Some salesmen have a great knack for hiding dishonesty and putting on a sincere demeanor; surprisingly some (or atleast one) of the salesmen here do not even possess this ability. One of the most outrageous things to me about the company in it's whole was the
dishonesty with website pricing vs. actual pricing. The website had decent prices on a number of vehicles
that I drove an hour to go see. Upon arriving at the dealer, I found out after deciding to buy one of the
pre-owned vehicles that the website prices on each were low by 10 or more% (thousands of dollars); they are a gimmick to reel you in. I could not even negotiate a sales price that was near the online price and ended up purchasing for higher than advertised price. When I asked about the dishonesty it was dismissed as very recent technological ""website malfunctions"" but I had been seeing the same price online for a month....REDICULOUS. Even worse, the online trade-in value is another joke of a gimmick to get you in, I was told that I would only get HALF of what the online trade-in price was quoted, that is a HUGE difference.
I do not think anyone can deny most car salesmen are dishonest at least to some degree, but the one I had was beyond unacceptable which is one of the main reasons I am disappointed (he even started making up stories about a competitor dealer which he forgot
admitting to me the previous day he had never even HEARD OF). Not to mention extremely rude also. Besides having the painfully obvious rationale
of a child, I cannot count how many rediculous lies he told me (as if I didn't know he was lying), and when I
got fed up and started questioning him in detail about what he was telling me, I got him to contradict himself so many times and he just stopped talking after realizing he was making a fool of himself. You have to pay close attention to what they say and ask details and get as much as you can in writing because they will deceive. If you are careful and play it smart, you
can outwit them because, or at least the salesman which I dealt with possessed an astonishingly substandard IQ (is there even an employee screening process?). Absolutely ANYTHING will be said to make the sale, MONEY comes before ETHICS here and I am disappointed in my experience with both the sales and loan staff.
Now as for benefit of the doubt, I understand that I might have just been assigned to the most rude, dishonest, and least competent member of the
sales staff; maybe some of the salesmen are better but I think everything points to one root problem...lack of upper management care/resposibility and customer
appreciation. It has appeared that upper management is lazy and I was very surprised at how little communication there was between all parties involved. If Honda of Clearlake does not correct some of these issues, its future success could be tainted. Dismal, dismal.
To end with a very few of the pro's I believe I owe them after this bashing, I would have to say they have a good
pre-owned selection and I now have a beautiful pre-owned truck. After all, I did make my purchase with them, only because they had the perfect truck for
me and you can't be as picky about dealers if you're in the used vehicle market. However, I dread the
possibility of having to deal with them in the future for any warranty isses, etc.
You can come out just fine if you are skilled at negotiating and
have extremely good background knowledge in all auto issues, just know you might run into some disappointing service along the way. Lastly, keep in mind that for some of them (cannot in good conscience say all or even most), the core business
philosophy that I and apparently a number of others have observed is one thing:
MONEY before ETHICS.
Happy hunting.
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