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Dealerships to AVOID in the SE
Let's start a list of the dealers to AVOID. Follow the format below if possible:
Dealership Name: State: City: Brand: (ie Scion, Subaru or both) Salesman to talk to: Reference desired: (ie tell them Bob sent you, etc) Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: Details of your experience with the dealership: |
Dealership Name: Wesley Chapel Toyota/Scion
State: FL City: Wesley Chapel Brand: Scion Salesman to talk to: N/A Reference desired: N/A Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: N/A Details of your experience with the dealership: 4k FMV adjustment. |
Dealership Name: Toyota of the Avenues
State: Florida City: Jacksonville Brand: Scion Salesman to talk to: Reference desired: Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: 2 Details of your experience with the dealership: They have a $5,000 market adjustment and even have the balls to put the Asphault MT that I want on eBay. |
Dealership Name: David Maus Toyota
State: Florida City: Sanford Brand: Scion Salesman to talk to: Mike Durham Reference desired: Hot Lava MT or Asphault MT Allocation left? 2 Details of your experience with the dealership: Mike was an excellent salesman. They didn't have an FR-S with a MT but he told me he would give me a call when one came in. I later heard and confirmed that they were adding $3,000 as a market adjustment. It looks like I'm not going to get my FR-S anytime soon with all these market adjustments! Edit: after many upset customers, David Maus dropped the Market Adjustment. I bought my FR-S from them and would recommend them to anyone. I had done business with them in the past and my only issue this time was the adjusted price. Mod's feel free to erase this dealership from this post. |
Dealership Name: Marietta Scion
State: GA City: Marietta/Atlanta Brand: Scion/Toyota Salesman to talk to: - Reference desired: - Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: 1 AT (I was told one AT would be in this week) Details of your experience with the dealership: Nice enough guys at the dealership, but I got some screwy info from the salesman that made me walk. I was told "All FR-S's in the southeast come with Bespoke as a base installation and not as an option" and an additional "dealer inspection fee was added to the price...Also, a 5k non refundable deposit was required. thats 2 Atlanta area dealers down, hopefully the 3rd one is a charm. |
Dealership Name: Scott Clark Toyota
State: NC City: Charlotte Brand: Toyota/Scion Salesman to talk to: Tony Byrd Reference desired: N/A Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: 1-2, I think Details of your experience with the dealership: None on hand, started off by trying to sell me the 'loaded' FR-S with all manufacturer options (BeSpoke, tint, applique, etc). Then tried to tell me, 'they just come like that,' until I pushed hard enough for the base model. Severely undervalued my trade-in by $2500 (KBB) for my 08 Si. Adds $1200 market adjustment trying to pass as a special wax job and paint protection. Refused to remove the amount, saying they charge it for ALL cars. Also $699 DOC fee. Over MSRP and insane fees, lowballers, and all-around scheme artists -- need I say more? |
Dealerships to AVOID in the SE
Let's start a list of the dealers to AVOID. Follow the format below if possible: Dealership Name: Kieth Pierson Toyota/Scion State: Florida City: Jacksonville Brand: Scion Salesman to talk to: Ralph (Assistant Sales Manager) Reference desired: Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: Two, one silver, one black. Details of your experience with the dealership: I'm pretty interested in getting a Scion FRS, but I had a very negative experience with the above dealership. They have two FR-S's, manuals, one in silver the other in black. I want the black one, and the kieth pierson website advertises their black on for about 26,300. Until you go to the dealership. Then you see a 5,000 dollar "ADM" fee. Advanced Market Value. Because the car is "rare". And this is on top of an inflated MSRP of 27,200 dollars. Needless to say I told them to drop it down to 26 or they won't get my business. Of course they couldn't do it, so I told them I'll be contacting scion customer service. |
Maxwell Subaru 2519 N Church Street, Burlington, NC -- $5k over MSRP!!!!
