There is no doubt we are in hard times. For the past month, I have been attempting to find a new vehicle. You see and hear all these ads about it being the best time to buy or refinance. I was thinking I would attempt to find a vehicle at a good price that I wanted. I feel I have talked to every dealership in the state.
I had narrowed my choices down to two. One of the vehicles was an Audi TT. It was being sold at a good price and is a good car. I will not name the dealership, but I went to check this vehicle out. Upon arrival at the dealership, I was surrounded by salesmen! That is one aspect of car buying that makes me very uneasy. Regardless, I inquired about the Audi. It took about 15 minutes to learn it had been sold. I was a little upset because I had just spoken to someone at the dealership who said they still had it in inventory. Of course, salesmen do what they are supposed to do, try to sell me a completely different vehicle. One of the managers approached me and tried to talk me into a 2002 BMW Z3. Granted, the Z3 looked similar to the TT, but it really did not have anything I was looking for in a vehicle. Plus, I cannot describe how many flaws I found. They were going to try and keep me in the same price range. The Z3 was almost $5,000 more.
I decided to look up the price of the Z3. On both NADA and KBB, the top selling price for the Z3 was between $10,500 and $11,500. I am guessing that it was because of the year. The mileage was not terrible, but they were asking $15,800! When I brought up the fact that they were asking way too much, one of the salesmen even confirmed to me that they were in the wrong about the price! My husband was all about the BMW, but I felt I needed more convincing before I paid that much money for a vehicle. They let us drive it in a circle pretty much. That was not enough for me to make up my mind. My husband talked to the salesman about driving it for the evening to try and convince me. The salesman said that would not be a problem.
We went to the main building and he handed us some forms to fill out. At first, I was questionable, but then I realized they needed basic information in case we ran off with the car. We filled everything out and waited for what felt like an hour. Finally, our salesman came back and said “I have bad news. You have to have a credit score of *** in order to test drive one of our vehicles.” A credit score!!! I was off by 10 points, but that would have been nice to know before they ran all of our information! They never once told us they were running a credit report on us! And they never informed us of needing to be a certain score in order to test drive a car! I was so livid!!! I really did not want that car anyway.
The second vehicle I was looking at was a 2005 Pontiac GTO. I had a 2004 GTO some years ago, and I just knew this was the vehicle I wanted! I emailed the dealership for information on the vehicle. They were very quick to get back with me and very polite! They worked around my schedule and did everything they could to assist me in purchasing this vehicle. They did not pressure me or hound me. They were very professional and understanding.
I will say, if you are interested in buying a new or used vehicle and you are in the central Arkansas area, I highly suggest Everett Buick GMC of Bryant! You will not get better service from any other dealer in the central Arkansas area. Mr. Clark Crone was kind and extremely professional! He will do any and everything he can to help get you in the vehicle you want! I am not trying to sell anything; I just want to put the few good businesses that remain out there. This is one of them!
