Test drive from hell

[FRSRAVEN]

Central Texas dealership here. I was given the keys and told to come back in a reasonable amount of time. No salesmen, nothing...all by myself. 40 minutes later and one big smile, I bought the car.

They offered me $750 for my trade. I politely told them to eat it, and I sold that car for $3500 one week later. I actually sold it within 15 minutes of posting it on Craigslist. First person to call took the car. Sure, it was a 2003 Ford Focus with 125k miles, but it was pristine, KBB excellent was $3500, and that's exactly what I got no questions asked. $750 on trade was an insult, and almost made me walk away.

Hindsight is 20/20. Had a salesmen gone with me on the test drive I would not have driven like an idiot and hence probably wouldn't have fallen in love with the car. The net result is I would not have bought it and would have ended up with the car a SHOULD have bought, but didn't.

So now everytime I crawl my overweight American ass in a tiny little jap car hoping my neighboors aren't watching my ungraceful somewhat controlled fall into the seat, I can think about the evil sales tactic my dealership used to get me to buy it.

Then I get a few miles down the road and the driving experience with the marvelous steering and excellent gearbox make me forget all the negatives. At least until I try to fit my supersized coke through the little tiny window...

[bkblitzed]

haha i test drive new cars for fun and i beat this shit outa em.

[JB86'd]

Originally Posted by bkblitzed

haha i test drive new cars for fun and i beat this shit outa em.

Wow man, teach us all to be as badass as you

[bkblitzed]

wanna learn more about how to be badass No problem bro, first you gotta wear shades during the night, and wear obey and diamond only

[hmong337]

That is completely unacceptable! This now makes me wonder how many cars suffer a shit fate from non-broken-in abuse later down the road.

Got mine delivered with 16kms. But all it takes is 2-3.

But always in the back of my mind, did the dirty salesman get his few "special runs" before he handed you the keys? Makes you wonder.

[bkblitzed]

Originally Posted by hmong337

That is completely unacceptable! This now makes me wonder how many cars suffer a shit fate from non-broken-in abuse.

a lot. If your car has more than 10 miles on it, guarenteed it was beat on by either the people at the dealership or people interested. Or people like me and my friends who go and test drive cars for fun cus were bored

[JB86'd]

Originally Posted by bkblitzed

wanna learn more about how to be badass No problem bro, first you gotta wear shades during the night, and wear obey and diamond only

sounds hella chill bro

[HunterGreene]

Originally Posted by Turbowned

That makes me SMH. If you can't drive a car properly just don't.

The last BRZ I sold, the customer was 18 and a little new to driving manual. I was waiting for him to hammer the thing but he was actually very gentle on the car and wasn't shifting above 2,000RPM. It was such a tame test drive that when we got back to the lot I asked if he trusted me to drive it with him riding shotgun. He said yes so we did a Chinese fire drill and I drove it after him; something I can say I've never done before.

I didn't beat on the car of course, just drove it a little quicker and a lot smoother than he did, so he'd get a feel for how it could drive. Went around some corners and revved it up to 4k rpm just to give him a little taste. After that he bought the car.

Then I gave him some tips on where the best shows were put on and what sanctioning bodies he could join in order to do auto-x, track days and drifting. I realize I'm one of few salespeople who would ever do this, but know that we're not all bad guys. Just mostly

Sadly, you're part of that 3% that was brought up earlier. Good on you, dude.

[Pickleahoy]

It was wednesday this week and the manager for the Winter Park branch hadnt answered my email/voicemail, so I wrote a gigantic wall of text email to Autonation corporate explaining all that went on. It took less than 12 hours to get an answer and on thursday I had a sales manager from Autonation Winter Park apologizing profusely and offering to earn my business again. After some talks and a pretty good deal on a new FRS 10 series that wasnt beat on by Slick Shifts McQueen (who was no longer at the dealership) I ended up signing paperwork today and taking home #1617. To make up for my lost time and gas they also gave me 100 bucks towards parts so I got me some mudguards and the rest I will save for an oil change later. The financing guy was pretty awesome, had an accent that would convince you to even trade in your mother.

All in all a bad experience but a good result. Gonna post the pic on the 10 Series thread since I hate spamming the same thing across different topics.

[torqdork]

Happy ending after all. Added you to the Registry if you don't mind.

[hmong337]

I've always grown up with the ethic of treating something that isn't yours better than if it was your own. That said, I hope that d1ckface saleman meets that day where his prized new car takes a huge shit on him out of warranty because some d1ckface salesman like himself decided to rag his new car before he got handed the keys. Karma!

Great that things worked out.

[buzznasa]

Originally Posted by Pickleahoy

Gave it a shot at seeing if I enjoyed the FRS as much as everyone seems to and headed to Autonation Scion at Winter Park.
Waited for a bit and was told by the guy taking care of me that he would "drive the car out of the lot" and then I could give it a spin. I get in the car as a passenger and he proceeds to take off burning clutch in the process and stays in first gear all the way out the parking lot.

Today was rainy as hell yet the salesman couldnt possibly give less of a shit as he put pedal to metal and pulled out into the public road as the poor 10 series FRS with 6 miles on the clock struggled to make sense of what this meathead was trying to do.
As the car swayed from side to side and Stability management finally straightened the car he said " this is a sportscar and you have to drive it like a sportscar" and he proceeded to clutch dump like a true fast and furious fan through gears and speed well beyond the posted limit with full traffic around.
He must have driven 3 miles and fucking hell it felt like a lifetime with me wondering if the next time he blew through 4 gears without lifting the car would finally let go and crash.
Never have I experienced such shit driving and for it to be displayed on a brand new car really ticked me off because I sure as hell wasnt buying it after such abuse went on. Really sucks for whoever buys this car and wonders why their clutch only lasted 10,000 miles.

When it was time for me to drive it he proceeded to pull the e-brake, shift into first and attempt to get out while the car jerked and stalled. As I walked around the car the burnt clutch smell was awful so I took it easy and drove it back to the dealership because I thought I had enough.

After all that and me trying to negotiate a deal on a different FRS, they proceeded to offer me a mega lowball offer for my trade in below even what they had quoted me through email, even though I was told I could get more for it if I drove it in. When i showed the email they were only willing to match that so I walked out.

What a shit day

I bought my FR-S from that exact same dealership about two months after AutoNation took it over from the previous dealership (You're talking about the one at University and Semoran across from Full Sail, right?) If so, it must be from a new sales guy. My sales rep was a pretty cool guy. Didn't know a lot about the 86 but was eager to learn as I spouted info about it from being a member here for years before buying mine. Even so, I would talk to someone about him because that is just a dumb thing to do.

They tried to low-ball me on my trade in but I haggled with them for a couple of days to get a decent deal and finally got my Whiteout (after I had them truck one in from Clearwater). I feel bad that your experience was so horrible with them. Mine wasn't so bad. But I do understand how one bad experience can taint your view of the dealership as a whole. You can try the Scion dealership off of I-4 between Conroy and John Young. They had a lot of inventory the last time I was there (but seemed less keen to work with me).

Either way, I hope you get your car soon. Then go hit Dike Road off of Howell Branch. It is short but fun corners

[asianbob]

That's a horrible thing to do to a car, especially when you're trying to sell it to the guy in the passenger seat. I won't get to even drive mine for months after i buy it unfortunately. However, I have driven a FT86 (I'm in Japan at the moment) and loved it. Dealerships here let you take it out on your own. Very awesome customer service even though it's hard to understand them haha