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Well, it's all done now!

A lady friend of ours at church had recently bought a new vehicle. She was very pleased with her whole experience and so recommended a specific salesman at another dealership. After our original place blew up our deal in F&I, we were planning on visiting this other dealership anyway. But now we had a good recommendation for a specific salesman, too.

We closed the deal and picked up our new ride yesterday. We did pay slightly more than what the salesman at that first dealership where we had the problems had quoted us, but THIS dealership's F&I guy did not try to add $3,750 to our quoted price (in fact, didn't try to add ANY to the quoted price!).

I don't feel bad about the price I actually paid being a little bit more than what the first dealership quoted, because after it all fell apart there at that dealership, I realized they never intended to honor that price they gave us anyway. Here at THIS dealership, when we settled on a price, that was it - it was settled (as it should be).

Here at THIS dealership where we ended up buying, we spent probably a couple of hours with the salesman. Yeah, that's kind of a long time, but heck, I'm retired and the grandkids aren't close by, so what else do I have to do? And he was a nice, easy-going guy. Seemed like every 15 minutes or so, he would just drop off a few hundred bucks. So I figure it was time well spent!

So after finishing with the salesman, he took us to the F&I guy. Now of course, the F&I guy did try to sell us his products, too (GAP insurance, extended warranty, maintenance plan, interior/exterior car-care products, etc.). He seemed like a nice guy also, so I politely gave him about 30-60 seconds to give me his pitch for each item (since I had no intention of buying any of them, I figured not much reason to talk about them). Then after he made his (brief) offer of each item, I politely said: "No, thanks." Then he immediately moved on to his next item. No pressure at all. We spent less than 5 minutes total going over all of the products he was trying to sell, then we moved on to the paperwork for the vehicle. He printed out the sales & finance paperwork and gave it to me. I took a couple of minutes to look it over (and lo and behold, all the numbers were exactly the same as what were on the salesman's sheet!). I signed all the papers there, and we were done. In and out of the F&I guy's office in about 15 minutes, and that included a few minutes of chit-chat about kids & grandkids, etc.

So we ended up buying the exact same model, color, engine, trim level and everthing there at THIS dealership that we almost did at the first dealership, and for a very good price.

As it turned out, my wife was unavailable when the car was ready to be picked up, so the salesman said he would drive it the 25 miles up to my place out in the country if I wanted him to. So I told him sure, bring it on. I told him I'd even make it easy on him - I would drive him back to the dealership so he wouldn't have to bring an extra driver with him (figured it would also give me a chance to have him go over some of the many features of the "infotainment" stuff). But it ended up that instead of us talking about the car as I drove him back to the dealership, we spent the whole half-hour drive talking about kids, jobs, where we grew up, etc. Had a very nice little non-business type visit.

So, a great car-buying experience. Exact vehicle we wanted, very good price, no high pressure negotiations, no funny business with the numbers, quick and simple in F&I, and vehicle delivered to my place 25 miles away. Just the way it should be!

If anyone's interested and in the market for a new vehicle in the far North Dallas area, we dealt with David Perry at El Dorado Chevrolet in McKinney.

Thanks to everyone with all your specific recommendations. Apparently there is a disproportionate number of scum-bags in even the NEW car sales business. So I'm glad to hear that others have had good experiences as well.

For anyone reading this thread that is in the market for a new vehicle, pay attention to the recommendations from the various folks in this thread. I've found that personal recommendations will be a great help to you, as opposed to just walking cold-contact into a dealership and dealing with the first guy who meets you at the door.

So now I've got to go start reading the manual to try to figure out what the heck ALL these BUTTONS are for!

Good news. I called my credit card company this morning. They transferred me to the GM Redemption Center. I explained the situation to a gentleman there. He put me on hold, then came back literally about one minute later and said: "Ok, your rewards balance has been restored." Very nice.

Since that dealership unintentionally gave us the opportunity, we ended up spending most of the day today looking at other brands, other dealerships. No bad experiences, but no serious negotiations, either. Just looking and test driving for now. We will also be going to a different GM dealer this week to see what they can do on the same model that we almost bought this past weekend. After I check with them, then we'll be ready to make a decision.

