I was asked to leave a review of my experience fro...

I was asked to leave a review of my experience from a friendly email from this dealer, "Our business model is designed to eliminate much of the hassle traditionally associated with car sales. Hopefully, we have lived up to that promise which was to deliver you with a simple, honest, and hassle free vehicle purchase experience."

I would not agree that they fulfilled on their business model based on the above, especially related to the hassle free part.

It took me 5 hours to buy my car.

The vast amount of this time was me sitting around waiting, patiently. Luckily I brought my computer with me and got a fair amount of work done (they have wifi).

The only issue with the car (which is a certified pre-owned) had a fair amount of road noise associated with it. It took them a while to diagnose this cause which was with the tread on the rear tires was worn down. By the time I got to talk to someone about fixing this issue the service center had already closed (so as they couldn t fix it there) and I was already 3-4 hours into this experience plus my 1 hour drive up to Hickory from my home in Charlotte so I guess I was already all-in at this point so why not just continue to push through this hassle free experience.

My presumption with driving up to Hickory and buying a certified pre-owner car (outside of the KIA 100k warranty) was that the car was going to be free of any issues whatsoever, which I confirmed on the phone with Evan before driving up there.

I was able to negotiate down from the advertised price the cost to replace 2 tires plus a couple hundred more (for a total of $1k off of this price). However, when I got back to Charlotte I spent the better part of the next day driving to a couple different places to get an alignment (as I learned after the fact that I needed to get this before replacing the tires or the tires would just just get worn down like before) then the next day after that getting all 4 new tires (not just 2 that I was told by the dealer).

One thing that I really disliked was that I was told that I needed to sign a piece of paper titled Purchase Agreement however wasn t in fact a purchase agreement. I was like, Uhhhh, huh!? It seemed like the idea was to quickly move through this information and just get me moving to the next step, wherein I could finally talk with someone about the discounting the cost of the tires. The car didn t have a window sticker on it (which again I found odd) and the price amount on the purchase agreement (which again I was told wasn t really a purchase agreement) was different that the advertised price I found on Cargurus.com and confirmed with Evan on the phone beforehand.

Also, just a small thing, the first thing I was told to do when I arrived at the dealership was to move my car. I had parked in the back of the dealership in a parking slip which clearly read Customer . I was told to park in one of the handicapped parking spots up front. I didn t really want to do that but whatever. Perhaps because I had an old beater car (2007 Honda Element with 200k miles) maybe they thought they weren t going to get a lot of money out of me??

I was rest assured that all the small hiccups and what not along the way were just accidental and inconsequential. When I step back and look at them all combined together, they seem more like they were orchestrated to confuse and kind of bother me all the while just dragging out the process longer for the benefit of the dealership. Perhaps though it is a bit disingenuous to think you would get hassle free from any car dealership.

With said though and in closing, I was treated with politeness and got plenty of sir s and niceties and bottled water. After investing a solid half a day after purchasing this car, in addition to the extra 2 hours driving there and back plus the 5 hours at the dealership, plus another $600 out of my pocket for an alignment and 4 new tires, I am happy to say that the car is now noise free and I finally feel satisfied although perhaps as you can tell from this Google review perhaps a bit jaded.