Complaint Review: Jidd Motors in Des Plains IL

Here is a story for anyone thinking of buying a car from Jidd Motors. I am not here to suggest whether this dealership is for you or whether you should deal with them or not, but only to share my personal experience by stating factual events and to tell you exactly what happened. I will start by saying that in close to 20 years of buying and selling multiple personal vehicles from many places online, in person, various sales venues, dealers or private owners, this has been BY FAR the worst car buying experience I’ve ever encountered and I personally would NEVER buy another vehicle from Jidd Motors even if they were giving it away at half the price. And here is my story. It may be long, but it’s worth reading especially if you are thinking of spending a lot of money with this establishment.

 In the 2nd half of September 2017 I contacted Jidd Motors for a 3 year old luxury SUV I found online advertised slightly below 53K with fairly low mileage. At first, I spoke to Ken, who seemed like a straight forward nice gentleman who was there to help you find the right vehicle. I made an offer that was about 3% less than their asking price. Ken told me he would talk to his manager and get back to me. Instead, I received a call from someone named Luca. Let me tell you, this guy who represented himself to be the sales manager (although his email signature titles him as “national sales director” even though based on my interaction with him, this guy couldn’t direct me to their restroom) and was the nastiest pushiest rudest sales person in car business I’ve deal with. Absolutely worst of the worst, I wouldn’t recommend him to my enemy. Under the circumstances, mainly having an ill family member, I explained that I don’t have time to shop around or play games, this is what I am looking for, this is my offer, I need to make a quick and hassle free purchase. Luca took the position as if he is doing me a favor by selling me a car.Make a long story short, despite my reservations, I made an offer and stuck to it. No deal was made at that time.

A few days later, I got another call from Ken; once again I explained my situation and repeated the offer. That time he got me to come up a bit and we agreed on the price that was about $1000 less than their original asking price including all delivery fees. What struck me as weird, is that it seemed like they lowered their price online as well and then gave me a slight discount so in reality, it was just a sales tactic offering me a price or close to it that they were asking for online anyways. They nickel and dimed me over $125 on 52K sale, my first experience like that. Since at that point, most communication was with Ken and he seemed like a reasonable gentleman, I decided to proceed with the sale. I would however never by a car from Luca even if he was paying ME to take the car from him, worst representative of any dealership I’ve ever encountered. In my opinion, the janitor that cleans the place at night has more customer service and personal communication skills than that guy, he should eat row onion and soap to clean that horrible mouth of his.

The deal was made. I asked a ton of question. Ken described the car to me on the phone and in writing as being 9 out of 10, no scratches, dings, perfect mechanical condition that was thoroughly inspected by their service department, etc and only having 3 small stone chips on the front that they have already touched up. I asked why it’s a 9 and not a 10 if he is describing the car as if it just came off the factory floor and he said it was only because the car is used and a used car can’t be a 10. But it’s perfect in every way. I made a deposit and then sent the rest of the money couple days later. I asked MANY questions as I was an out of state buyer and was beyond thorough to ensure my expectations do not exceed what I will be receiving and I know exactly what I would be getting. The deal was closed mid week and I was promised the vehicle would be delivered by end of Sunday. I sold my other vehicle based on this promise so having an ill family member in need of transportation; I was now without a vehicle.

As soon as Jidd received the payment in full, I immediately stopped getting my calls returned, emails answered and empty promises started coming in. I was promised pictures of any imperfections on the car, never got them. I was promised delivery by Sunday, didn’t get the truck until Thursday. I was promised countless calls and follow ups by Luca for one reason or another, yet I can’t recall a single call back or returned email after money exchanged hands, it’s as if I became a burden who just spent over 50 grand with them, troubling them for info to find out when I would be getting my vehicle or pictures of what I would be getting. After I sent payment in full, the attitude has completely changed and I was being treated as if they are doing me a favor by selling me this truck. Mind you, I kept telling them that I have an ill family member and I must have a vehicle at all times to transport the family member to constant treatments so I am relying on their word and delivery time. They could care less. Luca kept telling me how “they ship 400-500 cars monthly” yet they couldn’t find a way to transport my vehicle 6 hours away for a week. Obviously one of many blatant lies. At that point I could clearly see that Luca is not only a crappy salesman, but even a worse liar with math skills of a 2nd grader. If I knew it would take a week to get the truck, I would just drive up there and pick it up as it was urgent to get it, something they were well aware of, but they simply didn’t care.

