Ordered a car, or so I thought with money down, 3 weeks ago and found out today the dealer's higher manager decided to raise the deposit to 5k and make the deposit non-refundable on a car that I was told was ordered and actually wasn't. My wife and I were very excited to have found another German brand to enjoy and it would seem as though the dealer has brought this to a stop.

Now, deposit is being refunded back and we are looking at other brands. I see the lure of MB and how nice their cars are. Too bad they hire such DBs to run their dealerships.

 

Wife and I had a similar experience with a Jag dealer here a few years ago. We had worked up a deal with them on a car they had coming in. A couplke of weeks later, the salesman called us, said the car was in, and to come in that evening to pick it up. When we arrived that evening to swap cars, the salesman said sorry, we sold it to someone else earlier today, want to wait on another one? After expressing my displeasure at this bunch of idiots, we walked away. I then called another Jag dealer about 150 miles away, and, we worked out a deal over the phone. A week later we drove our trade over and picked up our new Jag, and saved ourselves some money to boot. Since service was free for 50K miles, I made the local dealer do the service on it. Aggravated them a bunch to have to service it.

Regards:
Oldengineer

 

One would think high-end luxury brand car dealers would treat their customers in a different manner. But underneath the cover, many of them are all the same just as the cheaper dealerships. Sneaky, dishonest, or just out without a clue.

 

This stinks.. It doesn't matter the brand there will always be good and bad (dirt-bags) with all of them...

 

They played their game with you and lost, both the sale and you as a future customer.

 

Very good point

 

You should write a review on Yelp and DealerRater and make sure to mention the salesman and manager by name. My friend that works at Mercedes tells me that those reviews actually matter, not sure if they do, but will at least it will let you vent in public.

 

I must be the only one who does not understand this post. The only reasons for a dealer to request a $5,000 non-refundable deposit to order a car would be either a vehicle equipped so strangely as to be unsalable to the normal customer or a desire to actually not sell a car to a particular customer.

In this case, which one was it? These guys are not idiots and have a lot of money invested trying to sell vehicles. They are not looking for ways to run people off and not sell them. It also obviously does not take three weeks of discussing the matter internally to make a decision. There just must be more to the story that we might well never know.

 

Good points guys.

Jallen4, the issue at hand is that they asked me for a $1,000 deposit (fully refundable if the vehicle wasn't right or any other reason crept in I could back out - but wouldn't as it was what we wanted) and I signed the paperwork for the order 3 weeks ago. Now I find out that the car was never ordered despite their telling me it was. Also, they didn't have allocation for the car and would have to order it as a Purchase order (which they also didn't do) and they never bothered to call me. Instead, they wanted $5,000 total, were incredibly vague on numbers and the Sales manager beneath the GM was abrasive and unwilling to help. Also, the deposit he changed to non-refundable. Hopefully this answers your question.

The issue is not the salesperson as they are the middle man. The issue here was bait and switch and not following through with what was promised. I've already made the owners aware of the matter and also contacted MB USA and filed a formal complaint against that dealer and it is being sent down to the regional. Whether anything comes of this I don't know, but I've done my part. And this experience has greatly tarnished my opinion of MB and I'm already on edge after having Audi just finalize my lemon law buy back in acknowledging the defect I filed my car under was in fact an internally known design flaw. So my trust with auto manufacturers has just been tested and this wasn't the next step I needed in this process.

So I'm looking into Japanese luxury brands as german doesn't appear to be a possibility now. Maybe I'll come back to look at benz in the future, or maybe not. But the whole dealership experience has been so rotten I've dissuaded a few friends locally from going through what I have because no one should have to endure what I have recently with a luxury car brand.

 

[You should write a review on Yelp and DealerRater and make sure to mention the salesman and manager by name. My friend that works at Mercedes tells me that those reviews actually matter...]

x2

Those reviews DO matter. Post-up! Sorry for your bad experience.

 

+1

Two sides to every story.

Although I understand your point of view, if there was a car that I really wanted it would take more than a bad sales experience to draw me away from that specific car. I would just go to another dealership.

Another plus for sticking with one salesman as we have for all but one of our 6 Mercedes that we have owned over the years - you can expect the same thing every time.

 

I'll get on Yelp when I get a chance.

I have also been to the only other MB dealer within 100 miles and that other one was the dealer I went to first. The staff there like to play games on numbers, didn't want to order the car and basically said so, and my salesperson kept hacking all over the place and gave me the flu and a cough that wouldn't stop for 3 weeks. So I've been to both MB dealers. Perhaps when I relocate a different area might give a better experience, but living in the DFW area, I think it's just a dead end for my household.

 

Hi. First post on MBWorld. New GLK on the way (ordered), I hope.

BarrettF77...I ordered a 2013 GLK shortly before you (12/31/12). I had a similar experience with MB Plano and ended up going to Park Place. I was wondering who your salesman was at PP? Did the dealer contact you, or did you contact them and find out that there was no GLK on order? I haven't heard a word from my salesman since I ordered, though he did say the vehicle wouldn't finish production until the end of January. I'm thinking I'll give him a call.

 

I first dealt with Patrick ad MB of Plano. When I went to Park Place MB it was the Grapevine store. I dealt with Kat who was great. Her boss Mike was also great. His Boss Ted was the abrasive person and held the show up. I understand their point of view. But I also don't like having weeks of time lost in searching for a new car meanwhile my money is sitting in their account in hold for a car that was said to have been ordered but in fact hadn't. It's not a salesperson issue here. It's a dealer management issue at this store. Maybe I hadn't clarified this point well enough. But hopefully this helps sort that out.

 

I agree.. And if nothing else it allows you to "vent" a little more..

 

I posted a review on there over the weekend. Interesting thing, others have had similar encounters with that dealership. Guess it is common behavior for them. Thanks for the recommendations.

 

Good Luck

 

A few years ago I had a similar experience at a BMW dealership and I went out on the showroom floor and started telling the prospective customers about it.

The GM came out and got very abusive; my response was to ask the prospects if they really wanted to deal with someone so rude and unpleasant.

The GM threatened to call the police, and I said that he should do that, and while he was I would be calling a local TV news station.

The finance manager came out and asked me to step back into his office to talk. He said they would agree to the original deal, but by that time I was over it all.

Never even considered a BMW ever since...