dealership experiance
 

well im supposed to finally take delivery of my tC today as the date for delivery was thrown back because one of the salesmen backed a sienna into it and scuffed the bumper. which the dealership would have to replace. im pretty ____ed about this dealership experiance because the first day after the weekend that i traded in my old vehicle and signed all the papers they forget to send it to the body shop and finalley when they did send it in the _______s sent it to a sub par body shop in town i know does shoddy work. it took them a week to paint the back bumper and bring it back just to have the lot manager say that the paint job was sub par. so they send it to the other dch dealership in oxnard. my new car is now nearing 230+ miles plus damage. not to mention it took them an extra day to get the stereo in. around 5 pm today im supposed to get my car. i still have not even driven it but they are expecting the 8th of the new year.
yeah.
not only did it take them forever to pay off my trade in that my credit union deducted the usual payment which the dealership now has to reimburse.
simi valley toyota really disappointed me.
alot of interal conflicts and dealership politics got in the way of my car and i am a very displeased customer.

SOrry to hear your problems.

I personally WOULD NOT take delivery of a car that has 230 miles on it and damage repair. You do not have to take this car if you do not want to. Its up to you and I know you want your NEW car. But i would be real unhappy.

Good luck with it.

You need to ask for a different tC or just go to a different dealership. just my .02

Dude, I work at a Scion/Toyota dealership(Assistant Service Manager-also used to be in car sales). You do not own the car you "bought" until you drive it off the lot. You can get out of it. Demand your car back or a new TC the same way you want it. If they cant give you your car back, they need to give you a loaner/provide you with transportation. Either way get out of taking the car they are trying to get you to take. Thats BS

Tell them to give you a discounted price or youll go to a different dealer and get a "NEW" car.

When I bought my car I refused a TC with 63 miles on it, much less 230 miles.

i said no to anything over 5 miles.

well i still haven't recieved a call from the dealership and there is a good chance im either going to threaten them because my brothers dealership will get one in 3-4 days new, for free stuff. or just really ream the car salesman as he has been pretty shady and this whole dealership experiance would not have made me pro toyota had i not had a bunch of good experiances with my brothers dealership.
either way i wouldnt reccomend simi valley dch toyota to anyone. im sure they have their good salesmen and good customer experiances but they really didnt impress me.
thanks everyone for your input but im still torn as to what i should do because i need a ride to work and they already took my trade in to some other dealership.

I have to ask at this point why - when you "advertise" your bro's dealership, that you didn't buy from him to begin with?

Scott

That ain't gonna happen. They can't without risking loosing inventory is Scion catches them.

There are reasons to buy a car with miles on it. I'm not going to defend this dealership as it sounds like they did some really stupid/crappy things, but the miles may not be their fault.

I run our Scion franchise and I often get calls from other dealerships asking to trade cars. If I have a car in stock that another dealership has a deal on, I'll usually let them have the car. I do this because I frequently have to do the same thing to fill a customer order. Its just a courtesy. The problem is, I end up with cars on my lot that have miles on them. Some are fairly high miles (I have three right now with 170 miles).

Because of the Scion dealer agreement, I can't discount these cars. Since I have a decent intentory at the moment, these cars are going to be sitting a while. By spring, we'll likely be out of cars again and any Scion will be in high demand. At that point, a customer who is unwilling to wait for a "fresh" car will buy it. Its a PITA to have a car like this sitting in inventory for so long, but eventually, somebody will want it and there is nothing wrong with it.

Can't you guys flatbed transfer cars? I would not buy a car with more than 10 miles on it if was "new" unless I got a discount - and likely not even then.

Scott

Flatbedding isn't and option. The difference between invoice and retail is only $850 to begin with and there is no dealer holdback. The cost of flatbedding a car 200 miles would eat up a good portion of that. It just wouldn't make sense.

If a person is patient, we can get cars fresh delivered to us. That can sometimes mean waiting 6 to 8 weeks and if a person wants to do that, we'll get them a car with 1 miles on it. Others are not so concerned about miles but want one right away. Fors those people, it doesn't matter that a car has 200 miles and no discount is required. Different people have different priorities. Besides, most people will have 200 miles on it in less than a week anyway so it really doesn't matter in the big picture.

Oh, don't get me wrong - I totally understand what you're doing, but I was thinking - and didn't state this - that for those who want it quick, and no miles, you could charge them extra to get the thing trucked over...

I agree tho - you can have it quick but you have to take a small hit somewhere...

Scott

--Besides, most people will have 200 miles on it in less than a week anyway so it really doesn't matter in the big picture.--

I personally dont think this is true. Yes I will have 200 miles on it in a week, but I know where those 200 miles came from. I want to be positive that they werent from some Scion tech taking it out for a joy ride and beating the crap out of it for 4 hours on a saturday morning. I want to be sure that is wasnt some 16 yr old kid test driving it that has never driven a stick and burnt the clutch out for 200 miles.
200 miles driven on a car that no one owns and cares about, have the potential of being 200 VERY HARD miles on a brand new engine.

^^^ Exactamundo. But that's me. I'm sure that some people are responsible and wouldn't do that - I just don't want to risk it.
Breaking in any engine is very important to the life of the engine. I want to be the one that does it.

Scott

Its actually not difficult to figure this out. First, if a car was sold once and had to be returned due to financing issues, the dealer has to have you sign a "prior use statement." A failure to do so opens them up to huge liability, but you should ask anyway.

Most cars with miles are a result of dealer exchanges. If you see a car on the lot with 200 miles, look at the window sticker. It will show the name and location of the dealer it was originally sent to. If that store is about 200 miles away, you know exactly how the miles go there.

Incidently, do you have any data on how hard use effects the engine? I'm with you on the clutch, but there really isn't anything you can do to an engine today, short of running it past red line or without oil. Neither of those things can happen to a new car in the first 200 miles.

I guess its all the "piece of mind" thing. I payed 20 grand for a car, I wanna be the only driver type deal. Kinda weird and probably dumb but thats just me. I understand how people feel 200 miles is still brand new. And I respect that, but i think the wait is worth it.

Im not too worry if its an auto. Ive seen so many people who claim they drive manual but they have not done it in a while and they totally suck at it. So i think with high mileage there must have been a good number of people test drove it. When I said "NEW" I didnt mean the 200 miles mileage, I meant the body damage.

Now that's an honest answer and I respect that. A monkey could drive the car and not damage it (other than the clutch), but if you're just not comfortable, that's your perogitive. Personally, I think you're making things harder on yourself than you need to, but its your money and time and you have every right to make that decision.

Body damage MUST be disclosed as well. If they don't and you discover it years later, you can go back and make them buy back the car. Its a pretty serious deal.