My Dealer Experience

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Since my Grabber Blue FE (Mach Drop) replaced my original Infinity Blue Premium, there were two orders arriving at my dealer. The original came on 3/6. The dealer was confused and thought that is the one I ordered. I scheduled delivery on 3/16. When I arrived, it became clear they were trying to sell me the wrong car. However, that mistake turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I took a quick test drive in the car I was not buying. With that out of the way, we decided to work on the paperwork. They did include the correct X-Plan pricing and even showed me an invoice with the correct amount. After that it went downhill. The first thing I noticed included about $1,500 in dealer added “options”. These included:

• ZAKTEK paint protection
• Some sort of interior fabric protection?!
• Nitrogen in tires
• Door edge guards (plastic strips on door edges)
• Wheel locks
• Window tinting
• Some other thing that escapes my memory

I told them I do not want any of that. Since my car had not yet arrived, we skipped over the part where they tell me that they already put that stuff on. So, all of that was gone. The finance guy remembered my $500 deposit and $1,100 in rebates (I had told him I was interested in Options financing). Next item of discussion was $1,536 in fees including $499 Doc Fee and about $$1,000 in VLT (AZ charges an annual tax based on vehicle value). I pointed out that X-Plan limits his DOC fees to $100, he said he forgot. I also pointed out that the VLT for EV is reduced to 4% of normal amount. He claimed that he never heard of that but would make some calls. In the end we settled on $200 in fees/taxes. That was probably more than I should have paid, but I did not want to argue too much. I also asked them to program the 2nd FOB (I already had it. and order/install side window deflectors. They said they could not make it part of the purchase and it would have to be ordered through parts and service departments and would be a separate invoice. I said fine, just get it done. The next adventure was the financing. He had vague idea of it, he got the right rate and term, and eventually understood that I wanted it with residual based on 7,500 miles per year. But he could not make it work in his system. Several phone calls and two hours later it was done. I also did not accept their trade-in offer since it was about 60% of what Carvana was offering. With all that I went home.

My car arrived Wednesday night 3/17. Next day, I contacted my salesman and told him that I could pick it Monday afternoon or Wednesday morning. On Friday, the finance guy contacted me, and we did the financing contract online. Shortly after, parts guy called me and said my deflectors have arrived. I eventually got a hold of my salesman and asked him to make sure it gets done before Wednesday morning.

Wednesday 3/24, I arrived and of course my deflectors were not installed. I handed him the blank FOB to get programmed and told him to hassle and get deflectors installed. Meanwhile, I handed the finance guy my credit card to charge $5,000 for part of the down payment and a check for the rest. My credit card kicks back 2%, and I would have put the entire down payment on it, but they limited it to $5,000.

A little while later I got the car for a final test drive and walkthrough. I noticed the following:

• They put in wheel locks, nitrogen in tires, edge guards, window tinting, but since they were not charging me for it, I was ok with that. I think a lot of dealers do that the moment cars arrive, before even talking to salesmen, so that they could claim that they already did it and now have to charge for that.
• The holes for the back license were not drilled, so back it goes to service for 15 minutes.
• The left side of the hood was a little higher, so did not fit right. We called a body shop guy. He needed help opening the hood, and later closing it. Once I opened it for him, he located two bumpers. He turned the left one a couple of times, and after that the hood fit fine.

With all that, I was done. I did not ask him to configure the APP or PAAK. I decided that if I could not figure that out, I do not deserve the car that advanced. I drove the car for about 70 miles around town (more than I have driven in the last two weeks) and went home.

In a few days, I will post about my experience with the actual car.

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[eltonlin]

My car has nitrogen filled tires and I didn’t have to pay extra for it. There were a couple stickers on window and windshield I had to remove. I Figured it was standard?

 

[shutterbug]

My car has nitrogen filled tires and I didn’t have to pay extra for it. There were a couple stickers on window and windshield I had to remove. I Figured it was standard?

Yes, I got the sticker, fancy valve caps, plus the original caps that came with the car. Putting nitrogen in the tires does nothing.

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