Ouch. Well, after trying to negotiate all of the add-on fees that bumped up the price the dealer and I had agreed upon ($500 over invoice was the agreement, but he was trying to charge me $950 over invoice), I pulled out of the deal. I don’t want to seem petty, but when a guy says one thing, then puts it on paper as something else and keeps trying to screw you over on a few hundred dollars, there’s something very wrong with this situation. I walked away from it. There was no way I was going to let him get away with that.

So now I’m looking for an ordinary Mazda6 sedan or will just have to wait a few more months for the 5-doors to become more prevalent on dealers’ lots. The dealer I was dealing with also refused to refund any of the deposit I put down on the car. None. I mistakenly had written a check — the right thing to do (I learn after the fact) is to put it on a credit card so you can dispute the charge if the deal goes sour with the credit card company instead.

Oh, and to top it off, he kept referring to what I had agreed to on the Buyer’s Order. Well, if that’s the case, the car he showed me the invoice for is not the car I had ordered, and he was fraudulently trying to sell me a car that was different than the one I had ordered! (It was missing many options.) For better or for worse, I already filed a complaint with the Connecticut Better Business Bureau. I know most dealers engage in these sorts of tactics (add-on fees they say are “mandatory” and non-negotiable, which is just such a pile of bs), so I was prepared for it. Just not as prepared as I had thought I would be.

Live and learn.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2004 at 11:24 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.