So I finally received the truck.

1. The vehicle that Ken has described to be in perfect condition having ONLY 3 stone chips that were touched up, came with delivery receipt on which ***19*** areas on the car diagram were circled, meaning the shipping company noted at least some kind of damage or imperfections on 19 different spots at the time of pickup. Luca’s response (or rather his “complaint”) to that was that I had contacted the shipping company and requested they ensure to thoroughly inspect the car at the time of pickup and notate any issues, which they did. 19 issues altogether.

2. The truck came with a completely empty tank of gas, it literally stalled as soon as it was unloaded as it was out of gas and I had to go to gas station and get gas in a gas can to put it into the truck and barely made it to closest gas station to fill up. Once again, Luca’s response was “he personally checked the truck which shipped with ¼ tank of gas so the shipping company ran the truck on idle and used up all the gas and that’s why it was delivered with completely empty gas tank, since the mileage was the same on pickup and delivery”. After checking online, I found out that in order to use ¼ tank of gas, the truck would have to idle for about 6-8 hours. Obviously, not only yet a blatant lie from Luca’s mouth, but a completely moronic statement anyone could possibly make. A simple apology for forgetting to ship the truck with at least a couple of gallons of gas would have been suffice yet he chose to come up with the most ridiculous lie I’ve heard. I don’t think even a child would believe this.

3. I’ve checked the damaged areas as notated by the shipping company at the time of pickup. All 19 of them. Several areas had patches of pretty severe long deep scratches in them. easily visible on black paint. Deep enough through the paint and clear coat, not anything that can be buffed out. I called Luca, he told me the scratches “don’t exist” while continuing to scream at me as if **I*** did something wrong. While allowing him to continue to scream at me, I calmly said (and continued to repeat, all while being screamed at) that I will go outside, take pictures of scratches that “don’t exist” and email them to him and then follow up with a phone call. I did exactly that and even circled the scratches with large red circles on the pictures before sending them. I emailed the pictures and followed with a call. Luca’s response was that he can’t see any scratches, despite that they were even circled and some of them were bad enough that a blind man could see them in total darkness. He then proceeded to make a complete mockery out of this issue by calling various people from around him and asking them if they can see scratches while laughing about the matter. All while continuing to yell and scream at me.

4. The truck came with no manual and only 1 remote with paint on buttons almost completely worn off and top layer of rubber coating peeling and falling off on all sides, all sticky and nasty to touch, not something you expect when spending over 50K on a used vehicle.

5. The tire air valves had blue covers. Who puts blue valve covers on aluminum wheels of a black vehicle with sticker price of 80K+? Not a big deal, but an obvious sign that this dealership could care less when it comes to attention to detail, big or small.

6. The vertical plastic trim in 2 spots between the windows was barely hanging on with clips broken. 7. Most importantly, the truck came with a mechanic issue right off the shipping trailer, having a malfunction in driver assist computer and now has to be taking into service at a Cadillac dealership. The error popped up in less than a minute of the car running. While it is a used car, it can’t be more obvious that the truck was shipped with this condition. The warning can be easily reset by a push of a button, but comes right back within a few minutes. I took a picture of the error message, sent to Luca who, as expected, yelled some more at me stating the problem didn’t exist before it was shipped, thus the driver assist computer must have went bad while the car was being transported in under 24 hours or perhaps in its first 30 seconds of driving. I think the real answer here is obvious.

