"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
09/17/2014 at 11:57 • Filed to: None
6
19|
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
09/17/2014 at 11:57 • Filed to: None | 6
| 19 |
I'm not one to complain about dealerships. I've had far more good experiences than bad, and most of the bad ones weren't THAT bad. But I recently had a dealership experience that was so bad, I thought I had time traveled back to the 1950's. I thought you'd all like to hear about it.
My wife and I have been looking for a new !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! One of the vehicles we're interested in is the Ford Flex. A new Ecoboost Flex is out of the budget, but I thought MAYBE if they throw us a good enough deal, we can stretch enough to make it happen. But only if it's fun enough to be worth the extra cost. There aren't too many Ecoboost Flexi around, so I went to the closest dealer that had two of them, Al Piemonte Ford. They even had a brown one ... BROWN!
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We get to the lot, and they're playing Rod Stewart's "If You Want My Body" over the intercom. My wife burst out laughing. We walked into the showroom, and were greeted by the smell of perfume and BO, and then by salesman Matt, who smelled of smoke. Matt informs us that the brown one was sold (sad face), and the white one is in the process of being sold (there were people sitting in it right outside the showroom), but they do have a silver one in the showroom. I pointed out the big ass dent in the hood of it, and Matt cheerily informed me that the dent would, "Save you lots of money." I decide to not to mention the fact that I'm so bored of silver, that this car was out of the question anyways.
He offered to have it pulled out of the showroom to test it, and my wife said we could save the trouble and test drive a used one, if they have any. Matt assured us they did, and led us out to the used lot, and lit a cigarette. Pure balls. I let it slide, because I wanted to drive one of these things in a bad way. We walked past a silver '14 Flex, which Matt said, "That's a Limited, so it won't have the Ecoboost." Limited, is in fact the only trim level that Ford puts the Ecoboost motor into. We continued on. "That's a 2012, so it won't have the Ecoboost." OOOOKKKKKKK. "That's also a 2012, so it won't either." We walk back to the first one, and he says, "Oh, this one is an Ecoboost, I'll go get the keys!"
My wife and I are so flabbergasted, that it doesn't even occur to me to read the window sticker. She noticed what appeared to be two strips of duct tape residue at the top of the windshield. He takes a while, we consider just leaving, but I really wanted to drive one of these. Matt finally comes back, we hop in. As I adjust the seat from gangster lean, to normal driving position, I smell smoke, and not just Matt. A side note about myself, both of my parents were heavy smokers, inside the house, in the car, they loved to smoke. So if I can smell the smoke, its bad. Then I noticed the little grey specs all over the dash board and the center console ... they hadn't even cleaned the damn ashes out of the car.
We pulled out of the dealership and into heavy traffic. I asked Matt where we could go to open it up a bit, and he directs me through a neighborhood, and into an industrial alley. The alley is basically all pothole, and it's only 2-1/2 blocks long, but I let it it rip as best I can. I am not impressed. I whip a U-ey (I am impressed by the turning radius), and punch it again. Meh. Head back to the dealership.
We tell Matt we aren't interested in it, because it's smoked in. He confidently declares, "I don't care, I can get any smell out of here. This car is 33 thousand." We thank him for his time, and go to leave. He directs us to pull around front so they can evaluate our trade. My wife and I exchange glances, then get in the car and leave. Once in the car me wife asks, "Wait, does he think he's selling us a car?"
As we pull out, I declared that the Ecoboost is not worth the price of admission. We headed to another dealer to drive a normal one, and hopefully to cleans our palettes from that expreience. Dave an Willowbrook Ford was excellent, friendly, and extremely knowledgeable about the product. We didn't care for the only one they had in stock. Ford calls it grey, but it looks like old-man-tan to me. We may still do business with him, if we can find one with the options we want, which has proven to be quite difficult.
The next day I was thinking about how the SEL Flex we drove at Willowbrook, felt EXACTLY like the Limited Ecoboost Flex we drove at Al Piemonte. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Yep, not an Ecoboost at all. Oh, and they're asking $3,000 less than Matt quoted me.
thedevilinside
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:09 |
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The good thing out of the wasted time is you know not to go back to that dealer, only worse things will happen there.
wabbalosthiskey
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:10 |
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It's always amazing how limited the knowledge is of most salespeople. They sell the same set of car models all day every day, yet can't keep track of the details (as you said, Limited doesn't have Ecoboost??). I think it's a testament to how lazy they are, which is why most have the job in the first place. No other skills, commission, must be easy. Attracts a certain type of person.
