Curious what yalls thoughts are on this place or places similar to this?

Should I be more skeptical of a dealership that thrives off of moving large amounts of units?

ib4flaming

My sister has had good experiences with then, but they have a reputation of selling totaled vehicles that have been repaired. And usually it doesn't show up on a Carfax or autocheck report.

basically, they are the highest volume dealer in existence. with that comes issues. i don't know that they have more repaired vehicles than any other place but with the volume they do you're more likely to hear about it on the internet when people complain. i highly recommend taking someone that is at least a decent shade tree mechanic with you and having them look over the vehicle as closely as possible.

Its a wholesale environment. You probably know more about cars than the "sales rep" you'll deal with.

You take responsibility for everything. Assume nothing. And don't assume the clean carfax or autocheck means anything.

I'm not saying I would never buy a car from them again, but I'd take an expert with me, or pay a good chunk of money for a real pre-purchase inspection. Its a calculated risk.

mm:

Have you bought a vehicle from them and had a bad experience?

You've got stars, do a search on the board for Texas Direct Auto, you'll find many threads over the past several years.

I bought a 2009 chevy silverado last year from them and had a great experience! I talked them down 3grand and haven't had any problems with the vehicle yet

I bought a 2004 suburban loaded , 6 years old with low miles. Showed no wrecks and only 1 owner. Car checked out okay on a local inspection. Later discovered there was a 2nd owner prior to us, unreported, and didn’t show up on Autocheck until after we bought it. Due to some of the repair work that we noticed later on the front passenger side, it was likely in a wreck. Probably not major, but enough to replace some of the suspension. I honestly don’t know how that was missed by my pre-purchase inspection.

Later had a ton of transmission and cooling system issues. That’s more maintenance & reliability, but again had the information from TDA been completely forthcoming I wouldn’t have bought it in the first place.

Sales process was fine. A friend of a friend worked there and he was really easy to deal with.

Now, whoever ended up buying my Accord that I traded to them got a great deal. Clean car, fully maintenance records, and no wrecks. There are deals to be had you just have to be extremely careful.

Another story…my good friend bought a loaded Yukon from them and had it 10 months. Due to his license being suspended he had to sell it. Another Texags poster took the ad I posted on his behalf, contacted my buddy Jim, and ended up taking the car to 1ags for a look over. It had been in a major front end wreck with sloppy repair and attempt to cover it up. My friend went back to TDA, played dumb, tried to sell it back to them and when they told him it had been wrecked he pulled out all the paperwork that gave him 10 months before that showing it was clean. He ended up selling it to Carmax.

google "Texas Direct Auto Reviews"

If you give them a $500 deposit on a credit card and don't buy a car there, you will have heck getting your money back.

They will negotiate off their ebay buy it now price, offer several thousand less. They do not want you to buy it on ebay, in the event you are not happy you could leave them negative feedback, their ebay rating is very very important to them, as it's the ONLY positive thing they have going for them on the internet.

If you want to buy something, get your own inspection done at the dealer of your choice, do not use their inspection service. What a crock that is.

The place is an absolute zoo. Prepare yourself.

How do the have wrecked cars with clean carfax reports? They buy rental cars from Enterprise, AVIS, whoever....those companies are self insured and unless a police report is filed, carfax has no idea that the car was in a wreck because insurance was not involved, or perhaps the police department that reported the accident does not report to carfax. Carfax pays police departments $5 per accident report.
This is not limited to TDA, many dealers are shady.

Sure they have cars/trucks that are clean used cars, but they sure have plenty that are not.

I won't ever buy there because they seem shady to me, and made me dispute my charge to get a $500 deposit back on a vehicle with painted over VIN stickers....

Also, they buy northern vehicles, so check the origin of the vehicle you don't want one from the rust belt.

Other than that, they are fine.

They will give you a fair price if you are selling your car to them. Would be cautious of buying from them though. I worked at a dealership for a while saw several cars come in that you could tell had been totaled but it was not disclosed when Texas Auto direct sold it.

Cliff Notes:

NO!

One of my would-be customers bought from there. They got SCREWED. It's a POS, doesn't have nav or bluetooth (like they were told it did), and has a dirty carfax for major damage & airbag deployment. I've seen it in our service department 3 times since they bought it last month.

quote:

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They will give you a fair price if you are selling your car to them. Would be cautious of buying from them though. I worked at a dealership for a while saw several cars come in that you could tell had been totaled but it was not disclosed when Texas Auto direct sold it.

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They offered me just over $3k less than CarMax for my 3 year old WRX. I almost laughed in the guys face when he gave me the offer after I waited about 2 hours toget their quote. He said they could meet the CarMax price and I asked why bother. Went to CarMax and had a check in hours.

Sold my wife's scion tC to them and got KBB value for it. Which I never would have thought was possible. Don't know about buying stuff from them.

They are the Walmart of the used car market. Volume is how they roll. They bully up auctions. Buyers with very little car knowledge buying stuff. But mad money company.

Dont confuse them with Texas Auto Pros when searching, which is Aggie owned and supported.

And a great place to buy or sell a car

But their office stinks like old food or something.