This is why I hate dealing with new car dealers. But honestly, even with all this mess, it really has been easier this time, because of my attitude. I have finally figured out that I'M the one in the driver's seat! (A little play on words, eh?) Seriously, I have felt no pressure this time (other than the moment I figured out that the guy was literally trying to steal my $2,000 rewards money!)

And thanks for all the responses from everyone. I've looked them all over, and have actually learned a few things! It's just amazing to me how many people have similar bad experiences with car dealers. I just don't get why they think they can get away with those old tactics, especially today.

I'll update if any other "interesting" stuff happens. And thanks again to everyone.

Soccerdad1995 wrote:And please name the dealership so we all know to avoid any business with these scoundrels.

Even though every word I've said is absolutely true, in this day and age, I'm hesitant to name names on a public forum. Might even be against forum rules, I don't know. But, if you're thinking about purchasing a Chevy in Grayson county, feel free to PM me.

Long, but may be interesting and/or enlightening.

Well, as of Saturday morning, I thought my wife and I would be driving a new car to church on Sunday. But, as the thread title implies, we were in our old car at church Sunday morning instead!

So we spent most of Friday afternoon at a local new car dealership, looking at various vehicles and driving some. We settled on what we wanted, then went in to start the blood-letting - umm, I mean "negotiations."

That part actually went pretty well. Sales guy only went back and forth to the sales manager three times, and I only had to haggle with the sales manager one time when he came in to take over for the salesman. Normally, I would expect to have to do more of that, but we actually ended up with a very good price that I was happy with. By now, it was late, and the bank I'm using to finance it was closed, so I told them we would be back in the morning to finish up the paperwork. They wanted me to go ahead and drive "our" new car home, but I thanked them and said we would wait until everything is done first.

So we showed back up Saturday morning. Everybody's all smiles. Wife and I are all smiles, salesman is all smiles, F&I guy that my salesman hands us off to is all smiles. Everybody's happy. It's gonna be a great day!

And it starts off well with the F&I guy. But apparently he didn't get the word, so I can tell he's disappointed to learn that I've decided to go with my own financing rather than using theirs. That means he and the dealer don't get their cut of the financing deal, and he doesn't get to try to sell me his overpriced GAP insurance. So he moves on from there and pitches me the extended warranty. "No thanks, not interested" I tell him. He tries a little bit more on that, but gives up pretty quickly. The smile that was on his face is now clearly a frown, but he trudges on.

About now, I tell him: "Oh, by the way, I have $2,000 worth of rewards points on my GM credit card that I will want to redeem, so pull that off the top, too." So he sort of grouses under his breath a little and whacks on his computer keyboard a minute or two, then prints out the actual contract with all the money numbers and puts it in front of me to sign.

So I'm looking it over, and see that the top starting number is $3,750 HIGHER than the number that the sales guys and I had settled on. So I say to the guy: "What's this number?"

He replies: "Well, you're doing your own financing, so you lost the $750 incentive to use OUR financing." (Which was really not true, since the price I had negotiated I was not counting on any manufacturer incentives). But, I just set that aside in my mind for a moment, because we were still $3,000 over our agreed price and I just wanted to see where he was going with that.

So then I said: "Ok, so then what about all this other money that's still above our agreed price." He says: "Well, we've got to show that the $2,000 that you're redeeming that goes on the top of the price we settled on."

When I hear that, I suddenly get pretty hot under the collar (but nothing drastic, still under control). He's telling me that instead of taking OFF the $2,000 that I'm redeeming (which is my OWN money, NOT GM money or dealership money), he's ADDING it ON the price, so he can then take it back off.

And I never even got far enough to ask where that one more extra $1,000 above our agreed-on price came from.

So at this point, I just lean back in the chair and say: "That ain't gonna cut it. Better go get the sales manager." So he storms out and is gone for just a minute or two and comes back by himself and says: "Yep, sales manager says that's the deal."

My wife and I immediately stand up together and I say: "Ok, I guess we're done." And we walk out, get into our old car, and drive off.

So the search continues...

Except now, I've got to call my credit card company on Monday and find out how to get my rewards money back, because I got an email Sunday morning thanking me for redeeming my points and hoping I'm enjoying my new car that I purchased from XYZ dealership!!!

Sigh...