So at the end of the day, Jidd Motors sold me the truck for which I paid well over 50K and promised it to me in perfect cosmetic and mechanical condition. They shipped the truck with 19 areas on the body having some kind of issue like dings or scratches and mechanic issues needing immediate service from a GM authorized dealer right off the delivery van. They lied about delivery time on several occasions. They have ignored or failed to return close to a dozen calls/emails/follow ups. They lied about the condition of the vehicle. As soon as they got their money, they could care less about customer service; personally I don’t even think they know what it even means. When I contacted them about numerous issues after the delivery, I was yelled at, laughed at, screamed at, mocked, treated as if I am a complete idiot who knows nothing about cars, told various fibs, blamed for contacting the shipping company to ensure they do a thorough inspection on the vehicle, called a liar despite providing written and photographic proof of every single claim I made. I was told by Luca (rather yelled at) “I said I’ll take care of you”, yet aside from $50 credit he offered, which was nothing more than a spit in the face after I spent over 50K on the truck; almost right off the start I now will have over $700 in expenses to get the service done along with keyfobs/keys replaced; the repairs to the scratches and damaged areas of the body will run a considerable amount, although I have not gotten an estimate as of today, any body work on luxury vehicle cost an arm and a leg; I received absolutely no offer for any kind of resolution to existing issues, just continuing beating around the bush tactics, more lies and empty promises. I have emailed Luca and Adam (the owner of the dealership) on numerous occasions, providing the dealerships with factual info, pictures and documents to support every one of my claims and complains and asking them to offer a reasonable resolution and I even proposed a resolution myself consisting of a small refund which I thought was well beyond reasonable under the circumstances and was willing to incur the rest of the expenses myself, just to get this over with, yet I have received no answers back, only more mockery and promises of “we’ll look into it” or “we’ll take care of it”.

I have read many reviews and comments on various car selling sites about this dealer and almost all reviews seem to be either 5 stars or 1 star, barely any 2-4 star reviews, which I personally find very strange. Experiences are never so black and white; there are always average experiences that would put it in 2-4 star gray area. As several 1 star reviews suggest, many of the 5 star higher ratings are likely fabricated by family or friends. Overall, the dealership seems to be rated fairly low as compared to many other dealerships. Many of the 1 star reviews/complains I’ve read describe very similar experiences to mine, which tells me that my experience is not an isolated story or a freak accident, but a pattern of dishonest business practices that this dealership continuously engages to. Read reviews at BBB (27 complains), check with IL Attorney General for complaints on file, check with FTC autos dealer division, check various reviews sites like cars.com, dealerrater.com, Edmunds.com, truecar.com, autotrader.com, consumeraffairs.com , cardealercheck.com and sites like www.ripoffreport.com (6 complains) before making a decision whether this is the right place for you to shop at. Do a search on Google for “car dealer review sites” to see dozens of other sites that show Dealer reviews so that you can make an informed decision if this is the right place for you, something I personally failed to do before I hose this establishment to do business with. Have I done so myself, I would have never contacted this dealership to begin with. Again, this is based on observations I have made by reading reviews and comments left on various sites and my personal experience with them.

In my opinion, which I base solely on my 20+ years of car buying experience and the experience with this transaction, countless lies from representatives of Jidd Motors and the absolute lowest and worse customer service I have received (technically I didn’t receive any customer service since being yelled, screamed, mocked and lied to can hardly be considered customer service at all), I would NEVER buy another vehicle from this place and avoid it like a plague. I spent over 50K on the purchase and once they received their money, their attitude changed and they could care less about what happened after. Lies upon lies upon lies. It seems that once they receive payment, they treat their customers like complete garbage, feeling superior in some ways; at least this is exactly what happened in the case of my transaction with them and what has also happened to numerous other people who left similar reviews all over the internet. I personally would also NEVER recommend this place to anyone under any circumstances. Their representative Luca, who supposedly holds a management position, displayed complete lack of any customer service, sales, communication or personal skills and based on my experience with him, is absolutely the worst car salesman I’ve ever met and is the kind of individual that gives all car salesmen a typical negative stereotype of a car salesman.

If I could rate this dealership on a negative scale, I would rate it with absolute lowest negative number I could. Since I could only rate them 1 to 5, I am rating them 1. This is just absolutely horrible place to work with. NEVER AGAIN!