Maxwell Subaru had listed - 2013 Subaru BRZ Limited - $28,637
After I spoke with the dealer and internet sales adviser, they told me the car was a "Demo" being driven by the General Manager and that they would require more money over the MSRP to get it "out of his hands". I told them I wouldn't pay over MSRP - especially since they had it listed on the internet at MSRP. After speaking with the General Manager, the told me they needed $5000 over suggested retail. NO THANKS! |
Southern States Subaru in Raleigh, NC
$3,000 markup on the BRZ limited.
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Dealership Name: Toyota/Scion of Tampa Bay
State: FL City: Tampa Brand: Scion Salesman to talk to: Bruno Reference desired: N/A Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: 2 Details of your experience with the dealership: I had gone to this dealership 2 months before the expected delivery date of the FR-S and spoken with Bruno, the Internet Sales Guy. He was nice, took my information and said he would contact me. (Had done the same with Subaru dealership and they never called back) Bruno emailed me when the first FR-S came in and I went by to check it out a week later (yes, it was still there!). Was an automatic (I wanted stick), but he sat down with me to go over what else would be coming in. The vehicle on the floor was optioned up to over $28,000 MSRP, $699 dealer fee, and addendum sticker for $2,999. After taxes the car would have cost over $33,000. He showed me what was coming in (Asphalt manual) and showed that it too was optioned out and would have the addendum. They had more options on that one so it also was over $33,000. I was upfront and told him that was Camaro SS territory. He wasn't willing to budge at all, then I realized I was in the middle of a negotiation for a Scion! I pointed out that there is a reason the FR-S they were selling was still sitting on the floor but he wouldn't budge. I left, explaining that I won't pay an unreasonable price. Minutes after I left, the sales manager called to ask how he could get me in a vehicle immediately. I guess they were confused since they didn't now what vehicle I even wanted. Stick shift model had not arrived yet. I explained that I would love to purchase the car, but I wouldn't pay a penny of a markup for a Scion. He said he would check with his boss and call me back... which he never did. I went to Sun Toyota (which has no dealer fee or markups) and bought one the very next day. When Bruno texted me a few days later to say that "my FR-S had arrived" it wasn't the color he said it would be, who knows what else they are pulling over there. Bruno seemed like a nice enough guy, but I explained that I would go somewhere that would treat me right, and was upfront sharing that I saved about $7,000 out the door by going somewhere else. NOTE: I just followed up on a complaint I had emailed Scion Corporate. They told me to call them. On the phone they explained that with Pure Price, the dealer can choose to markup any vehicle. The only thing they can't do is "advertise a specific VIN" with the wrong price. They can say "Scion FR-S at $25,500" and have a markup on it, but if they advertise the VIN, it's another story. I explained that it doesn't look good to do so and the guy on the phone was upfront saying how word of mouth (through forums like this I'm sure) is showing those dealers who don't play nice that customers will go elsewhere. So that was my experience with Toyota/Scion of Tampa Bay. I won't be going there again, and I recommend you don't either! |
Dealership Name: Hollywood Scion
State: FL City: Hollywood Brand: Scion Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: 6 Details of your experience with the dealership: They claimed to have 6, but only had one to be seen out, I did see another one in the garage though. However, they slapped some wheels on it and marked it up 5 grand. Total was 31k+ |
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What a crock of Sh*t, so as long as the dealer does not list the VIN, they can false advertise. Sorry but Scion is crap and Pure Price is a gimmick to take advantage of prople. Wonder how many Scion dealers are advertising FRS with a VIN#? My guess .... Little to none as this always gives them an out. Pure BS. :mad0259: |
Dealership Name: Scion of Cool Springs
