This concludes our car drama....

So yesterday I mentioned that we were going to exchange our car. After getting it home, we kind of thought it over and realized that for a little bit more, we could get a brand new one with a 10 year warranty. Appealing. Plus, we discovered a little bit of damage on the drivers side window frame where someone had clearly tried to wedge something into in order to unlock the door or even break into it. Not a deal breaker but not fun to find either.

Brett called the dealership yesterday, said that we weren't entirely satisfied with our purchase and would like to come in and do an exchange. No problem they said, come on out.

Brett and I met at the dealership at about 7pm after we both got off work and after I had picked up Emersyn. We hadn't eaten dinner but figured this should be a short and sweet process. We picked out a new car in red; they didn't have white and I was slightly bummed because the car we had is white and I preferred it but whatever.


As we're filling out the paperwork, I notice that the salesguy is filling out a "trade-in value" sheet. I give him a questioning look....aren't we just doing an exchange? He says that I technically had already purchased the 2009 Hyundai and this was a formality. I was pretty surprised to hear that financing and EVERYTHING had already gone through in less then 24 hours.

The sales guy goes back to the finance office and they come out with a big smile on their faces because our payment is only going up just a little bit!

However.

They extended the finance term for an extra year. Kinda of a bummer but expected since we're paying more for a new car.


Oh, and they gave us $2250 LESS THEN WE PAID FOR OUR CAR THE NIGHT BEFORE AS THE "TRADE IN VALUE". Are you kidding me?!?! I give the sales guy this blank look, like are you kidding? He sees that I am not pleased and heads back to the sales office. 15 minutes later comes back with a KBB print out of the "trade in value" of our car and explains that we are actually getting more then "trade in", etc. I nearly explode from rage but keep it together and tell him that we aren't "trading" in a car, we are exchanging it, which they said we could do over the phone. The sales manager comes out and tries to bs us with expenses they will occur by taking our "trade in" (just saying that term makes my blood boil) like the expense of ADVERTISING. 'Cause you know, the 24 hours in which we had the car really made a huge difference in their marketing campaign and now they are going to have to repost it on Craigslist (which is FREE, HELLO), etc. I was totally insulted and irate.

He goes back to the finance office, comes back out and says they will give us $500 more for our "trade in" but we have to buy a car that has $1000 more in upgrades.

I was sick to my stomach. I wanted to make a deal work but finance stuff is like a mile over my head and I rely on Brett solely in that department. They kept trying to make us see that our payment was staying the same (which I think is the evil ploy of all dealerships) but I knew in my hear that they were rolling negative equity into this new car for a vehicle that we had owned for literally less then 24 hours. They haggled back and forth back and forth and finally we said "buh-bye". Obviously it wasn't meant to be.

We filed a complaint with the BBB this morning. We feel that we were lied to in hopes of getting us back into the dealership. We were there until after 9pm, hadn't eaten dinner and were treated like we had this "trade in" that was a burden for them. I am going to write up several reviews on this dealership as I feel they have terrible customer service. What happened to customer satisfaction!?! There are other dealerships in Portland that return cars for three days after the purchase, no questions asked and let you exchange the car for up to 30 days. We asked for 24 hours. UGH!!!!!

I believe that the Lord works in all things though and I think He wasn't a fan of us getting into my car debt and I respect that and am thankful for it. Still though, I can't stand terrible customer service!!!

I'm thankful that our car drama is over though. Ultimately Brett has a great car and we have a friend who has an auto shop that can probably take car of the scratches for a reasonable price.

I'll end with a promise to you, faithful blog readers, to not blog about car stuff for a very very long time. :) In the meantime, don't go to any Town and Country dealerships in the Portland Metro area!!!