Spada's Auto

Review of ARRIGO DODGE CHRYSLER JEEP

I will start by asking a very important question. ...

I will start by asking a very important question. When going to a dealer to purchase a used car would you expect to have to tow the vehicle home? Especially when over the phone you were told it's a good running vehicle. Since most people would probably answer no to my question let me just tell you about my experience yesterday (10/28/15) with this dealership.

We are in search of a vehicle for our teenage son and came across what appeared to be a decent vehicle on their website. We called ahead to verify that they still had the vehicle and asked if there were any issues with it that we should know about. The salesman told us that the vehicle had a few scratches and dings but overall it's a good running car. With that we loaded up and drove the hour and fifteen minutes south to see the vehicle. Immediately after walking in the showroom the salesman (same gentleman we spoke to over the phone) greeted us politely then brought us out to see the vehicle. Understanding that this vehicle is 11 years old we anticipated it to not be in perfect shape. At first glance visually the car was appealing. Few scratches like the salesman said along with the headlights being glazed over (not uncommon for an 11 yr old vehicle). Then the salesman started the vehicle. We immediately heard a rather loud exhaust leak and thought okay that's fixable we will still test drive it. During the test drive the check engine light came on and the car started misfiring. Again, okay needs a tune-up, no big deal. Then came the big one..... when down shifting (manual transmission) the transmission popped out of second gear and started to grind. A quick search online showed that this is a common problem for these types of vehicles and to repair it you would have to replace the transmission or take the transmission apart to replace the gears and the synchronizer. So now we are looking at a vehicle that we were told runs well and is being sold at a price that you would expect to pay if it were running properly.

Knowing that the vehicle has an exhaust leak, misfires and needs repairs or replacement of the transmission we still felt we should make an offer. They are asking the full NADA suggested retail value of the vehicle as if it was running perfectly which this one clearly was not. So we offered $1000 less to cover the cost of the repairs. The salesman understood our concerns and brought our offer to the floor/finance manager. This manager comes to the desk and tells us that Arrigo fully inspects each vehicle and prices their vehicles accordingly. He also stated that he would have no problem getting full suggested retail value of the vehicle if he took it to auction. I'm assuming at this point he is use to dealing with customers who don't research vehicles before they purchase them and felt talking down to potential customers was a good way to "bully" us into paying their price. Therefore, we gave this "manager" a bit of a chuckle and wish him well at the auction. We explained that if Arrigo feels it is good business to sell a vehicle that has major issues and would require a buyer to have the vehicle towed home then they would have to be okay with losing a customer. With that we stood up from our chairs and walked out but not before the salesman came to us and apologized for wasting our time and not knowing the vehicle had issues.

I will say this, we appreciate the sincerity of the salesman and fully believe he had no idea of the problems with this vehicle. Nor did he attempt to show us any other vehicles. The manager on the other hand was completely rude and disrespectful. His attitude towards us and our offer honestly would have kept us from purchasing the vehicle even if they later agreed to our price. Needless to say Arrigo has lost a sale and a customer. As we will never return to any of their dealerships in the future.