State: TN City: Cool Springs, between Nashville & Franklin Brand: Scion Salesman to talk to: N/A Reference desired: None Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: Didn't ask. Details of your experience with the dealership: Stopped by to look at the Whiteout Auto FRS on the lot. Noticed the following markups:
Asked if they had sold many cars -- salesman said "We've sold three and they all had the same $4k market adjustment. Well one of them we cut in half after some negotiation." Asked if I could order a particular color & gearbox -- salesman said "Scion does not let us order cars. They decide what to send us and we have no control over it." Asked about trade-in process and if they would honor MSRP -- salesman left and talked to his manager, came back and told me, "Would you pay half [of the $4k markup]? We don't make much on these cars to begin with. If it sells at MSRP I only get $150 in my pocket. When we have a car you want, we can talk." Salesman volunteered that the car already earned a speeding ticket (and a citation for the driver having an expired license) and the rest of our brief conversation was typical salesman bullshit. He told me nothing about the car, a lot about why the $4k markup is justified (:lol:), and ultimately the whole experience pretty much reminded me why I hate going to dealerships. Cliff's Notes: This dealership is selling their FRS for $31k. No thanks. :cool: |
Dealership Name: Gatorland Scion
State: FL City: Gainesville Brand: Scion Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: They're sold out nationwide! Details of your experience with the dealership: Stopped in to view AT model with 3k of markup. Salesman laughed when I mentioned "pure price." Said that this is a "limited run" car and that if I don't order one now, with their 3k markup, I may NEVER get one! They're sold out nationwide (despite several being available in FL alone). I dealt with this dealership before when I had an FJ Cruiser, they are bush league at best. Just about EVERY car on their lot has ADM, for some inexplicable reason, on the window sticker. If you call their operator and ask to speak to the "Scion dealership" she tells you that there is no such thing, despite the fact they're selling the damn things 20 yards from her desk. |
Stadium Toyota no longer has 3k FMV
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Fair market value addendums removed 2 weeks ago. George - Stadium |
Dealership Name: Lee Subaru
State: Florida City: Fort Walton Beach Brand: Subaru Salesman to talk to: N/A Reference desired: N/A Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: Not sure (Deployed ATM and their internet sales dept sucks.) Details of your experience with the dealership: They marked up the 4 or 5 BRZs they got by 2-3k over MSRP and refused to budge. They also aren't a good dealership in general and the labor dept has messed up a few of my friends' cars over the past few years (forgetting to put bolts back into a transmission was the most recent offense). |
I'm going to second MooseWRX on Lee Subaru of Fort Walton Beach. They should change their by line to, "Part of the Lee Automotive Family. Screwing the Emerald Coast for more than 60 years"
Dealership Name: Lee Subaru State: Florida City: Fort Walton Beach Brand: Subaru Salesman to talk to: N/A Reference desired: N/A Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: I believe they said they only get 1 or 2 per month. Sounded like a pitch to falsify "supply" in the "supply-demand" equation. Details of your experience with the dealership: They marked up both BRZs me and my boss saw by $3k. White one was sold, the red one just came in. The red one, by the way, is listed in Autotrader at $28,906. Lee Subaru however has it stickered at over $30K!!!! WTH?!?! Thank you Lee "Automotive Family" for reinforcing the habits we locals have for driving 2 hours to the Mobile/Daphne area dealers to buy our cars. Quote:
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Dealership Name: Lowe Scion
State: Georgia City: Warner Robins Brand: Scion Salesman to talk to: Reference desired: Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: 1 MT Firestorm Details of your experience with the dealership: Selling the FR-S at $32,901. That's right, $33,000. Terrible. |
McFly, I bought the Asphalt that was optioned out 6MT you referenced. Those guys were clowns and I straight up told the new car sales manager that the car sells itself, no salesman does! After many calls, arguments about negotiating for a Scion, I ended up buying it not sure when more MT would arrive and meeting some/most of my criteria.
