Can anyone recommend me to a good mercedes dealership in southern california? Bought my mbz out of state and had the worst experience ever. I just moved to LA and I want to purchase a new mbz for my wife.

 

well i live in san diego, so we are close, but i would go straight to fltcher jones in newport beach, they sell the most mbs in the country, very very good service too, go there, and youll get a deal

 

Phone me at 805.905.9051 for a recommendation.

 

Hands down the best.........Steve Brown at the House of Imports in Buena Park. Tell him Steve(Kaiser's son) recommended you go there. We've bought many cars from Steve Brown. He's a good guy.

 

Both of these dealerships have been great to deal with in the past although it has been years since I have purchased a Mercedes in your area.

 

Don't go to Fletcher Jones in Newport Beach. I shopped some of the smaller dealerships. With hard negotiation, great deals are available on E320s.

As a final stop, I called Fletcher Jones, the biggest dealership around. The sales manager wouldn't give me figures over the phone, but begged me to come down and swore he would have no problem beating my best offer. Deal in hand, I drove 60 miles to meet the fleet manager. The meeting lasted 20 minutes, during which this fleet manager:

1) Announced that he has to pay a sales commission on every sale, no matter what. (LIE NUMBER ONE).

2)Announced that he has to charge a non-negotiable dealer prep because filling up the gas tank and detailing a new car costs at least $500. (LIE NUMBER TWO).

3) Finally looked at my WRITTEN OFFER from another dealership, and then scurried out of sight with it so he could "ask his boss". (LIE NUMBER THREE. The fleet manager has total authority to make all deals. He simply wanted to photocopy the offer so he could keep tabs on the competition.).

4) Said that no one would actually sell the car for the price listed on my written offer, because they would lose money. When I mentioned dealer holdback, he grew angry, and said the dealership doesn't get that on every car. (LIE NUMBER FOUR).

5) Said that if a salesman negotiated the price I had been quoted, he would refuse to honor it because it's too low. Huh? (LIE NUMBER FIVE)

When I announced I was going to be buying the car from the dealership I had the offer in hand from, he spent the next five minutes badmouthing that dealership. ("They sold 60 cars last month. We sold 800...")

I got up to leave, at which point he announced he would "match" the price from the other dealership, adding in the $500 dealer prep fee (and God knows what else) I was not being charged elsewhere.

As I was leaving, he announced that the car I wanted (which has to be ordered) would take three to four months to get from Europe. Huh? Over the phone, the Fletcher Jones sales manager said they could have a car on the assembly line in Europe reconfigured and get the car I want in just a few weeks. (LIE NUMBER SIX.)

As for beating my best deal, guaranteed? Forget it. (LIE NUMBER SEVEN.)

And car dealers wonder why they have such bad reputations.

 

Fletcher Jones sounds like a TV spoof of a car dealer:p

Cappy..you should use edit and delete one of your posts as you duplicated it.

 

I agree. For the most part, Fletcher Jones sucks. Too many horror stories have been told about good old Fletcher.

 

Had called F.J. Mike Thomas was there interent sales manager I was told and transferred to. He said:

1. We are the biggest dealership in the country.
2. We sold 700 cars last month.
3. We can get any car you want within 2 days.

After I told him about the offer over invoice he said: there is a big shortage of new E class cars in the USA. Majority of dealers are selling them above MSRP (Hello! ) We at F.J. will sell only at MSRP.
You can come down and we will take care of you.

I saved some gas money for sure..........

Do not know though which dealerships offer good deals in 2003, like we had heard in 2002 on the new E ($500 over invoice etc.) Does anyone know????????

 

I've had great luck at Caliber Motors in Anaheim Hills. Although they have expanded quite a bit, they still act like a little dealer.

I've bought from House of Imports, too, and received good price.

Fletcher has gotten way too big. I'm particularly disgusted with their service department which handles hundreds of cars every day. Go there one morning at 8:00 am and see if you can get a service advisor to talk to you in less than 45 minutes.

 

fletcher jones is the place that the guy from www.lemonmb.com bought his car. i would stay away.

house is okay. i only paid $1k over invoice which i thought was pretty good. service has been pretty good so far.

i had to go in one time for a scratch (that was on the car when the car was delivered) and they fixed it and gave me a loaner (C240).

service guy gave me some trouble about getting the loaner (basically, he said that he couldn't give me one). but luckily i had called my sales guy before i went in and the sales guy put the loaner in the computer already so i basically got the loaner and told the service guy to SUCK IT (well, i didn't do this last part).

