys in my hand and pointed where it was on the lot, told me and my wife to go take it for a drive. I ended up not buying it but it was a pretty unique experience.. he told me straight up how much it would cost and didn't try any bullshit. When I got the car I did end up buying, I got pre-approved by my bank for the loan, found the car I wanted on a dealer's website, then walked into the showroom and told them I was there to buy it. This seemed to short circuit all the haggling bullcrap. They pushed really loving hard to give me a loan under their own terms, I guess they get a pretty good kickback on that stuff. But I think I spent less than an hour total on the premises.
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Feb 26, 2014 16:48
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xzzy posted:They pushed really loving hard to give me a loan under their own terms, I guess they get a pretty good kickback on that stuff. Sales usually get 20% of the front end profit and 5% of the back end. So yeah.....they're always gonna want to try to finance you. In fact, they'll often sell cars for 0 front end so they can get manufacturer spiffs (volume kickbacks) + their back end. The end of the month or quarter is usually a good time for this as they're coming up on their deadline. Some dealerships can't even make it without the spiffs. To the point where people at the dealership are buying cars to make that last unit they need.
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Feb 26, 2014 17:23
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Motronic posted:Sales usually get 20% of the front end profit and 5% of the back end. So yeah.....they're always gonna want to try to finance you. In fact, they'll often sell cars for 0 front end so they can get manufacturer spiffs (volume kickbacks) + their back end. The end of the month or quarter is usually a good time for this as they're coming up on their deadline.
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Feb 26, 2014 17:27
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I bought my last car simply because it was the first dealership that didn't try to sell me something I couldn't afford when I told the sales guy what I was looking for. I'm looking for a 4cyl sedan with a manual transmission for under $10,000. Oh, well here is this car for $12,500. That is out of my price range. No it isn't, take for a ride, lets do some paper work. I think I'll try somewhere else. At one place I actually did humor the dealer and went through the song and dance because it was a nice Mazda 3 with low miles despite being out of my price range. The payments were like just over the edge of being safe and I was considering it and the sales manager came over to "seal the deal" by saying, you bought a $10,000 motorcycle (which wasn't true I paid $6300 for it so I don't know where he got that number) what's the big deal! You can't even ride that in winter! Pro tip, if you're trying to convince somebody to buy something they aren't sure they can afford you don't insult the prior purchases on their credit report and then make light of the purchase they are thinking of making.
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Feb 26, 2014 17:42
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veedubfreak posted:So the only way to avoid the 4 square bullshit is to come in with a price you want to pay for the car, a price you must have for your trade-in and preapproved financing correct? I was surprised when I bought my 11 TDI that I didn't get much runaround at all. I told them how much I'd pay for the car and what I wanted for my trade. But then I made them pay for the cost of moving my full custom stereo from the trade-in to the new car and put the factory system back in the trade in. Ended up costing them 1800 buck. This was after getting the car for invoice. It's kind of nice to actually get one over on the dealership for once. This is pretty much how I've bought both of the dealership cars I've bought since then, yes. Email negotiations to the dealer(s) in question until I get an out-the-door price I want.
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Feb 26, 2014 17:48
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Baller Witness Bro posted:How did moving the stereo cost 1800 dollars? Labor mostly. They had Car Toys do the 2 installs. They had to buy the wiring harness for the nav unit, extra harness for steering wheel controls, custom fiberglass box that fits in the wheelwell. poo poo adds up fast, and I knew it was going to be more of a pain in the rear end than I wanted to deal with. They tried to lowball me on my trade, so that was what I told them needed to be done or I was walking. It was also a car that someone ordered then backed out on, so I got free winter mats and the rear organizer mat thrown in free. I won't feel too bad trading this one in after only 3 1/2 years because I made out like a bandit when I bought it.
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Feb 26, 2014 18:57
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IOwnCalculus posted:This is pretty much how I've bought both of the dealership cars I've bought since then, yes. Email negotiations to the dealer(s) in question until I get an out-the-door price I want. I do that and then watch the numbers very carefully though-out the whole process. Make sure you know what tax/tags should be in your state. We had an agreed upon via email lease payment jump up in the back room as they had "accidentally" added an extended warranty to the deal. It was scummy and on a leased vehicle made no sense at all.
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Feb 26, 2014 19:30
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IOwnCalculus posted:Four-Square gently caress Four-Square. gently caress Four-Square forever. I used to sell Harleys in Ann Arbor and we used FS. As a salesman for Harley-Davidson I was a professional liar and cheat. It's been fourteen years since I worked there and I'm still embarrassed by it.
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Feb 26, 2014 20:06
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Um, excuse my ignorance but what's four-square? I'm just getting that location based social networking thing when searching and can't figure out how it ties in to car sales.
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Feb 26, 2014 20:09
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http://consumerist.com/2007/03/30/dealerships-rip-you-off-with-the-four-square-heres-how-to-beat-it/ It's a sales technique that involves writing a bunch of vague numbers very quickly in order to confuse and screw you. When I bought my Subie, I was both relieved and a little disappointed that they didn't try to four-square me.