Even though I bought from them, I say AVOID Toyota of Tampa Bay! |
Dealership Name: Saint Augustine Toyota
State: Florida City: Saint Augustine Brand: Scion Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: 6MT Argento FR-S, AT Asphalt FR-S. Details of your experience with the dealership: They are marking both of these cars up to $33,000+. Explained how Scion doesn't honor the mark ups, and the most they could bring it down was $1,500. Do NOT buy from them and give them the honor of scamming. Coggin Toyota at the Avenues is NOT marking up past MSRP, nor is Scion of Orlando. I HIGHLY recommend both of these dealerships if you're in the area. |
Dealership Name: Bob Tyler Toyota/Scion/Suzuki
State: Florida City: Pensacola Brand: (ie Scion, Subaru or both)Scion Salesman to talk to: Marcos Reference desired: (ie tell them Bob sent you, etc) Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: Details of your experience with the dealership: [/QUOTE] I went in to trade my truck in and to order a 6mt hot lava, they told me now on my trade in because they can pick them up all day at auction for $1500 and then moved on to try and tell me that I would have to wait 6 months for a hot lava 6mt and I would have to put down 3K, the price was same as MSRP after I talked to them because at first they wanted $28,900 before any DOC fee's or anything like that, needless to say I will be going to another dealership when I want my FR-S.... |
Dealership Name: Bohn Bros Scion
State: Louisiana City: Harvey Brand: Scion Salesman to talk to: Reference desired: Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: Details of your experience with the dealership: Car is listed on their web site for $26,878 with the VIN Number listed. Drove an hour to check it out just to find they had a $3000 market adjustment on it. I showed them their own web site, cars.com, and the listing on eBay and was told I could not have it for that price. They even had the nerve to change the eBay listing while I was there and had the manager pull it up on his phone to show me. Luckily I still had the auction on my phone that I looked up 30 minutes prior. On top of that, the trade in price they were offering on my car was less than half of the Kelly Blue Book trade in value. Horrible dealership. |
Dealership Name: Paul Moak Subaru
State: Mississippi City: Jackson Brand: Subaru BRZ Salesman to talk to: Mr Burns Reference desired: Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: Suppose to receive a white 6speed manual Premium in September or October Details of your experience with the dealership: Car was on the dealership showroom with a factory msrp of $28,800. It had a dealership price addendum of $2500 for these 5 accessories: 1. windshield visor 2. carbon fiber key chain 3. chrome gas lid 4. STI oil cap 5. STI battery hold down bracket No way these 5 accesories are worth $2500.00. Terrible price gouging. |
Dealership Name: Stone Mountain Toyota
State: Georgia City: Lilburn Brand: Both Salesman to talk to: Sam and Mark Details of your experience with the dealership: I called them up because I saw on AutoTrader they had listed having 2 FR-S MT on the lot. I asked them to verify that they did in fact have them and was told yes they did come on out. So I drove an hour and a half out there only to find out that they only had one FR-S in stock and it was an automatic. I talked to the sales associate again and was told that he thought they had them that he didn't actually check and that the 2 manuals had apparently been sold the day before. I asked his manager if they would compinsate me in some way for me driving an hour and a half out there because his sales associate lied to me. The manager basically told me to shove off and that he didn't care. I would avoid these guys like the plague, they don't give to s***s about their customers. |
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Glad it wasn't just me that dealt with these clowns. I was thinking my negotiating skills were off or something. When I told them the accessories they added totaled 500 via their websight, they said "It's the first BRZ in MS and this is what it cost", and said its a showroom car that so I couldn't have it for 30 day anyway. |
Dealership Name: Rivergate Toyota
State: TN City: Nashville Brand: Both Salesman to talk to: Details of your experience with the dealership: Do have to say that this was the worst experience I have ever had with any dealer ever. The follow up survey from Toyota got pushed up higher than the rep that called. They ended up trying to charge me about 36k for a Frs. They never check my info or ran a credit check until 3 days later when Toyota e company called them. I didn't buy my car from them.....drove to Indy to Beck Toyota (highly recommended by me). Paid less than sticker value for the car and they hash everything ready for me when I go there. |
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Was there last week, is yours an auto? They have two in front.