Rock

 

I like Mercedes Benz of Laguna Niguel, personally.

PM me for intel if you want it...(Salesperson recommendation etc.)

EDJ

 

Do you suppose anyone who works at one of the Fletcher Jones dealerships ever reads these threads? If they did don't you think that they would bring the absolute ripping of them on all of these threads.(not just MBWorld.org, but Edmunds, Benzworld.org, etc.) to the attention of management.

What a pathetic operation they must have. They claim to be the biggest MB dealer in the U.S. I wonder how long it takes for some of the problems to began to take a toll. It sounds like they have a lot of competition.

Ed

 

Such a good point Etenn. My family and I went to Fletcher Jones about a year ago. When we go car shopping, we usually take the most bucket-ish car we have. I mean I don't think it would be too smart to roll into the dealer in the CL600. If so, they'd definitely try and highball us. So we were in our Lexus RX300. To make a long story short, these *****s were talking to us like we couldn't afford the car(2002 CLK 430). We were ready to buy that day, it was to be a surprise for my younger brother. The whole attitude of that dealership stinks of sh*t. From the salespeople to the service dept. So instead, we went to Irvine BMW and bought him a fully loaded 330Ci.

 

Stevo...the most amazing thing is that your story is repeated over and over again. If the few people (in comparison to the all MB buyers) on these forums have the experiences related on here, how can they continue to find new business.

I would think that the repeat business would be almost non-existant.

Anyone one here have good relationship with FJ? Any repeat buyers here? Must be another side to the story.

Ed

 

I suspect that many customers do not do any homework and Fletcher happens to be the closest dealer to their home. Sort of a "follow the mob" mentality.

 

Great, now I find out about Fletcher Jones our E320 is due in around Jan 26th. I sure hope we didn't make a big mistake. It's allot of money not to have a good experience.

 

Roncar...At least you are forewarned. Look back or search through the threads for the past couple of months and see what kind of BS buyers got from FJ. If you know what to expect it is fairly easy to avoid it.

Just refuse any BS or added charges. Be willing to walk out the door at delivery. If you walk they will be right behind you getting you back. They will not lose a sale at delivery:p

 

Almost forgot...

I spoke with Mike Thomas at FJ too when I first started shopping.

He said FJ was forbidden by Mercedes Benz from giving price quotes or leasing rates over the phone because their figures are SO LOW, other dealers complained to Mercedes Benz, who made FJ stop the practice. I asked why other dealers had been willing to give me figures over the phone, and he said, "Come on down, we'll take care of you", then ended the call.

So that would be LIE NUMBER 8.

And here's LIE NUMBER 9: Before I went down to Fletcher Jones, I received a call from a salesman (after I'd already told the sales manager on the phone I would call to come down and meet with someone from FLEET if I was interested). I asked what he did, and he said he was a salesman. I said I was only willing to deal with fleet. His response: Oh, I do fleet too....

 

call laguna niguel they have a great star member program. 949-347-3760

 

Anyone buying should check a few dealerships and compare numbers if you are trying to get the best deal. I have heard 3 dealers in California make better offers than laguna nigel.....

 

Give EmMtEe a break....he works at laguna nigel....you can't know that the others dealers are making better deals on a regular basis. I agree that checking with multiple dealers is a good idea but don't knock Liguna Nigel unless you have a reason.
Two of our regular posters bought cars from EmMtEe and I haven't heard anything negative from them

Ed

 

Geeez etenn, you certainly do pay attention! I can hardly believe some of the details of past posts you seem able to recall, and the posters that placed them.

I'm duly impressed!

I usually just have a vague notion of who *might* have posted what, lol!

EDJ

 

Geez.....Maybe I have a pornographic memory:p

I did hate to see your buddy trashed Joe....

Ed

 

well im over here in nyc so everyone i know goes to mb of manhattan which is owned by mercedes so they sell at msrp or less, but im 3k miles away and fletcher jones is selling sl55's for 230k. yeah great deal from the biggest dealership