3 years ago
I had an unsatisfactory buying experience with MM ...
I had an unsatisfactory buying experience with MM and will not use them again. I was shuffled around between salespeople. Doug, our initial salesperson was fine, no complaints with him. Anthony, though, was a high pressure sales person that offered no factual information and wouldn't work with me to negotiate. When I told him we were shopping around, had just come from LHM, and asked why we should buy from them, his answer was "Ha! You don't want to buy from them, they're crap. But you should buy from us because we sell more Toyotas than any other dealer in the state." Umm...so what? How does that help me? Also, openly insulting your competitors, especially when I just had a great experience with them, is incredibly rude and condescending. Later on, when I told him that the price they were offering wasn't where it needed to be (less of a discount than other dealers were advertising, and exactly the same deal I had turned down at LHM but without the extras on the car), he said "Well, I can get it lower for you, but I need some assurances," then drew a line on a sheet of paper and asked me to sign it. When I told him I refused to sign anything without any details on it, that I didn't appreciate his sales tactics, and then got up to leave, he ran around and said "Whoa, hold on, let me get my manager." I should have walked out the door then and there. Instead, he had the manager come over who was magically able to offer me a discount. Instead of saying "Here's our offer, take it and think on it for a day if you want," he said "Here's what we can do. Let's make a deal." To say I felt pressured to take that deal or walk was an understatement. In the heat of the moment, I agreed. I still regret doing so.
In the Finance office, my wife and I were blindsided by the additional offers that were given, specifically the extended warranty. The financer said things like "I've done the math, you won't get a better deal than this" (as if we should just take a dealer on its word) and insinuated that if we didn't buy it now as part of the car deal, the price would go up dramatically. Luckily, the guy wanted to go home so when we said we wanted to think on it overnight, he let us. It's a good thing we did, otherwise we wouldn't have learned that we could buy the exact same extended warranty from Toyota Bountiful for $500 less or that you could buy it online from out of state dealers for half as much as MM wanted.
Despite the unsatisfactory treatment, I am giving them two stars because:
1. They were able to get me the car I wanted that day with no wait on shipping (and it is a good car, but that's a reflection of Toyota, not the dealer), and
2. They were able to bring the price close, but not all the way, to where I wanted it to be.
If I could do it over again, I would have bought my car from Pete Bell at LHM Toyota and paid the extra money for it. He was spectacular to work with. While LHM wasn't able to give me the total price I wanted due to having to ship in the car, they were willing to give me the same discount that MM ended up giving me without the hassle and also threw in the extras that I wanted (floor and cargo mats, door protectors) for free.