Delirious Anticipation - Waiting for my car

[Xxyion]

Originally Posted by Wondark

OK guys, I got my car today!







I'm not even going to finish my initial discussion or talk about how badly I was screwed over at purchase.



It's done and I'm happy with the car. For future reference, unless you make a great deal up front, don't order a car just buy one from the lot (even if you have to go to another state). I will also say if you don't like the experience or if you didn't shop around, you can only blame yourself.

Glad you finally got the car! The white looks amazing and really accentuates the new lines in the front bumper. Have fun!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Wondark]

I will never be able to capture the beauty that is the pearlescent in this paint. Getting the STI spoiler/trim pieces on next week hoping to provide a bit more contrast and slightly lower look. Again thank you guys for being here for entertainment and amusement, keep doing what you guys do!

[Wondark]

I was PM'd a couple of questions so I wanted to elaborate a bit more. Sorry there is no TLDR section.

Prepare for wall of text. Yes I can say I made some mistakes in my car buying experience but they weren't necessarily going to pull their punches because of it.

Initially we had discussed a price on the car that I didn't think was fair but it was back in December when there was no purchase data available on the car. If you go to Truecar for example you can get dealer invoice price and comparable data for surrounding areas on a purchase price. I only had data from the 2016 model without PP and that was concerning to say the least. The price was roughly $33000 out the door on the original estimate, it doesn't take much to look at the MSRP and the options I selected and seen a pretty close resemblance. I told the guy I wasn't expecting to pay $32k for all the things I wanted and that meant a kit or other options were way over budget (my wife and I had agreed that 32k was the most we wanted to spend at the time). He haggled with his manager or whatever and got it to 32k out the door obviously siting that over 32k was not gonna happen. 32k was the amount they put on paper and even though I wasn't happy I just assumed it's what I was gonna have to pay. We placed an order for the car on Dec 27th and I received an email from Subaru saying that they expected the last week of Feb to be my delivery date. I asked him to let me know how much the full ground effects (front side and rear quarter spoilers) were going to cost me just so we could think about it. He said that his parts guy was not in and could not get a direct estimate on parts and labor until his next workday which was 2 days later. I asked him to call me back with an estimate so that we could weigh the options. A couple of weeks pass with no call and my wife has all but convinced me that this is a once in a lifetime thing and maybe a bit more isn't all that bad. I even priced the parts as close to wholesale as I could and thought of installing them myself. I called the dealership and could not get a hold of my salesperson so I asked to speak with the parts department. The parts guy was easy going and didn't seem to put me on the spot about anything but let me know that he couldn't get the parts unless I paid upfront. He priced them out for me at around $1100 (discounted due to me purchasing a new car) and that price was about $200 less than I could get on my own. This was exciting news because my wife had already assumed we were going to pay at least as much as $1300 for the parts. I asked the guy if I could speak with the service department so I could get an installed price and he happily obliged. The service manager answers and I explain that I would like the full body kit put on at the dealership and was looking for a price for install. He asked specifics of the parts and the car I was putting them on, he knew exactly which parts I was talking about and even mentioned about it taking sometime to get all 5 parts on the car (more on why this is important later) total being ballpark of $248. A few days later I get in touch with my salesperson and explain that I'm wanting the ground effects kit installed on the car and that I had discussed it with the parts and service and had received a price. He tells me that whatever that parts guy told me was a bit higher than I could expect to pay because he can make a better deal somehow. "GREAT!" So I ask him about the parts being purchased up front and is there any way to include that in the price to be financed. "Oh yeah, no problem. But it's way too early to do that now. Let's wait till about 2 weeks before your car is due to arrive." If I recall this conversation happened roughly mid Jan.

I've read on the forums people getting their VIN and allocation numbers but I had already received my VON. I called to get an insurance quote on my car and my insurance company could only give me a rough estimate without the VIN. Out of curiosity and perhaps to get a more specific date I called the dealership at the beginning of Feb. I could not get in touch with my salesperson for the umteenth time and just decided to be patient. My thoughts were he would likely just tell me that "we're not even close to that time yet" or something similar.

Mid Feb I realized we have at worst 2 weeks and at best 1 week before I should be getting my car but I have not heard from my salesperson. I give em a call and lo and behold my salesperson is no where to be found. I'm not going to be told to wait and beg to speak to someone that can help. I assume a sales manager answers and I start asking questions. He states that most of them cannot be answered by him but can indeed tell me that he has VIN number (no allocation number yet) no idea on the parts and my salesperson would just need to get back with me. I ask the guy to just give me a more accurate date than last week of Feb and tells me Mar 1st. I was happy to know there was indeed a VIN number, I was far past that sour taste in my mouth from being what seemed to be ignored. The VIN number was something I held onto as if to say "Yeah Japan is indeed working on or done with my car.".

It's the Friday before the last week of Feb, I work Sat, Sun, and Mon and wouldn't have the time on the next week to schedule before the date was here so I gave the dealership a call. Salesperson not there again...I talk to some young guy that seemed to be nothing more than a receptionist and at the very least he told me the date had changed to Feb 27 said he could not do anything about the parts I had requested. I left a voicemail and even sent an email to my salesperson about all the things we needed to discuss but did not ever get a return call or email reply.

