Complaint Review: Carl's Buick GMC - Stuart Florida

This report, of course, is in my opinion, which is my disclosure statement  to exercise my right to free speech, first amendment. I don't know that I need to say that or not but I was advised to do so, so there it is. Now read my story.

I'd like to start the story off with how we came about pricing our purchase of the 2012 Buick Lacrosse in question. We went to a dealership in Fort Pierce, called Roger Dean Buick to look at the new 2012 Buick Lacrosse. We had done some
homework, on the web and decided that this would be the vehicle to replace Linda's current vehicle 2007 Cadillac.

A primary concern for us was the quality of the sound in the car, and the reviews that we read said that the Harman Kardin premium stereo system was excellent. We met with the salesman at Roger Dean on Saturday afternoon. He showed us several 2012 Buick Lacrosse vehicles of which we drove. My wife Linda loved the car. So we asked him to work up a price.

We told him we were interested in leasing the vehicle, and he told us about a General Motors incentive; where if I brought in my current lease, we could get an additional $2000 off the price of the vehicle. We told him we wanted to put
$2500 down as well, and we were looking for a price around $350 a month. We did not know the cash value of the car we were looking at.

My wife told him she wanted the cocoa colored 2012 Buick Lacrosse with all the options in the premium 1 package. He worked us up the price of 2500 down, $358 per month including tax, and I must bring in a copy of my lease to get $2000
off. The only problem with this deal was that he could not find the vehicle in the color she wanted, and said they might be able to get one by Tuesday. We told him we would call him back on Tuesday.

On the way home we decided to stop at Carl's Buick in Stuart Florida. We walked in and met a sales consultant. We now knew exactly what we wanted, the color and all the options, everything we would like to have in this vehicle. We
asked him if they could match a price from another dealership, he expressed that they could.
 
Then we asked him if he could get the car we wanted in  the cocoa color my wife wanted. He said they could get one by Monday, it was at another dealership. We expressed to Mark that we wanted all the options that we spoke of, and asked him if those options were included the car that they were bringing. He told us, yes,  except for the last two options on the list (list is listed below). The options, he said that were NOT included in this particular vehicle, was the Driver Confidence Package, which includes a blindside mirror warning device, and something called heads up display which projects the cars speed on the windshield.

We told him those two options were not all that important and to go ahead and order the vehicle provided they could match the deal , the price, that we had just gotten from Roger Dean. Finally, after going back and forth to the finance
manager, he finally came into his office and told us yes they could do the deal and match the deal that Roger Dean was offering us. When we all agreed on the price, 2500 down, $358 a month including sales tax on a 3 year lease, plus I would need to bring a copy of my lease in for the additional $2000 off, they would order the vehicle. They then
asked my wife to leave a deposit, she left them $500. The dealership called my wife and said the car wouldn't be in until Tuesday night. We said that would be fine, we will come in and pick the car up that night.

We came in Tuesday night to pick up the car it was around 7:15pm. The dealership expressed that they were closing at 8:00 pm and we needed to hurry.

Here's where I made my first mistake. I asked the salesman, if all the items we have ordered were on the car without
actually looking at the car. He said yes they were. Then before my wife signed the paperwork, I asked the finance manager; before she signs this, are all the items that we asked for, on this car? He said yes everything you asked for was there. I trusted both their answers. Big mistake!

The finance manager now told us something we weren't aware of, after signing the paperwork, the finance manager told us that they included an Ally Lease Protection Program in the lease for an additional $695. We asked them what that
was, and they expressed that we absolutely needed it for the end of the lease or to turn in the car. We told him we were going to buy the car at the end the lease. They said it would be too much work to take this out of the lease at the current time, about 7:45pm. They told us we could cancel it at any time. My wife expressed that she still did not want it. They basically told her she could cancel later on and left it in the lease.

I asked both the salesman and the finance manager one more time to tell us whether we received all the options that we asked for. I expressed the reason I was asking again, was that my wife had purchased a new car in Buffalo, New York and did not receive the things that she was told she would receive from the dealership. After she drove the car home they told her she was on her own, to bad.

