toyota and gmc
aggiepaintrain@gmail.com

That is a great experience!

woodiewood said:

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75AG said:

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I know this goes against most people's experience on here, but wife and I went with her son to Allen Honda and had a pretty good experience. They took all the add-ons off and gave him an additional $4000 off the window sticker on a pre-owned 2024 with a clean CarFax

The only bad part was there was only 1 finance manager there with over a 1.5 hour wait to see her. But, the sales manager apologized and gave my SIL a $100 bill to buy us dinner.

Also new sales guy's grandmother sold us our first house in CS. So maybe we got the friends and family discount?

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Good unusual experience from what I had.

We went out Saturday and looked at cars and could not get straight answers from sales persons at two dealerships. Want bottom line out the door cash cost and they both kept going on and on about add ons and financing. Walked out on both.

The car lots are totally full and overflowing with new and pre-owned cars. You would think that they would be ready, willing and able to deal.

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I've concluded the local guys don't do enough volume to make deals and that every sale has to contribute meaningfully to the bottom line. People here regularly refer to Bill Fick as a great place to buy a Ford truck and that's true because he's the highest volume heavy duty dealer in the state and that success trickles down to the rest of the business.

If I'm right times like this are difficult for them to navigate because the carrying costs of that inventory are high and they don't have the business model to move it timely. They're stuck in their "profit per copy" mindset at a time when the market says they need to be more aggressive in their pricing to get people in the door.

I think the local dealerships play the odds. Every 6th,or 10th, or nth person will pay.

I just did a lot of shopping around Toyotas. Wichita Falls was the only one I for sure find that didn't have add ons. I think the AutoNation places were also good in that department.

Universally the rest wanted to add on something.
I ended up getting a used one on a Chevy lot in Rockdale and had a great experience there. Even that lot usually has add ons though.

I'll also add a negative experience from Hyundai. I couldn't get a response for over 2 days when I was ready to buy. When they eventually brought me in late, the price on their website showing the vehicle marked down $7k was suddenly full MSRP and with significant ad ons.

In all the delay, I also got to hear 2 different customer stories of having had their vehicle in their shop for a month. The second one was being told it had to go back in too. For how big of a deal the sales manager made about how awesome their warranties are, you'd think they would actually be able to use them. Granted, I'd shopped around enough other brands to know that his comparison warranties of other manufacturers were either at least 5-10 years outdated or outright fabrications.

So much wrong there!

pattybrhg said:

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I'll also add a negative experience from Hyundai. I couldn't get a response for over 2 days when I was ready to buy. When they eventually brought me in late, the price on their website showing the vehicle marked down $7k was suddenly full MSRP and with significant ad ons.

In all the delay, I also got to hear 2 different customer stories of having had their vehicle in their shop for a month. The second one was being told it had to go back in too. For how big of a deal the sales manager made about how awesome their warranties are, you'd think they would actually be able to use them. Granted, I'd shopped around enough other brands to know that his comparison warranties of other manufacturers were either at least 5-10 years outdated or outright fabrications.

So much wrong there!

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The transmission in my 2019 Hyundai failed at 109k miles on Sept 14 and it went to the CS dealership because a good friend of mine that's a mechanic said he wasn't 100% sure that replacing the transmission was the right fix based on his research. It sat at the local dealership for SIX WEEKS before I finally bought another car and another three weeks before I sold it for parts. No diagnostics, just a cursory scan to make sure it wasn't an easy fix. They told me it was behind two other vehicles that had been in that tech's queue for five months. FIVE MONTHS! WHO can live without their car for five months? That's absurd.

We didn't buy another Hyundai. My dad bought a new Elantra right before mine died based on my recommendation. Hopefully his experience is better. I won't buy another Hyundai.

We had a great experience 6 years ago at the local Mazda dealer. I'm really not looking forward to the next time we need a car.

We had a couple rounds of that with the local Chrysler dealership except for a very minor warranty covered issue. We couldn't even get a call back for almost 6 months. I made multiple trips up there to speak to someone face to face. That didn't go any better.

When we finally went back the like 4th time, almost all of the service managers had been fired, we were told by our new one, for fraudulent warranty claims being put in. Our new service manager started by asking us if our car was on the lot. He didn't know. He said they had cars that had been there for months and had no idea whose they were at that point. That doesn't even seem possible and I wouldn't believe me if we hadn't heard that.

Fast forward a day. We return and the new service manager was also fired.

We eventually got service that time. We now drive to Brenham.

The original service manager we had that wouldn't call or text back for 6 months is now back working there. It's safe to say, I'd strongly recommend against Lithia here.
Their sales team may be fine, but God help you if you ever need service... and based on their vehicles, you will.

For what it's worth, I've had very good service with Toyota here. I don't care for their sales department, but their service was good. Granted, with my Toyota I was there like twice in 10 years.

pattybrhg said:

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We had a couple rounds of that with the local Chrysler dealership except for a very minor warranty covered issue. We couldn't even get a call back for almost 6 months. I made multiple trips up there to speak to someone face to face. That didn't go any better.

When we finally went back the like 4th time, almost all of the service managers had been fired, we were told by our new one, for fraudulent warranty claims being put in. Our new service manager started by asking us if our car was on the lot. He didn't know. He said they had cars that had been there for months and had no idea whose they were at that point. That doesn't even seem possible and I wouldn't believe me if we hadn't heard that.

Fast forward a day. We return and the new service manager was also fired.

We eventually got service that time. We now drive to Brenham.

The original service manager we had that wouldn't call or text back for 6 months is now back working there. It's safe to say, I'd strongly recommend against Lithia here.
Their sales team may be fine, but God help you if you ever need service... and based on their vehicles, you will.

For what it's worth, I've had very good service with Toyota here. I don't care for their sales department, but their service was good. Granted, with my Toyota I was there like twice in 10 years.

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" He said they had cars that had been there for months and had no idea whose they were at that point."

They can find out who owns each car in about 2 minutes from either a VIN # or license plate # search.

woodiewood said:

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My inlaws bought an SUV from Atkinson Toyota a number of years ago. It had a recall on the engine and Atkinson Toyota delayed the service multiple times and evenually the engine had major issues and the service manager lied and tried to say he had not contacted them.

He fought them for about three months w/o a vehicle and after calling the national customer relationship director and multiple threats to sue Atkinson Toyota and the parent company, he not only got a new engine but Toyota National sent him a $1,500 check.

We have tried to purchase locally but due to the above mentioned issues, but we can't get any deal at all. I always feel like they think I am a moron. We purchase in Houston.

I buy local when I can, but I won't get screwed doing so.

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used to work there in college and this checks out. IIRC the service manager got the job bc he was at the time married to pauls daughter. if you knew a quarter of what went on there, man... , and some way creepy stuff happened too. I'm glad i left when i did.

i remember when the costa rican guys came in to look at buying ol' paulie out, they were allocated and parked an orange Lexus LFA in the service drive, but it never moved. i heard they didn't give him the keys. lol

Not only do I realize that, I even stated how crazy that sounded.

That doesn't mean it wasn't said.