I re-did my Truecar lookup on the car and was surprised to find out that there was much more data on the BRZ this time around. The Limited model with PP was selling on an average at about 29k in my area. The price is supposed to include delivery cost but not Tax title and Registration. My original quote is about 1k over this (32k out the door). bummer.. I talk to the wife about this and say we may be able to negotiate this.

I showed my happy ass up at that dealership on Feb 27th bright and early at 11:30 am (sarcasm) hoping that whatever excuse they had lined up for me would be sidetracked by a simple your car is here but...The receptionist asks how they can help me and promptly gets my salesperson. I am amazed, he does exist! He's making excuses from the moment I see him. I don't know much about psychology or human behavior but I know every single word he is telling me is to buy him some time. He tells me like 5 times while having me follow him to his office, "I was just looking up the status of your car, like literally just now!". He sits down and still hasn't told me any information on the "status". So I ask as calmly as possible "So what is the "status" then?". "Well it looks like it's going to be another 2 weeks." while he is quickly typing whatever at his computer and then me "Why is it going to be 2 more weeks when the guy just the other day told me it would be today."

BTW sorry for grammar and spelling I'm trying to be quick about this.

He states "Well let me go speak with my manager for a moment and see what's going on with the invoice, they usually ship it 2 weeks before the car gets here." He leaves the room and is gone for several minutes and returns with. "Oh, no worries we can just print out another invoice." Well if it's that simple maybe we can print the car too! (sarcasm again) "So is my car here?" The car was not there and he gave me no confidence on when it would arrive. He also tells me that the parts I requested for the car were not available yet because "I" did not order them. I explain to him that he is wrong and that I asked him to order them but he didn't make himself available to do so. He tells me with hesitation that the car will be there on the 2nd and the parts will be there in 5 business days. I tell him that I would like to get my car and then bring it back for them to install if that is the case. He says that should be no problem...

Mar 2nd. I decide to not go to the dealership without confirmation, it isn't just up the road from me. It is in fact a 1 hour round trip to and from not including the amount of time for them to BS me. I send a text msg to his personal cell phone after receiving nothing and it is after noon. I state who I am and say, "should I assume that my car isn't there today?" Tells me I'm correct and says the delivery date is still today. I don't even bother with communication for the rest of the day.

Mar 3rd, he sends me pictures of the car in the lot at the back side where all of the damaged or not for sale cars are. The time was about 10am-12pm for some reason my phone doesn't have the exact time listed for the pictures sent. He doesn't say anything just sent the pictures. I ask can we come get it? Tells me he has appointments if I can't get there right away and let's me know 2:30pm should be OK.

The car is parked in their, for lack of better terms, "show off bay" it wasn't on the show floor if you understand what I mean. Nearly drop to my knees looking at the car and he makes a remark like "I only did a few donuts in it"...Please dude don't sully this moment. I do a couple of circles around it looking at all the details I have fallen in love with and tell him let's do this.

I have bought several cars in the past and 1 other one was brand new. It's difficult for me to point out when a deal can't be changed or negotiated with this car because we pretty much already discussed the price. He made it seem like the negotiations were already done (which I'm sure is standard protocol) and then started talking about my "addons" like the kit. I feel like the treatment I've gotten has deserved a bit of negotiation but best yet comes next.

He comes back to the room with a new total after we had been sitting for a bit. The total for parts and labor on my ground effect kit was at least $300 more than we had discussed only days ago. I tell him this is not what we talked about and he starts to drill me on how I even got that price for labor. He wants to know who I talked to in service and why the guy would do the install for as much as I stated. I wrote the guys name down but did not have it when I went to the dealership. Every frikn piece of paper in my folder with me and this is the one I'm being drilled on. I've got nothing to say to him.This emoji is about how I looked. He walks away after a bit and a sales manager walks in the room and tells me I have a nice looking car. He pep talks me and let's me know that everyone in the building is checking it out. Says he discussed the labor and was willing to lower it to the price I had asked for.

My salesperson comes back a bit later feeling like he has granted me the world with this roughly $300 "savings". I'm done with this, I just get tired of talking to the guy. My car is over there and you are standing in my way. I paid the $32k plus the amount for kit parts and labor, there was no negotiating other than that. Even knowing that I know I could probably have gotten it for about $1k less I was ready to go.

I don't feel like I saved anything, especially not my pride. Being pushed around and not receiving even simple answers through this process has made me more jaded than I already was. I stated that I was screwed over but even the $1k that I probably could have negotiated was 10 minutes less I spent in the car leaving the lot.

I'm happy with my car but not the experience and some of (if not all) could have been solved from me just having my ducks in a row before even talking to a dealership. I'm not sure there is a dealership in my vicinity that would have treated me any different either. If there is more details you would like to know I will try to answer them but I was wanting to finish my story for those interested.