They expressed to us that everything was there that we ordered. Furthermore, when I spoke with the finance manager as he was showing us how to pair our phones with the car stereo, I asked him how do you turn on the GPS Navigation System? He said to me you can't turn it on, without subscribing to OnStar. I later found out that that is not true. That if
the GPS/Navigation System was in the car we could have just turned it on. Which indicates that he knew that we did not get the Navigation System. My wife drove the car home, and went to work the next day. The following day, Thursday, after learning about a lot of the options on the car and how to drive it, she couldn't get the quality of the sound that we heard in one of the vehicles we had driven at the other dealership.

She asked me to take a look at it Thursday night. That's when I discovered that we did not have the premium sound package that she paid for. Then I discovered after we connected with the OnStar that we did not get the navigation system that we order. This was an entirely different vehicle than the one we agreed to buy.

Below is a list of the options we were supposed to get.The Premium 1 package includes Remote vehicle starter system
Power driver lumbar four-way seat Universal home remote Auto dimming rear view mirror Leather appointed seating with heated front seats Front passenger seat eight way power Halogen fog lamps with ejector technology Outside mirrors, heated, power, LED indicators Ultrasonic rear park assist Rearview camera system Auto dimming on outside mirrors
Memory driver seat and outside mirrors
Available options for the premium one group which we
were supposed to get include
Rear seat thorax airbags
Sunroof
Premium audio package which includes rearseat
entertainment system
Audio system with navigation & 80 GB hard drive

They told us in this particular car we would not receive the driver confidence package. This includes side blind zone alert and heads up display. We understood we weren't getting those two items and that was fine with us. The problem is; we were supposed to get all the other items which equal about $4600 in options that we did not receive as agreed.

I then called the dealership to see if we could get it resolved. I first asked for the salesman after three separate phone calls he never returned my call. The receptionist started to recognize my voice and suggested I talk to the new car
manager. I said put me through to him, after three more phone calls no one called me back. I then asked for the general manager after two phone calls, he did not call me back.

I called back a third time and expressed my disgust about not receiving a call back after so many calls to so many people. The general manager finally called me back.

When I told him what had happened he said he would look into it and get back to me. He said he understood my problem and that they would find me another car to match what we had ordered. I said that would be fine. Then he called me back, and told me that there were no cars available with those options for them to trade out the car. I asked him if he could find out if they could replace the audio system in the car to match what we ordered and we would be happy with that.

The way they would do this is by putting the correct factory radio with navigation and the entertainment system that we ordered. He said he would get back to me. When he got back to me, he told me that wasn't possible. He then expressed that it was now our responsibility and that we should not have signed the contract without inspecting the car fully to see if we received what we ordered. He also cursed at me when I confronted him about the wrong doings here.

If you look at the car, and turn on the stereo system, there is no way of knowing what stereo system is in the car, unless you are very versed in audio car systems and how they are installed. That is not my area of expertise.

After having the discussion with the general manager, over this problem, he told me the best that he would do, would be to give us $320 toward a new stereo system based on his stereo company installing one for $640. And then they would pay the other $320. I told him this was not satisfactory, there was a lot more missing in the car than just the stereo system.

I now requested to talk with the owner of the dealership. The owner was supposed to be back from vacation on Monday and call me Monday according to the general manager. He called me on Wednesday, when I expressed my concerns about what happened, he said it shouldn't be a problem he would look into it and call me back. He called me back and told me there is no doubt that what I was saying was true, and he would see if he could find a car to replace the one that was wrong.

Once again, he found out that he could not get a car to replace that one with the same options we have ordered originally. He now told us that it was our responsibility to make sure that we received what we had ordered. And he told us the best that he could do, was to give us $600 toward a stereo upgrade but it was up to us to do all the work. I told him that was not enough, that we felt he should pay for the entire cost of the upgrade and that we were still losing the navigation system the sunroof and a GPS options. He then got irate with me, and told me that my name wasn't on the lease and that he would no longer talk to me. He said from now on he will talk to my wife.

