Dave Smith Motors review: Lied to 3

Below is the e-mail describing my experience that I sent to DSM.

I was just hoping to let someone know about my experience at Dave Smith. Back in February of this year I started shopping for a 2010 Terrain. I had spoken with several dealers including DSM. I chose DSM because my salesman—JD Coseo “promised” and “swore” to me that I would get between Kelly Blue Book and NADA guides for my trade in and went on to state that “we always average the two to come with the trade in”. The other GMC dealers were going to give between 11, 500 and 12, 000 and that was around what KBB had my Murano listed for. I ordered my Terrain on 2/22/10. That day I also inquired about the free night at the hotel with the water park. I was told by JD that “we will deal with that when it got closer” and he assured me that DSM would be happy to put my son up for the night when I came up to pick up my Terrain. Some friends of mine bought a car through Anthony in Feb of this year and were treated to a night at the hotel along with water park passes. My first mistake was going through JD and not Anthony.
In May I called the accessories department and ordered Husky liners all around as well as a cargo liner. I was assured that these would be ordered and available for use when my Terrain arrived in June.
My Terrain arrived to DSM on 6/11. I called JD on 6/15 and said I was coming up to get my Terrain. He happily said “no problem”. He did say that “there was going to be a problem with the hotel though”. He explained that “some dealers offer extras to their customers but he couldn’t”. I just really felt like I should have been told that from the beginning. My son was excited to go and have fun. This was my first disappointment. It made me feel that since I ordered my car that I was a sure thing to buy and no extra effort was necessary to swoon me. That is fine if that is how DSM chooses to do business.
When I arrived in Kellogg in 6/15, it was after 5 and it took over 2 hours to get there. All was fine until I had to meet with the manager in the ‘little room’ to go over trade in price. Earlier in the day I had entered the appropriate info about my 2004 Nissan Murano into KBB and Nada Guides. For a clean Murano KBB had 11, 700 and NADA had it listed at 13, 000. The manager agreed that my car was in great shape for 103, 000 miles, even exclaiming that he hadn’t seen a car in that good of shape. My initial offer was 9, 000. Even after I explained that JD had “promised me at least KBB” etc…the price went up to 9, 500. To say the least I was not happy. I felt used, lied to and mis-treated. If DSM had no intention of meeting KBB then I should not have been told that. Upon confronting JD, he agreed that he lied and I told him never to lie to his customers again. I would never do that to my customers! To top off all of the letdowns, my Husky liner or Cargo liner was not in and now was going to have to be mailed to me.
I realize that DSM has “invoice pricing”, but if you’re going to make your money by stealing trades, I suggest you become a little more transparent about that and be honest with customers. If I would have been told from the beginning, “Hey listen, we rarely meet KBB that is how we keep prices low on the other end”, I would have felt more prepared and not lied to. I refused to sign the customer satisfaction paper, because, I obviously was not satisfied.
By the time I finally got over to Tim in finance I was emotionally exhausted, frustrated and ready to cry. This had become a horrible experience. Tim also asked me to sign the customer satisfaction and I again refused and explained why. He apologized profusely and said that he would talk to some fellow managers in the morning about what had happened.
The next day Tim did call me back with a final figure of 10, 000 for my car, which was still far below what I deserved. I felt trapped into buying the Terrain. They were selling like hot cakes and you guys could have cared less about me because you knew it would sell. It really makes me sad if this is how you choose to do business. We all have choices in life and I will choose never to set foot there again.
What is interesting about this is that my dad came up awhile back and paid cash for 4 trucks. He felt like he was hosed on his trade-ins too and was going to gage my experience on whether he would ever come back to DSM. Obviously he is never coming back and neither am I. I will tell my story and experience to anyone looking for a car. You guys may have stole $1500 from me but my dad will spend his $150K somewhere else this year.
I finally received my Husky liners on the 25th and still have yet to see the cargo liner. Just icing on the cake of your very poor customer service.