Complaint Review: Airport Chrysler Dodge Jeep

THIS IS A VERY LONG STORY, BUT IT'S WORTH READING. IT'S MY ENTIRE 2 MONTH ORDEAL WITH THIS DEALERSHIP.

I owned a 2001 Dodge Stratus but recently got a new job that paid much better so I decided to upgrade to a sportier car. I had decided on a Chrysler Crossfire. Airport Chrysler Dodge Jeep had done some service work on my Stratus and had done a good job so I decided to go to them first to look at their Crossfires. I inquired online about a 2004 Crossfire and was contacted by William "Bill" Tousley the Internet sales manager. He said that he could sell me the car for the price that I had offered and to come down and meet with him.

I went down, test drove the car and liked it so I decided to purchase the vehicle. There were some minor things wrong with it cosmetically that they promised to fix (cup holder wouldn't lock down and some rear upholstery was falling down).

I sat with the finance guy Eunis (who is no longer there) and he ran my credit and came up with terms. I don't have very good credit so I was actually surprised at how "easily" he could get me financed with no money down. You know what they say, if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Originally I was going to trade my Stratus so that was included in the original deal.I signed the paperwork, left my Stratus there and drove away the proud "owner" of a Crossfire...or so I thought.

I quickly discovered other things wrong with the vehicle. When I turned on the radio there was no sound at all. Not even hissing. After reading the manual to see if it was on mute, I couldn't figure it out so I brought it to my friend who installs car stereos for Circuit City. He said that there was a short in it and he suspected the amp was blown along with a couple fuses. I also noticed some other issues with the car. The dome light wouldn't turn off when the doors were shut. The side lights on the right side were out. The gas cap chord was broken. And I found out the driver's side window leaked.

I called the dealership to let them know and they said that they would fix everything I just needed to bring it into Service and let them know. So I did. Service told me that they needed my salesman's approval for the work.

After leaving messages for several days, I finally got a hold of Bill (he didn't return any of my phone calls, I just happened to catch him) and made an appointment to come back in. He said that in order to get the work done I need to finalize the sale by re-signing some additional paperwork because the financing terms had changed in my favor. These are his EXACT words, "THE BANK actually bought down your loan so your payments will be lower." I was happy so I went down after work.

When I got there, Bill said hi and that he would be right with me, but never came back. Another manager sat with me and broke the news that I, in fact, wasn't approved and they wanted $4,000 down. Apparently by "the bank" he meant "me" and I had to buy down my loan. Mind you, I'd been driving the car for 2 WEEKS at this point! What baffles me is, I had to make the phone calls and set up the appointment, they never called me. I wonder how much longer they would have let me drive THEIR car that I didn't own had I never taken the initiative?

The main thing that was killing me with the financing was the negative equity in my Stratus. I should have walked at that point, but the Crossfire drove extremy well so I decided to pull the Stratus out of the trade and just buy the Crossfire outright. They said that they would have to send that out to the bank for approval with the changed terms. I said that was fine and I wanted to just leave the Crossfire there and take my Stratus because I didn't want to be liable for anything happening to a car that I didn't actually own. That's when things started getting really shady.

They told me that I couldn't take my Stratus because I had signed it over to them in the original paperwork and that contract was still valid until the new terms were approved. Having worked in financing for the past 2 years I told them that that wasn't true, that unless the lien was satisfied or they assumed the loan, the title couldn't be transferred and so the title is still in my name and so is the loan, thus, I still own that car.

They then changed their tune and convinced me to just keep the Stratus there because once the financing went through I could drop the Crossfire off to have the work done and it would be more convenient for me to just take my Stratus rather than having to arrange someone to come pick it up with me or deal with a rental, etc, etc. I stopped by a couple more times to provide additional paperwork that they needed for the financing but I should have known something was wrong because whenever I brought up taking my Stratus back, there was always some reason why I couldn't. Soon enough I found out what that reason was.

I was approved and the deal got booked about a week later so I did, in fact, officially own the Crossfire. Eunis (the finance guy) told me to make arrangements with Bill (my salesman) to get the work done and pick up my Stratus. I called Bill and left a voicemail for him every day for a week and he never returned a single phone call. At this point, they had had my Stratus for over a month and I was running out of patience.

I called and asked for the manager, they gave me to Scott the sales manager. I explained my situation and he said that he would look into it. He called me back the next day and told me that they had located my car and that it was at another one of their dealerships in northern Florida and it would take them "a couple days" to get it back to Orlando. When I asked how it ended up there he said that he didn't know personally but figured that someone probably thought it was a trade and sent it up there.

I called Scott every day (who at least answered my phone calls and/or returned them) and every day I got the same answer, "We're trying to arrange for it to get back here". A little over a week later, the car finally arrived here in Orlando. I went to pick it up and found out that the reason it took so long to get it back here was that the car had actually gone to auction. THEY TRIED TO SELL MY CAR AND DIDN'T EVEN OWN IT!! How you even come to THINK that you can sell a car without having the title is beyond me, but they did! So I got my car back, end of ordeal right? Wrong!

Scott (the sales manager) was really sorry and said that they would do all the work as promised and detail my Crossfire free of charge and that everything would be taken care of. I dropped my Crossfire off and picked up my Stratus on a Wednesday.

When Friday came and I hadn't heard anything I called the Service department to find out what was going on with it. Service was not even aware of my car. They said, "I hate to turn you away, but we don't have a work order nor do we have a Crossfire in line to be worked on so you'll have to get in touch with your sales person". I was extremely upset at this point that not only had they kept my Stratus for over a month and tried to sell it, but after they promise to make it right and do the work on the Crossfire that they had sat on it for 2 days! Unbelievable!

I called Scott and Bill and left messages for both that Friday...no returned call. I called again on Saturday for Scott and left a message and was actually on my way down there when Bill called me back and said that he apologized for not getting back to me on Friday and that, again I quote, "We needed to order a new radio which will be in on Monday, so we'll have it installed and you should be all set. Someone will give you a call on Monday to let you know about everything."

Monday at 5pm comes around and I still haven't heard anything. So I called the service department to find out what's going on. You won't believe it...they STILL were not aware of my Crossfire. I immediately hung up the phone and called for Scott, he was not available, but I happened to catch Bill.

At that point I told him that if my car was not in service by that day I was not only going to contact Chrysler customer service, but also the Attorney General and Fox 35 Consumer Alert and put it on the news because this was absolutely ridiculous beyond belief at this point that you would treat any customer like this. He put me on hold for about 10 minutes before it disconnected.

I got a call back immediately from Doug the service manager who asked me what work needed to be done to it. I gave him the list and he said that they would get to it first thing tomorrow and everything would be straightened out.

It's been over 2 months since I walked into that dealership to buy the car. I am still waiting for them to fix my radio. I will never do business with them again, especially not William "Bill" Tousley and I would advise that you don't either unless you want the worst car buying experience of your life.

Aaron
Oviedo, Florida
U.S.A.