The fact of the matter is; my name was implicated in this deal, because I had to bring a copy of my lease, of which the dealership photocopied, and sent off to General Motors, to receive a $2000 discount on the total cost of the car. Therefore I feel I am still involved in this deal, because they implicated me in a scam.

The owner of the dealership told my wife, all he would do, would be to give her $600 toward the upgrade of the stereo system.

This made her sick, and then she thought about the other $695 they took for the lease protection she didnt want.

She expressed concerns about the $695, she had to pay for the Ally lease protection program she didn't want. She told the owner that she wanted her money back on the Ally lease protection program. The owner told her on the phone
that he would write her a separate check for the $695. She agreed.

When she told me what had happened I told her it doesn't seem honest. He's giving you back $695 from the Ally Lease Protection program but that money was still in the lease. She was still paying interest on that money. This does not sound legal. I called Ally and confronted them with this situation. They told me the proper way this should be done was; the dealership would send the cancellation to the leasing company and the leasing company would remove it off the lease and adjust the monthly payments.

So my question is, how is it possible that a dealership is allowed to create the lease package, inflate the price of the car (or switch the car out for a lesser valued vehicle), add-on protection programs that the customer doesn't want, then
reimburse the customer for those protection programs, while keeping the funds and interest on the lease which are then charged to the customer each month as he pays the lease

The way I see it here is we have two very deceptive practices. The first one is; the car that we bought was valued at $38,595. (I found this out by going back to Roger Dean and get a written quote for the exact car we wanted). The car we
received was $33,964.89. Therefore $4630.11 is what we were taken (ripped OFF) for; less the $600 the dealership gave to my wife for the stereo upgrade. Therefore we got ripped off for $4030.11. Correction my wife got ripped off for
$4030.11. I was implicated in this with my good name and my current lease used to deduct $2000 off the wrong vehicle. Dealership made an extra $2000 using my lease copy.

I feel these practices are totally illegitimate and need to be investigated. The first one that needs to be investigated is the fact that Carl's Buick added a package to the lease without permission then refunded the money to the customer
(my wife) for that package and continued to charge the interest rate on the money that she was returned. In other words never adjusted the lease value. According to Ally this is not a standard practice. Most likely, its illegal. Are Car Lease companies allowed to lease you money?

One more thing I need to say about the price of the vehicle. The owner, told my wife on the phone that they would have never sold us that vehicle with those options for that price, and that I was lying, about the deal and the price.

When I learned that from my wife, I immediately went back to Roger Dean to get a written quote for the exact vehicle we were interested in. They produced a computer printout, written quote for the exact vehicle we had ordered with all the options. The salesman also put on the bottom of the two-page quote the exact terms of $2500 down $337 per month plus tax which equals $358 per month and a copy of my lease to confirm the deal. Yes the car with all the options we never received from Carls Buick.

The second issue I think needs to be investigated is the fact that Carls Buick can lie to the customer several times, telling them, that they did receive the things that they were supposed to receive.

Knowing that all they have to do, is get their (customers) signature and  they don't have to give them what they purchased.

This might bring some clarity here;  In order to see the navigation system I would've had to dismantle the dashboard because nowhere on the car does it mention the navigation. Just as a reminder I did ask the finance manager if the GPS system was there and how to turn it on, while sitting in the car with him, and he indicated that it was there, and that we needed to turn on OnStar to turn on the navigation. Once again another lie by the dealership.

The Harman Kardin stereo system we were supposed to receive also would need me to dis-assemble the car to see if it was there. This does not seem practical. I would think a little honesty at the dealership would be in order. The third
problem I have with all of this; is the fact that the dealership, the new car sales manager, the general manager and the owner all confirmed that we had ordered a different vehicle and did receive it. But, when they found out, that they could not replace it easily, they turned the entire story around and made it our responsibility. This is an atrocity. There needs to be some kind of regulation or at least an investigation of this kind of business practice. The consumers need to be protected from this type of lying.