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Feb 26, 2014 20:15
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http://www.edmunds.com/car-loan/four-square-basics.html It's a way to confuse people into spending more money on total price of the car by playing with the monthly numbers.
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Feb 26, 2014 20:17
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There's variations on it too, it may not be an actual four squares. They'll take an innocent sheet of scrap paper and fold it in half, then start writing numbers and circling other numbers and blasting you with questions and flipping the sheet around and basically just trying to breed confusion. I've only bought from a dealer twice in my life, but the most important lesson I've discovered is to make sure you get the financing secured before you go to a dealer. That eliminates an immense quantity of the bullshit.
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Feb 26, 2014 20:24
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xzzy posted:I've only bought from a dealer twice in my life, but the most important lesson I've discovered is to make sure you get the financing secured before you go to a dealer. That eliminates an immense quantity of the bullshit. If the dealerships have the 0% financing going on, you can haggle yourself a good deal. Usually when they have 0%, they're getting that money back by bumping up the price of the car. If you haggle down and then get the 0%, it's pretty nice. I bought a 2013 Escape for the wife last year, and we managed to get it to a price lower than the months without 0%, with the 0% financing. High volume cars are good starting places for deals because you can play the dealers against each other. Also, check every single item on the invoice. They tried to get a $750 tire warranty / nitrogen thing in.
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Feb 26, 2014 20:31
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Thankfully my dealer experience wasn't so scummy, I've never experienced the 4 square run around, only issue I had was one dealer where we agreed upon a $19k price but they tried sticking us with 7% financing so we walked. 7% on a new car, where I can go to the next dealer and get 0% financing, which is exactly what we did. Heard the usual "that's as low as we'll go" right before they go down another few hundred a couple times and the "we're loosing money on this" pity play but otherwise was fairly pain/pressure free. They were really open with the numbers and didn't try to hide extras or distract us with a whole bunch of different figures, going through paperwork they offered a myriad of extra's like the extended warranty, tire warranty, undercoating, paint protection, etc, but a quick and simple "no" to each and it wasn't an issue. I didn't feel like they were trying to push anything too much, other than just mentioning it and letting us say no. I ended up with a price I was happy with and I'm pretty sure they made a decent profit. Well, onto terrible car stuff, was trying to find an old picture to throw up in my thread and stumbled across these gems that were lost in time: This one must have taken some creative driving, straight road, clear conditions, no other cars in sight. The driver was giving me the stink eye for taking pictures.  Someone had a bad night, maybe a theft victim and they torched the car after a joyride?  Talented Manitoba drivers   Speed an Class  The blurriness is saving your eyes from a terrible contraption  And the piece de resistance:    Owner is a former friend who turned out to be a compulsive liar with a need to one-up everything. The above is supposedly valued at over $20k, its transmission designed for neutral drops, and the colour is "Ferrari red". My friends and I affectionately refer to it as the goldfish, as it's colour and gaping mouth reminds us of a goldfish.
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Feb 26, 2014 21:15
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Bajaha posted:The blurriness is saving your eyes from a terrible contraption Are those MG stickers on the back?
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Feb 26, 2014 21:18
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They appear to be, why a prelude owner threw those on with everything else he/she has on 
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Feb 26, 2014 21:43
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CroatianAlzheimers posted:gently caress Four-Square. gently caress Four-Square forever. I used to sell Harleys in Ann Arbor and we used FS. As a salesman for Harley-Davidson I was a professional liar and cheat. It's been fourteen years since I worked there and I'm still embarrassed by it. Serious question: did test-rides involve making them park in a crowded area so people compliment them on the bike?
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Feb 26, 2014 22:07
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Feb 26, 2014 22:52
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Slavvy posted:Serious question: did test-rides involve making them park in a crowded area so people compliment them on the bike? That HD dealer training material someone linked in a CA thread was pure gold. Do you remember what thread it was in?
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Feb 26, 2014 23:05
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Overheard stupid bike poo poo IIRC. I want to know if they actually do that, though.
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Feb 26, 2014 23:06
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Slavvy posted:Overheard stupid bike poo poo IIRC. I want to know if they actually do that, though. Found it: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3419867&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=72#post416618183
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Feb 26, 2014 23:23
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Pham Nuwen posted:Found it: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3419867&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=72#post416618183 HD rider trap: a road leading to a T intersection with a large, immovable obstacle across the road from the leg of the T. Mirrored glass storefront windows down both sides. Send rider in, then laugh.
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Feb 26, 2014 23:47
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Slavvy posted:Serious question: did test-rides involve making them park in a crowded area so people compliment them on the bike? Hahahaha, no. If I remember correctly, all you needed was a cycle endorsement on your license and you could take a used bike for a test ride. Used or a demo. We usually had enough used bikes around so that if you were looking for a particular new model we had a used one for test riding. That job sucked a bag of dicks, but drat did I love bike delivery day.
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Feb 27, 2014 01:34
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