Complaint Review: Earnhardt Honda

ATTENTION TO ALL CUSTOMERS USING COSTCO AUTO PRICING

Foremost and most important, add on accessories are optional and are NOT compulsory.

I came in on Saturday to purchase a new Honda and while the test drive and all that went quite smoothly, the problem started when I sat down with the internet sales rep to discuss the price.

Kevin, the manager/director of the internet sales joined us with a pricing sheet for the car. One piece of paper stuck out listing out add on accessories (tints, security system, paint sealant, etc) that came to a total added cost of ~$2,000. I inquired about these add on accessories and told the sales rep I didn’t want these accessories and can they take it off. Kevin replied immediately “Nope, they’re part of the Costco package and are compulsory”. Asked multiple times again throughout the whole process and was told no. In the end, the haggling on these added accessories took the process further by about 2.5 hours, and I caved in and got the car with just the “auto butler” taken off, meaning purchased added accessories of about $1.6k.

Well, guess what? I called Costco asking them about these accessories and Costco said that all dealer add ons are optional. This dealership is basically lowering their car price to meet Costco standards and then adding back the price of the car with these “compulsory accessories”.

Total in all, I got a price about $750 below invoice price for the car (not great, but not bad either since Costco does require dealers to price near or below invoice price). Then that discount was added back by the $1.6k accessories. In which by the way, the tints and stuff weren’t even installed on the car yet. I asked a friend of mine who works in a car service department about the alarm system, Pursuit, (which costs $750 btw, $550 on the sheet and a registration of $200 secretly added on to the total, so do your math on the sheets everyone). My friend told me it’s basically an aftermarket alarm that costs less than $50 and the dealer maybe $100 to $200 to keep it activated. What’s more, these alarms normally might cause a possible shut down of your car in colder weather. Kevin mentioned it will take $200 to take off the security system. My friend laughed and said they just push some buttons to deactivate the security system.

So in the end, I got suckered into paying $1.6k of added accessories that I didn’t want and probably only cost $500 or less. Broke my happiness in getting a new car but already signed the papers so can’t do anything. =(

 So again, COSTCO BUYERS, ADDONS ARE OPTIONAL and don’t get taken in like me. I’m following up with COSTCO on this sales practice of Earnhardt Honda’s and hopefully they’ll help others be wary of this s***** sales gimmick.