Complaint Review: Brickell Motors

On May 3, 2011, I emailed the Honda internet sales dept. at Brickell Motors, asking for e-pricing for a 2011 HOnda Insight ES. A gentleman emailed me back and told me to confirm my request for e-pricing. I confirmed, and asked if he had any on his lot. He said to come in and he'd find us one.

We arrived at the dealership around 5pm on May 3rd. The e-pricing salesman handed us off to an inexperienced salesman named Duane Hall. We spoke to Mr. Hall for around 3-1/2 hours about our needs and wants. We had a 2006 Mazda5 we were trading for the new car, and it was upside down in value around $5,000. We came in armed with KBB retail/trade-in value for the vehicle, and Duane's manager would never authorize giving us more than bottom dollar trade-in value, which was $5,500. This, and trying to negotiate a reasonable monthly payment on the new vehicle (I told Mr. Hall that we could not afford more than $400 per month) is what took up most of this time frame.

While we were trying to negotiate an acceptable deal, we were told that e-pricing was NOT available on the new car we wanted. This was very frustrating, since it was the only reason we came to this dealership.

After almost 4 hours of back and forth, their finance dept. offered us a lease deal on a new Insight. They would take our trade and give us $5,500 for it, rolling the difference into a 4 yr. lease agreement, with payments of $469. Although it was $69 above our budget, we agreed. The balance owing on our Mazda was $10,500 and some change. We could not get an exact payoff at the moment because it was after 9pm and no one was available at the bank. I was told by Mr. Hall they would get the payoff in the morning.

After almost an hour of waiting for the paperwork to be ready (we were absolutely exhausted at this point), when we started signing the paperwork, they told us that the payments were going to be $501.83 per month! When we asked what the reason was for the difference, they said there was an additional $32.83 monthly use tax added on!!!! This was NOT explained to us when we agreed to the terms, and it was way more than we were comfortable paying, however, we were so exhausted at this point we weren't in the frame of mind to argue anymore.

We left the dealership around 10pm or so, with the promise that floormats would be sent to us, since our car didn't have any. We drove our leased car home, after handing over the keys to our trade. We had promised to mail the second set of keys since we didn't have them on us at the time. On May 4th, I mailed the Mazda's keys to the dealership. A few days later, when our floormats hadn't arrived, I called Mr. Hall and reminded him to send them. They came a couple of days later.

I checked in daily with my bank at Space Coast Credit Union, to see if Brickell Motors had requested a payoff, and they never did. I tried to call the finance dept. at Brickell motors on several occasions between May 5th and May 15th, and no one was ever available to take my call, nor were any of my phone calls returned. I got the name of a sales manager, Randy, and was given his cell number, and called him on several occasions. He never returned my calls.

A payment was due on my Mazda on May 10th, and now my credit worthiness is at risk. My bank had said they would not report to the credit bureaus if they received payoff information from Brickell Motors. To date, Brickell Motors has not contacted my bank for a payoff. The only contact I've received from them, are phone calls from Mr. Hall asking if we made our May payment!! Brickell Motors has NOT held up their end of our contract. We are at the point where we feel tricked and lied to, and our credit worthiness is now at risk.