Monday, May 6, 2019

Pleasant Car Buying Experience? What a Surprise!

Back in April of 2017 I ranted and raved over the poor treatment I received from a Nissan dealer in Taylorsville, Utah during the process of buying a 2016 Nissan Altima. 
See the link: https://dbridgerhot.blogspot.com/2017/04/why-i-absolutely-hate-buying-cars-my.html

I thought it only fair to acknowledge an extremely pleasant experience in the purchase of a new Ford Escape last week.

LuAnn's 2009 Escape, purchased new, had over 210,000 miles on it and she decided it was time for a new vehicle. It had been a great car with 4WD that never gave her any trouble so we started researching the 2019 models. Because there is a new redesign coming in the 2020 Escape going on sale this fall, Ford has some large cash incentives probably, I was thinking, to reduce the 2019 inventory.

We stopped over to Witt Ford in Crivitz on Sunday to look over the lot, went back on Tuesday to test drive one and really liked it. It was well equipped and not loaded up with all the extra features and cost she didn’t need or want. Based on previous experience, going in to talk price, I was not looking forward to doing battle with a sales team again.

The same salesman, Robin, was there from whom LuAnn bought her last car and we went in his office. There basically was nothing to haggle over as his first offer had a substantial discount from the MSRP from the dealer and all the available incentives from Ford included. That reduced the sticker price by about 22 percent. LuAnn agreed to the figures and we made an appointment to pick up the car the next day.

Next afternoon, we came back, and it was time to meet Dan, the “finance guy”, to sign the paperwork. That was my “here we go to battle” time that I dreaded, remembering my last experience in Salt Lake City. We went in, sat down, looked over the contract. All the numbers were what was agreed to with no “extras” snuck in. He showed us a sheet describing various extras like extended warranty, finish protection, etc that we could add but there was no hard sell and no objection over declining!

This is one of only a few car buying experiences in my life that were actually pleasant and I have bought quite a few cars over the last 50 years! And, amazingly, the other great one was also here in Crivitz way back in 1993 at Banaszak Chevrolet. 
See the link: https://dbridgerhot.blogspot.com/2012/03/classic-car-stories-my-1993-camaro.html

That dealership changed hands many years ago and is now owned by someone else that I have not had any experience with. For a great many years I was always under the impression I could get a better deal from the “big city” dealers but my opinion has certainly changed!



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