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Dealership Name: Northshore Toyota
State: Covington City: LA Brand: Scion Salesman to talk to: N/A Reference desired: N/A Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: Details of your experience with the dealership: The after purchase sales experience I have had with this dealer is terrible. I had a few additional aspects to my purchase the was owed to me. The long duration of time and many phone call to complete these was ridiculous. Also, I had the tail light condensation issue with my car within one week of ownership (I know it is not the dealership's fault). The parts department ordered a replacement for it stating a two week arrival time. Two weeks passed by with no notification of arrival. Three weeks passed by with no notification. I called the dealership. At this point, they claimed it never arrived. One week later, I called again with similar result. This repeated a few more times, that is until I finally got the answer of "We lost it." At this point, I was too fed up with waiting for the insane amount of incompetence, I went to a differnt dealer. Stay away from for any after-purchase issues. |
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Also - the dealership is pretty, clean and new but the huge play on "we don't do pushy sales but let's tell you about how you should buy from us because we save kittens and make rainbows" is just as off-putting. They also claim to give some kind of "lifetime warranty on drivetrain" that is unique to their dealership - yet honored nationwide. I had this feeling that would be a "line item" on the price tag if I bought it there! |
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Sales person: Ricky |
Dealership Name: Daytona Toyota
State: Florida City: Daytona Beach Brand: Scion Salesman to talk to: Craig Lattz, Seymor Small*, Joe (Manager) Reference desired: N/A Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: 2 - Whiteout Manual (loaded with options) & Firestorm Automatic Details of your experience with the dealership: My fiance and I made an inquiry to Daytona Toyota based on their score on www.dealerrater.com last week. I made an appointment with Craig Lattz for Sunday, Dec. 9th at 12pm as he stated he found me a manual Whiteout within my price range being allocated to his dealership by the end of the month (he even provided a VIN#). When we arrived, Craig was nowhere to be found and his colleagues really couldn't tell us where he was. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was on another sale as we did arrive approximately 10 minutes late due to traffic. We were helped by Seymour Small, which honestly this write up does not apply to him as he was a stand up guy and helped us with all the questions HE had answers to. Seymour pulled the whiteout manual they currently had in stock off the show room floor for us to test drive. When we were done we reiterated to him that this was no the car we came to look at and that Craig had located a car for us. This is when his manager Joe stepped in and told us that the specific car with the VIN# number Craig provided NO LONGER EXISTED and that he couldn't even find where this car was even located. He kept pressing us to consider the Whiteout Manual he had in stock (which was loaded up to the T at close to $29,000) and when we stated that the only way we could even begin conversation was if he would work with us to lower the dealer fee. This is when he gave us some sap story about how each dealership has to "stay a float" some how, it would be a class action law suit if he took the fee off completely, and that every dealer in Florida charges a fee (which is not true, i.e Sun Toyota in Holiday, Florida). At this point he said there was nothing more he could do for us and so we left. So in the end, never met with Craig; Seymour tried to help us and Joe was less than gracious to work with. Morale of the story is do your research and don't believe everything you read on a site like www.dealerrater.com to be true. |
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Dealership Name: Toyota of West Kendall
State: FL City: Miami Brand: Toyota/Scion Salesman to talk to: N/A Reference desired: N/A Allocation left? If so, how many as far as you know: N/A Details of your experience with the dealership: This happened last August so I do not remember the salesman's name. They had multiple listings on Auto Trader.com so I decided to give them a call (against the advice of my bro-in-law who used to work for Lexus of Kendall). Guy was nice at first as I made it very clear that I would not pay more than MSRP. He proceeded to have me fill out a credit app over the phone, and I returned it to him. I call him later on and he has the nerve to tell me that that car has a $3K markup. I told him that I made it clear I was not paying more than MSRP. He tells me well good luck with finding that deal. A waste of my time. The same day I randomly called Lipton Toyota and spoke to Abraham Donaldson. He said he has a whiteout in stock and will not charge me a markup. I went that same day and bought it. |
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