Dogdoc said:

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My problem with your dealership is as follows:
Daughter totaled her car in the spring of her freshman year at TAMU 2022. I found a used Elantra on your website and drove 120 miles mid week to buy it after working out the details online. Sitting down with the finance guy, I found about three thousand dollars worth of dealer add ons that I didnt want and were not disclosed previously. Finance guy said tough. You had us over a barrel and you knew it. I bit the bullet, because she needed transportation. I don't care how popular you are on here. Your dealership sucks.


ETA. This is for Flatout. College Station Hyundai.

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Ogre09 said:

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My big issue is that the whole process I feel like I'm about to get screwed over. There isn't any other buying experience where I feel like that. Buying a house doesn't feel like that. But buying a car from a dealer I have to remain hyper vigilant throughout the entire process and watch out for the smiling back stab that is inevitably coming. Because inevitably they're going to try to slip something in on me to up the purchase price. Some dealers are better than others and some employees are better than others. But by and large they're lying sacks of **** and I walk away feeling dirty.

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highpriorityag said:

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Jack Cheese said:

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Pre-loads like Apex are exactly the kind of thing that invite heavy handed regulation like the CARS Rule onto dealerships.

If you, FLATOUT, need a product to help locate and deter theft of your cars, awesome. By all means buy it.

If I, the consumer need the same thing, I will buy it on my own. I do not need the dealership to dictate which device and service I use by pre-installing a hard wired system. I certainly don't want to buy your device for you. That's ridiculous.

Next, you don't disclose it on your website listings of the cars. It's an unpleasant surprise 100% of the time when the consumer visits the dealership to see the car.

Lastly, we all know that this is packed-in profit that starts the baseline of the negotiation. During covid when inventories were low, dealers happily ****ed over buyers on price because you had the upper hand. Fine. It's a free market system, all that. Now that you have to sell cars at a loss, these Pre-loads pad the price in your favor and force the customer to focus on haggling at the margins.

I hope the CARS Rule comes down like a ton of bricks on Keating stores. Not because I'm a fan of government regulation. I'm not. But because you guys made your own bed and will have to lie in it. Maybe it will help level the playing field by forcing you to at least be honest about your pricing online.

I'm probably too optimistic, though.

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AgResearch said:

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highpriorityag said:

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Those quotes are flatout damning!

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AgResearch said:

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highpriorityag said:

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Those quotes are flatout damning!

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FLATOUT said:

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Chewy said:

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I'm curious if Aggieland Chevrolet pre-installs Apex Protect on every vehicle.

For the benefit of the customer, of course.

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Damn near every dealer in the US installs some sort of theft recovery device the minute a new or used vehicle gets put on their lot.

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lb3 said:

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We can respect flatout's car collection without respecting how he earned that money.

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Motot said:

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My dad and mom had a 2010 Rav4 that they bought from their Alvin Toyota dealership.

In 2024, my dad buys a new Rav4 from a dealership in Kansas (to avoid dealing with Gulf States Toyota).

Goes to sell said 2010 Rav4. Gets a CarFax report during a potential sell to a dealer, finds that the CarFax has years worth of oil changes and maintenance.

What's the problem with that?

My dad does his own oil and maintenance, never took it to Keating. Further, the mileage on the CarFax reports higher than the car actually had.

Keating had been entering under the VIN maintenance trips for 14 years. Presumably billing Toyota for included oil changes via a new vehicle purchase.

When confronted with reporting them to Toyota and the State AG, the response was as follows:

"We have found that there are 2 Rav 4's with the same VIN with the exception of 1 digit. The last 8 are the same, we have never encountered this issue before but we will get with Carfax to correct the issue. We will do everything in our power to correct this as soon as possible. It was not intentional, we typically use the last 8 of each VIN for work performed, in this case they are identical."

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agracer said:

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lb3 said:

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We can respect flatout's car collection without respecting how he earned that money.

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huh?

I have these awesome cars I purchased with money I scammed out of others.

You cool with that?

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FTC has car dealers in its crosshairs:

Stunning allegations by the FTC are putting one of the *largest* dealer groups in the country on notice.

3 Texas car dealerships owned by Asbury Auto, are accused of using “payment packing” to sneak in extra charges and “add-ons” without…

— Car Dealership Guy (@GuyDealership) August 26, 2024

ElephantRider said:

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Has Keating cancelled this TexAgs sponsorship deal yet? Can't imagine why they would stick around after all of this.

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txyaloo said:

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agracer said:

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txyaloo said:

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agracer said:

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Motot said:

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My dad and mom had a 2010 Rav4 that they bought from their Alvin Toyota dealership.

In 2024, my dad buys a new Rav4 from a dealership in Kansas (to avoid dealing with Gulf States Toyota).

Goes to sell said 2010 Rav4. Gets a CarFax report during a potential sell to a dealer, finds that the CarFax has years worth of oil changes and maintenance.

What's the problem with that?

My dad does his own oil and maintenance, never took it to Keating. Further, the mileage on the CarFax reports higher than the car actually had.

Keating had been entering under the VIN maintenance trips for 14 years. Presumably billing Toyota for included oil changes via a new vehicle purchase.

When confronted with reporting them to Toyota and the State AG, the response was as follows:

"We have found that there are 2 Rav 4's with the same VIN with the exception of 1 digit. The last 8 are the same, we have never encountered this issue before but we will get with Carfax to correct the issue. We will do everything in our power to correct this as soon as possible. It was not intentional, we typically use the last 8 of each VIN for work performed, in this case they are identical."

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BS.

The last 6 digits are a unique identifier for every vehicle made.

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That's not true for all manufacturers. BMW has been re-using the last 7 on new cars since 2019. I would imagine other manufacturers are doing the same.

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Did not know that. However, each BMW now has a unique 17 digit vin. So the last 7 may be the same on two cars, but the entire VIN is not.

In the example of the RAV4, Toyota, as far as I can find, was not reusing VIN's and certainly not the same VIN on the same model years sold at the same dealership.

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Don't all "modern" cars have unique 17 digit vin? Only mentioned it because most folks don't know manufacturers reusing partial vins is a thing these days.

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