Review: Country Hills Hyundai
I’m gonna preface this with “why would you expect any different”. We all know nobody likes car dealers, and yes I wasn’t expecting much from this encounter but I will still post my review.
As you’ve probably seen, I’m trying to sell a car here in marketplace, this morning I got a message from Country Hills Hyundai asking if they could view the car and make an offer. I knew it was probably a waste of time but several other dealer offers were very close to what I wanted for the car so I decided to respond and offer to show them the car. I made it clear what my bottom dollar was and they said it was probably possible if the car was nice.
I brought them the car in the rain (not ideal, car was clean sitting at home before hand but this was my choice). I enter the dealer and wait at the reception desk while seemingly being ignored by the person at the desk who is counting change in her wallet, finally after 3 or so minutes she asks me if I need something and I ask to speak to the person who messaged me on Kijiji, she calls them and I wait. I speak to the person who messaged me, who then hands me off the the “used car or sales manager” (can’t remember which it was). We go out to the car and he starts looking it over, pops the hood and looks all around (totally fair, my day job is inspecting and buying vehicles and I do the same), looks at the brakes does a quick walk around the car once, nothing too in depth. During this he drags one of the two key fobs directly across the paint on one fender while poking around, I ask him to be careful. He then gets in and starts the car, looks around at the instrument cluster, changes the drive modes and starts revving the car (kind cringe). We then go for a test drive (I made it clear I wasn’t leaving the car unattended, I do not trust anyone at a dealer not to “bag” my car) during which he does a bunch of basically idle rpm full throttle pulls (why?). He’s ok at manual but not smooth with the clutch and is resting his hand on the gear lever while the car is moving in gear (not great for the synchros but I decided not to make an issue of it, it’s just a short test drive after all). He also does a couple medium brake applications from 80km/h (no issues with the brakes, pads are at least 75% thickness and zero pulsation or pull etc). He then proceeds to send it back into the parking lot at speed (I would have preferred he slowed down over the curb but again not going to call him out).
We head back into the dealer and he leaves me on my own for 10 mins. When he comes back he immediately offers me $2k less than what I already said was my bottom dollar. He tried to explain to me that the car need tires and brake rotors to pass an AMVIC inspection (the car absolutely does not need brakes, there is zero pulsation, pull or noise, pads are over 70% thickness, tires would pass inspection no problem but I agreed they aren’t “brand new” by any means). I reiterate my bottom dollar and let him know that I disagree fully that the car would need any work to pass an inspection. He continues to argue with me that it needs “at least $2000 of work to be saleable”. I reiterated that that is an outright lie, and that if my bottom dollar doesn’t work for themit’s no problem for me, I can take the car home. He tries yet again to negotiate me down, this time telling me the car is an “undesirable spec” and retail value for it is what I want for it so I’m asking too much. I point out again I am happy to take the car home, it is clear that the number doesn’t work for both of us. He ups his price $1000 but again tells me the car needs work to be safe, I ask him how he knew the car needed tires when he never looked, touched or measured the tread depth on them. At this point I let him know that I am both trained in automotive (AST through SAIT) as well as inspect and buy vehicles for my day job, and that he was not being truthful with me. Again I tell him my number is my number and I would take the car and leave. He continues to try and beat me down, telling me about how the dealer has to finance the car while it’s in their inventory and it’s always depreciating, which is fine but has nothing to do with the matter at hand, he again brings up that the car is “undesirable” in spec and that he would be spending $2000 on reconditioning to sell the car at retail for what I want for it. He brings up the fact that the car is depreciating constantly while I own it, I tell him that doesn’t bother me and I’m happy to keep the car if I can not sell it. I also bring up that I’ve looked country wide at both private sales and dealer sales on multiple platforms for similar cars, and I know that my car at asking price (higher than my bottom dollar) is the second cheapest one country wide despite having half the mileage of the cheapest car in the country. At this point im getting a little spicy I’m thinking to myself “wow so he’s come up $1000 in price but his math coming out of his mouth works out to a $1000 loss on sale if he buys it and sells it for what he claims it will retail for” but I don’t say anything about that. He uses the line “we are in the business to make money” and I’m internally laughing to myself. I then counter off that he sells me a brand new car for $4100 under MSRP total discount and I would accept his offer that’s $1000 under my bottom number to buy my car. I know that this wasn’t ever going to happen but I’m ready to be a bit of a dick back. His response was that the new car in question “only has $500 of dealer profit at msrp, let alone $4100 under msrp”. He leaves and comes back 5 minutes later with the keys and tells me “nothing I can do”. Finally I am able to leave with my car.
Again I say this experience is not unexpected, but I feel there could have been a ton more professionalism. I definitely don’t appreciate being referred to as “man” when I am a potential customer, being directly lied to and being told over and over that I am asking too much money and I need to sell the vehicle to the dealer for less. The whole conversation should have been much shorter and less aggravating if the person had accepted the first, second or third time that I was not interested in their lower offer. Overall other dealers that have made me offers that are both slightly higher value wise and also a lot better to deal with.
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Originally Posted by killramos
