My husband and I were recently in the market for a used car. My husband was looking mostly for a Pontiac Grand Prix. We got something in the mail telling us about a huge sale going on at Phil Long Suzuki... hundreds of used cards for thousands of dollars off! We decided to go take a look.
We got there, and there were maybe 20 used cards on the lot. They had one Grand Prix which was more expensive than what we were wanting to pay, but we decided to take it for a test drive, anyway. It was a nice car, but - like I said - more than we wanted to pay, and we suspected it was priced well above book. The price they claimed to be the regular price on it was what you'd expect to pay for a brand new Grand Prix!
My husband and I are are both rather passive people. We told them we'd let them see what kind of offer they could make us. And thus began our nightmare...
We sat there for at least an hour, with them coming to us with different offers. My husband kept telling them he wanted to spend a set amount, and they kept asking what we could afford per month and giving us the price based on monthly payments - they refused to even tell us what interest rate the payments involved. They kept saying, "Let me go talk to my manager". After this happened about 5 or 6 times, the manager came over to speak with us... to explain what a "crazy" deal they were trying to give us, telling us that our trade in was virtually worthless (which it wasn't, we knew better)... and when the hubby said that he was interested in an older, cheaper car... the manager proceeded to tell us how we'd never find anyone who'd want to finance it. One more time, they said they'd see what they could do. This was when I'd had enough. I got up and asked for our keys... they had them because they were supposed to inspect our trade in... which they hadn't done - I think it was more for the purpose of making us feel more trapped there. Well I asked for the keys and told them we weren't interested and wanted to leave. Then the sales people proceeded to FOLLOW US TO OUR CAR!!! At this point I lost it. I ended up screaming at them and telling them how we weren't stupid enough to buy their lies, and then I backed up and sped away.
Later I came to find out this is the typical sort of shady behavior you can expect at Phil Long car dealers. I can honestly say I will NEVER go to one again. The experience was a total nightmare, and it honestly bothered me for days.
Coincidentally, my husband found out that the crazy deal on that Grand Prix they had was several thousand dollars above book. And we later bought an older Grand Prix from another dealer in town, which offered us a 4.25% rate on the loan. They also gave us $6000 on our "worthless" trade in.
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