Sorry for the book:

Sorry for the book:
My first contact was with Landon. Super sweet kid! My next contact was with Chase. I did initially tell him about a week before we went in that we were trying to stay under $16,000, but might be able to go up to $17,000 AFTER taxes and fees, depending on the vehicle. We did not want to finance.
My husband talked with Chase on the phone before we went in. The car's price (a Kia Sedona) was a little above what we really wanted to be paying, so Tyree (my husband) was trying to talk him down to get the best deal possible. Chase told us that he knew he could get the price down to a set amount on the vehicle, and there was a chance he might be able to get it lower if we came in and test drove it. He would then have to talk to the person above him. He then even offered to pay for our gas to come out and test drive the car (we were coming from Provo to SLC). I assume that he was attempting to get us into the car so that we would see all the bells and whistles and just HAVE to have it, and that we would then be okay with the price tag.

Fast forward: we go in, arrive at about 5pm. Got into the test drive fairly quickly; that's great. Then Landon asks if we want to fill out the credit app so that everything can go quickly should we decide to drive the car. Now, I'll remind you that we were trying to keep it under $17,000 at MOST, preferably below that. Unfortunately, our taxes were delayed so we did not have enough to pay cash and were considering financing the remainder until we got our refund. So we fill out the credit app, assuming the application would not be processed until we settled on a price. At this point, we still had not seen Chase except when we drove the van. He never came to talk price with us, even though he know FULL WELL that we were not planning to pay the sticker price on it. If we'd been told that that is what we'd pay, we would have driven home immediately after the test drive. So we waited until 7:20 to talk to Tracy (the finance guy). We were under the impression that he was the one that we would be talking price with. We saw Chase leave at 7, of course never giving us the gas money he'd promised.
We get in there with Tracy, FINALLY, at about 7:20. We HAD to leave by 7:30 because I teach from home, and my first class that night was at 9pm. We had to drive back to Provo and still get our kids to bed, whose bedtime is 7:30, so I was already annoyed that it was taking this long.
We get in there and find out that he thought we were paying the full sticker price; Chase had never told him the price he'd told us. We also then found out that Tracy does NOTHING with negotiating prices. So there we were, a credit application had been filed (which of course puts hard inquiries on our credit record), for more money than we intended. The application was filed and we were NEVER EVEN TOLD THE AMOUNT OF THE REQUESTED LOAN (Illegal?)! I got a letter in the mail from a credit union explaining why we were denied. The amount of the requested loan was more that $1000 OVER our MAXIMUM BUDGET. If we had been told the amount being requested, I would have (1) been able to tell them we would not get approved because our income is not enough (which was exactly why we were denied) and (2) that we had no desire to pay that much total regardless of whether we could get approved. It was not a big deal to us if you they could not come down on the price. We do not need the vehicle immediately and have time to shop around, but good heavens, just be honest about it. If someone had just told us that, we would have walked away. We would not have had the hard inquiries placed on our credit report and we would have gotten home before my kids' bedtime. My husband was literally putting our kids to bed when I began teaching that night because we got home so late.

I feel like this whole experience was just a big scheme. Of course, since we were denied financing I never got a call back from Landon or Chase after the weekend. I also never reached out because I have zero desire to do any business with this dealership.