3 years ago
I had been ready to purchase a car with Trend Moto...
I had been ready to purchase a car with Trend Motors, but unfortunately my experience there was a negative one.
I set up an appointment to look at a vehicle back over this past summer -- a blue 2017 Certified Pre-Owned Jetta with 9,000 miles on it, listed for a little over 15k. When I arrived to look at it, Les met me and advised that it had just been sold to somebody else that morning. I was disappointed of course, but had planned on purchasing a car that day, so I asked him to show me some other options.
He showed me two other 2017 Certified Pre-Owned Jettas, each with 35,000 miles, and priced between $14k-$15k. Les seemed very unprepared, every time I asked him a question he would have to look it up. At one point I asked Les to help me better understand why the two cars he had shown me were only a couple hundred dollars less expensive than the car I had originally come to look at, but had more than triple the milage (9,000 vs 35,000). He ultimately said "Do know what market value is? We price all of our cars based on market value."
I may have been a young woman buying her first car, but I've done my research and I certainly know what market value is. I told him that, and I asked him to further clarify why the market had priced the blue car with 9k miles around $15,000, and why the other cars with 35k miles were not priced proportionally lower...was it about features? Damage? Was there something different about the cars that I was missing? He struggled to find an answer for me, and ultimately said, "Well the blue car you came in for was an incredible deal." Which, of course, did not line up with the market value reasoning...I wanted an incredible deal too!
Despite these red flags, I was still interested in knowing more about a rust Certified Pre Owned 2017 Jetta listed for $14,400 with 35k miles. I was very eager to make a purchase that day. When Les presented the car facts, he also gave me a list of thousands of dollars of fees that would be added on top of the list price of the car. The fees that stick out in my memory were an anti-theft fee and a fee that somehow was supposed to account for pre-owned certification the car went through. Again, I had done my research, and when I questioned the fees, Les insisted that they were all industry standard. I told him I would take the car if he could roll the fees into the $14,400 list price, and he went inside to "see what he could do." When he came back, he said he could reduce one of the fees by $250, but that was it. I thanked him for his time, and left. It was clear to me that we were not going to get anywhere.
I live in Jersey City, and was hesitant to go all the way home without a car. So before heading back, I stopped at Paul Miller Volkswagen in Bernardsville and purchased a 2017 Certified Pre-Owned Jetta with 15,000 miles on it, for $14,900 -- NO MADE UP FEES, no runaround, and their staff was incredibly knowledgeable and respectful. When I asked my salesperson Jeff to share any fees that would be associated with the purchase, he laughed and "we don't do that here."
I will never return to Trend Motors and will deter my friends and family from going there as well.