DO NOT BUY FROM LEXUS OF SMITHTOWN!!!!!!
My husband and I went to Lexus of Smithtown to purchase our first Lexus. Our salesman, Arjin (no longer works there) was great - very patient, upfront, and honest. Our problems with the dealership did not happen until we dealt with the finance department. We came to an agreement for purchase at closing time on a Monday night, so Arjin told us he would have the finance department get in touch with us to let us to set up our car pick up.
First we dealt with Dolores Russell. She told us via email that we would have to come to the dealership prior to picking up our car for about 2 hours. When I asked why we had to come to the dealership twice (t is about a 45 minute drive each way and my husband's work hours do not coincide with the dealership hours), she got short with me and told me that is how it was done. I have the emails to prove her "shortness". We finally agreed to meet with her one evening - when we got there she was actually very polite and the whole transaction only took about 20 minutes (not 2 hours). So, all was good - we were told to come back again to pick up the car and they would go over everything with us.
When we came back, we met with Denise Plourde. She seemed genuinely nice. We told her (as we had told Dolores) that we wanted to do the "one time pay" option, which meant that we would pay for 2 years of the car lease up front and have no payment for 2 years. She worked #'s to try to show us this might not be our best option, but we stuck with it because my husband and I did not want to t have to worry about a car payment. She tried to sell us an option package, but we said no - again trying to keep our cost as low as possible. We also chose a very low mileage option in order to keep the cost down, which both Arjin and Dolores were aware of. Denise asked why we were doing the low mileage (10,000 per year) and I explained that we knew we were going to purchase the vehicle after the lease, so the low mileage wouldn't matter, since we would be buying it anyway and would not have to pay a penalty fee. THIS IS WHERE THE LYING STARTED!!!! Denise went on to tell us that the one pay lease was different from a regular lease and that we would have to pay a mileage overage fee even if we bought the car. This made no sense to me but she insisted. Finally we said we wouldn't be able to purchase the car if this was the case, so Denise (telling us how much she liked us - we were such nice people) asked us to give her a day to talk to Lexus finance and see what she could do for us. We were so disappointed when we left that night, but Denise assured us she would do what she could for us.
The next day she called my husband and said she was able to make "special arrangements" for us with Lexus so that they would waive the over mileage penalty fee (which, again, she said we would have to pay EVEN if we bought the car). She then went o n to say that Lexus also told her to offer us a good deal on the options package that we liked, since we had been inconvenienced. My husband agreed to the deal. When he hung up the phone, excited to tell me the news, I told him I was thrilled to get the car but that we still couldn't afford the options package. I called Denise back within 10 minutes of her phone call to my husband and explained that we didn't want the options package. She told me it was too late - she had already sent in to the shop as a "rush job". After she had "done so much for us", I felt bad arguing, so we just accepted having to fork up another $900 for the options program. We were excited to pick up our car the next day.
We brought a thank you basket to Denise with a bottle of wine and some candy toys for her kids. We met with salesperson Taylor since Arjin, our original salesperson, was unable to meet with us. Taylor was AWESOME!!! However, there was confusion about the $ due, so she caught Denise as she was leaving to straighten out some questions. Taylor questioned her about the mileage overage thing, saying she had never heard of having to pay for mileage overage if you bought the car (she had also asked another salesperson in front of us and they thought it was odd to). Denise told Taylor that she hadn't heard of it because the "one pay lease" option wasn't used often. Taylor accepted the answer but I started to get uncomfortable. Then they brought out a new lease paper for us to sign because, remember, Denise had gotten Lexus to "overlook" the mileage penalty and because now we had added on the options package. I noticed that there was no change to the contract, which there should have been if Denise had gotten Lexus to make an exception. By this time Denise had left and no one knew what was going on. poor Taylor was trying so hard, but you could see her confusion. We signed the lease, got our car, and were told to return to meet with Arjin so he could show us how to use it and at that time we could talk to Denise again.
The next morning I called lexus finance. The whole thing was a SCAM. There was NEVER a penalty for mileage overage if you purchase the car. Denise never contacted them to negotiate a deal on our behalf. She did the whole thing just to make us agree to the $900 options package - for $900 she ruined our entire car buying experience. We tried meeting up with the manager, Frank Galante, to work things out, but one time I showed up and waited almost an hour with no one coming to talk to me and then after that I got the run around. No one ever called to offer us an explanation, apology, or financial restitution we deserved. We have no confidence in this dealership and have never returned. They blatantly lied and then perpetuated the lie by never acknowleding their mistakes. Although the car is great, our bad experience and lack of support from the dealership has tainted our experience. We aren't enjoying the car like we should and are embarrassed when people ask us about our car because we can't, in good conscience, recommend the dealership, but at the same time feel like idiots that we got scammed the way we did. BTW, when we called to report this to Lexus that sympathized with us but told us they do not deal with dealership issues - just issues about the car itself - very disappointing response.
I have bought many cars throughout my lifetime and never walked away feeling like I was cheated. I had high expectations about Lexus - thought we would be treated so much better, but honestly, the 112 Hyundai dealership showed more honesty, respect, and appreciation for our purchase when I helped my mom buy her car, then Lexus ever could. Don't use Lexus of Smithtown unless you want to be taken for a ride (pun intended) - they are DISHONEST and are an example of why people feel the way they do about car dealerships and salespeople.