Not to say there aren't some great career salesmen, there are. The ones that are enthusiasts and really get into what they do, soak up the details, and they probably do well at it. But that's not typical.
n54 & s38
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:14 |
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"Rob Stewart's "If You Want My Body""
Ahem, ROD.
nermal
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:15 |
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If my math is correct, the Flex Ecoboost is pretty much the same drivetrain as the Explorer Sport. I drove one of those recently, and nailing the throttle is the exact opposite from "meh".
Good luck to ya on your search, but don't let them BS you on how hard it is to find one exactly the way you want. A good dealer will be able to search inventory and find one at another dealer (takes less than a week), or place an order for one (takes 2-3 months).
Alfalfa
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:16 |
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"I can get any smell out of there."
That was a good laugh. In my experience, smokers are horrible at detecting the smell of smoke. He probably didn't even notice the smell in the car.
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shop-teacher
> n54 & s38
09/17/2014 at 12:19 |
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Whoops. I knew that. Just missed it on my reread.
Dunnik
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:28 |
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HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:38 |
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It's stories like this that make me pissed that I got fired from my salesman position.
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HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:41 |
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I just found this gif on Imgur that perfectly describes Matt's product knowledge.
Saracen
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:55 |
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Protip: only Flex Ecoboosts have dual exhaust.
sm70- why not Duesenberg?
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:58 |
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Find yourself an Ecoboost. A real Ecoboost. I promise, you absolutely will not be disappointed.
Logansteno: Bought a VW?
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 12:59 |
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NOPE.
Minute he lit that cigarette I would've said no thanks and left.
And the fact that some salespeople don't even know their product just boggles my mind.
Sam
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 13:01 |
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I wouldn't have bought it either, but I will say that smoke smell in a car is pretty easy to eliminate.
My Miata I used to have was HEAVILY smoked in (we had to replace the top, because of the discoloration and there were several melt marks on the plastic), but we completely got rid of the smell with this . It took nearly two days, but after the ozone smell went away (by-product of the ionizer) it smelled completely neutral. I was stunned.
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FriskyDingo
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 13:02 |
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My sister bought a car a few weeks ago, she had called a toyota dealer about a corolla (i forget the year 06-08 i wanna say) that had 100,000km and was $5000cad (sounded way too good for dealer pricing and i doubt that car even existed).So we get in there and she tells the salesman she had someone else talk to on the phone about the car shes interested in (shes 17 and worked and saved the money herself!) and he says that car is sold (Suprise!).
He goes on to offer an echo with 200,000km for $5000 and a yaris for "a little more".I see what he's doing here hoping to sell the yaris because whos going to pay 5k for an echo with 200,000? Then he proceeds to "call our other dealers" 5 or 6 of them, but this is just a tactic to make us wait and hopefully since shes young she will be impatient, break down, and buy the yaris.
Well we left 10 minutes after i suggested because i knew this was going no wheres.So we finally bid him farewell and left.I found a 2006 corolla on kijiji for her with 130,000 kms in excellent shape.The car was owned by a pharmacist and his wife and looked like it was barely sat in.They wanted 6k she offered them 5k cash and they took it.
Just for shits i looked up the kbb values, trade-in was $5200 and sale value was $6200 i also didnt selected the second option under mint on the condition column so as not to falsely inflate the value.
We were also at a buy-here-pay-here looking at a suzuki something sedan that was $3800 but final price was $5000 because my mother told the guy on the phone how much my sister had.I told mom to never let them know how much money you have and upon looking at reviews of the car the gas mileage was sub-par compared to similar cars.
Anyways here's a picture of the 06 corolla which is 10x better than anything she would have gotten off a lot for 5k, plus its manual and her first time driving stick was the day she bought the car.She's pretty good at it now.
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shop-teacher
> Saracen
09/17/2014 at 13:06 |
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Yeah, they also have an Ecoboost badge on the rear hatch :)
My wife noticed it was missing, I didn't. Like I said, I was so stunned, I didn't really even give the car a look over.
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shop-teacher
> Logansteno: Bought a VW?
09/17/2014 at 13:17 |
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I should've just left.
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shop-teacher
> FriskyDingo
09/17/2014 at 13:27 |
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You're a good brother!
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FriskyDingo
> shop-teacher
09/17/2014 at 14:03 |
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Thanks I didn't want to see her waste her hard earned money.
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shop-teacher
> sm70- why not Duesenberg?
09/18/2014 at 21:18 |
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Drove one today. Holy crap was it fast! Now there's just the problem of price. I wish they'd let you get the Ecoboost in an SEL. Top trim only is killing me!