Quentin Paras

Review of West Coast Nissan

What started out as a very positive experience end...

What started out as a very positive experience ended up being quite awful. To give a little history regarding why I was at West Coast Nissan:

My wife and I had a baby 11 months ago, and so she has been at home on maternity leave, leaving our one vehicle with me to go to and from work. In 3 weeks her maternity leave ends and she needs to go back to work as well. We both have a very extensive commute from Maple Ridge to Burnaby and Vancouver, so a second vehicle is a necessity for us now.

We started our search at West Coast Mazda because we already have a Mazda CX-5 and love it! Why not another Mazda? We met a very helpful sales rep, Anthony, who showed us a few used cars that we decided didn't work for us for various reasons. In an attempt to be helpful, he sent us to his friend, Thomas at West Coast Nissan because there was a recent trade in of a 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer. Mitsubishi wasn't really on our radar but we thought we would give it a try. I went to Nissan by myself while my wife stayed at home with our son. Thomas was helpful in setting me up for a test drive of the Lancer, which I thoroughly enjoyed and thought maybe would be the right commuter vehicle. It was listed for $7500 on their website, so I made an offer of $7000 all in. After a bit of negotiation, it was decided that my offer wasn't good enough... which is their decision.

It wasn't their decision to decline my offer that made me so upset but what happened following. I asked Thomas if I could speak with the manager and possibly persuade him to take my offer. Thomas agreed and brought me to his office. He walked me in and said to his boss, "here is the guy who is gunna give you some sob story about a wife and kid". He chuckled and walked away... My eyes opened wide in disbelief and I said to both the manager and Thomas (who was already walking away at this point), "no, this isn't a sob story... its the truth." Feeling the need to prove myself I showed the manager a photo of my son on my phone and in a state of awkwardness he politely asked how old he was.

It's this kind of distrust and condescending behaviour that make working with car dealerships (like this one) a very unpleasant experience. I went in there and shared my current needs based on my current life situation and the entire time the sales rep had a predisposition that I was lying to him. This was a very unfortunate experience and I hope I never have to go to this dealership again.