Good luck on your car buying experience guys and gals and I'm sorry for the ton of info on here. I would also like to apologize if there is any continuity errors in my story due to my forgetful nature. Which probably means this whole thread has become a journal of sorts more than a rant about waiting to get my car! LOL

[Xxyion]

*whew* Man i dont know if i would have had your patience. Any salesperson unwilling to respond to me would have made me instantly cancel any order that i had. All in all i'm glad you have your car. That white is absolutely gorgeous.

[Psilox]

It sounds like a pretty painful process, but glad you finally have your car! The white looks even better on the 2017 with the new bumper and spoiler, a very good choice all around.

My experience has been super painless so far, but we'll see when the car arrives in a couple of weeks. Used Costco pricing to negotiate and ended up under invoice, all over the phone and email. All I can say is I realize now how much depends on the dealer you end up going to.

Have fun driving it!!

[spike021]

@Wondark:

That truly sucks, man. I'd be really pissed if the guy just stopped responding or communication altogether. In that case, to me, he's probably not deserving of the commission on the car.

Sorry that happened to you. But definitely enjoy the car! Maybe leave a review on their Yelp page, and also look for the thread on this forum with the list of bad dealerships and re-post this there.

[Wondark]

Originally Posted by spike021

@Wondark:

That truly sucks, man. I'd be really pissed if the guy just stopped responding or communication altogether. In that case, to me, he's probably not deserving of the commission on the car.

Sorry that happened to you. But definitely enjoy the car! Maybe leave a review on their Yelp page, and also look for the thread on this forum with the list of bad dealerships and re-post this there.

I plan to post some of my reviews in different places, I have yet to get the full kit on the car just yet because they didn't even get my parts in by the time they said they would. I have an appointment this week to finish the job and will save my full review until completion.

[tacos]

@Wondark if that had happened to me, i wouldve been emailing a different sales rep, or the sales manager. when i ordered it was with my sales rep AND the sales manager, and i got both of their cards. IMO emails are better than calls because there are provable dates and communications

did you have a lot of extra options to have the quoted price at 33k? the "29k" (29,660 to be exact) quoted cost you hear so much about is from people like me, who ordered a barebones Limited with PP, thats it

a little more than 1k (1-1.8) off MSRP seems to be the standard experience so far for most, so your price seems pretty normal

[Wondark]

Originally Posted by tacos

@Wondark if that had happened to me, i wouldve been emailing a different sales rep, or the sales manager. when i ordered it was with my sales rep AND the sales manager, and i got both of their cards. IMO emails are better than calls because there are provable dates and communications

did you have a lot of extra options to have the quoted price at 33k? the "29k" (29,660 to be exact) quoted cost you hear so much about is from people like me, who ordered a barebones Limited with PP, thats it

a little more than 1k (1-1.8) off MSRP seems to be the standard experience so far for most, so your price seems pretty normal

I did have a couple of extra options added. When I priced it with all of the options I was getting on my car through Truecar average they were charging me about 1k more as far as I could tell. Pricing is definitely subject to the area you live in and the prices they generally sell at. Someone in California may pay a different price for the same car that I buy here in Kentucky. It is likely that the price I paid is not much different than some others though. My feelings are more negative to the dealership from the get go than the pricing I received for the car. Paying for services rendered and all the little they did for the price I paid. If you've ever been a manager you know when someone is earning their pay and when someone is just skirting by but barely. (well unless you are a shitty manager) These guys are the guys you fire on the first day because they spent the whole day in the bathroom smoking weed.

I've been doing a bit more reading around since I got the car and it seems that I didn't do all that bad on price. Thanks for the extra bit of comfort! When my wife and I started looking at these cars I was thinking we would get away with $25k or $27 out the door. It is clearly our own fault for getting Limited and PP but we expected the cost to be the biggest upset and not how we have been treated.

[osidak]

I paid $29,500 out the door for my PP with popular option 2 I think. wheel locks, trunk mat, blue foot led, homelink mirror and bumper protector

That includes roughly $900 in sales tax and $600 in doc fees

[spike021]

Originally Posted by osidak

I paid $29,500 out the door for my PP with popular option 2 I think. wheel locks, trunk mat, blue foot led, homelink mirror and bumper protector

That includes roughly $900 in sales tax and $600 in doc fees

Geez, $900 sales tax? That's insane.

I'm paying about $2300 or so in sales tax :\ Still roughly the same OTD though, but no popular option 2...

[osidak]

ummm I think $900 in sales tax is insane and $2300 - I wouldn't live in California because that is just a raping. That said it seems like you got an amazing price it seems. I think on the stick the popular option thing was $800 or there abouts

[Wondark]

STI Spoiler options installed and Ceramic "protective" coating applied. As far as I'm concerned I'm done with the dealership. Keep hope alive guys and hope that everyone gets theirs soon! A little over 500 miles on mine already and hope to get to 1k as quickly as possible.



Crappy image but thought it would be best to add one anyway.

[JBezugs]

Put in my order on Feb. 21 and have been waiting excitedly ever since... the dealership said 6 to 8 weeks, so almost halfway there. No word on a VIN for the car yet though. How long did any of you wait for the VIN to get sent to you?