Beings that blogging is my job, I guess I will blog about what happened to me today when I went out to buy my “new to me – SUV” Chevy Tahoe at Christopher’s Dodge World 16655 W Colfax Ave. Golden, Colorado – just a smidgen outside of the Denver Metro area.
I give this review with the full understanding that this company is in business to make money, an they would not sell me a car at cost. Please enjoy my review
It certainly was capitalism at it’s finest, and today I was a customer buying a used a car. I had been looking for a new car to drive for some time. We had a 2005 Chevy Malibu 100% paid for. The Chevy Malibu was small and very economical car, it had about 127,000 miles when we traded it in on the Chevy Tahoe, but we where ready for a change. Since we were not able to buy another car for cash, It looked like we where going to have to buy from a dealer or get some financing from our bank and search out cars from private parties. I have some experience with car dealers, and it can be very difficult for anyone to get a decent deal let-alone “good deal.” And it is extra difficult for a stupid fucker like “me” to really know if I got a “good deal” on my SUV or not, but I will share my car buying experience with Christopher’s Dodge World and how I felt about it all said and done.
I think like most people that buy a car from a dealer, it comes to a point that you have make a choice. When you buy a car like a Chevy Malibu and drive it for 7 years, it really isn’t worth very much when your trying to trade it in. As it turns out, in this case it’s not worth much period. When you buy a new or used car you try your best to make a good investment, till a day like today.
Me, being a bigger guy (6’4) and the wife wanting a little more room for my family and I, it was time for a SUV. Most of you know – that SUV’s means more money, even with gas prices being so high, it almost seemed crazy to buy a SUV on a day like today!
Before this I had been trying to sell the Malibu and it looked like we where going to get maybe $2500.00-$3300.00 from a cash offer, if we where lucky. The bottom line was, the Malibu was a pile of shit.
SUV’s cost money. I knew if where going to get something nice it was going to cost more, a lot more than my Malibu, more or less a budget automobile, but we weren’t ready to pay $500.00-$700.00 a month to drive some Cadillac or Suburban and pay 25k plus. What we where looking for was a nice-older SUV with low miles, and pray to God something didn’t go wrong in the next few years.
We had been looking at a few different SUV’s, we were not that excited about the price. But today we found what we thought might be the deal for-us, and signed on the dotted line.
I think we are like most people, we want something nice, not totally clear on the fine points on auto sales contract negations. “We are not rich and life comes at you fast!” So it can be hard, you know what I mean? I am a entrepreneur, “owner of this website” and my wife is a executive at her company. We don’t make over 100k a year, so we can be crushed any given minute. We have had some credit issues, but these days who hasn’t.
We were buying a new car for a few reasons:
- A car really offered us little flexibility.
- People are driving very aggressive, making a small car less appealing.
- It was time for something better.
Today I found myself in a strange spot, I wanted this truck. Day one of seeing one of these Chevy Tahoe SUV – I WANTED ONE! Most of us know, these type of SUV’s are almost 60k brand new.
This is the one we found:
The truck has 89,000 miles, decent miles for the year – I guess.
BUT – I really liked the truck! It drove ok – I mean it is an older SUV, and rides really nice. I went to the Christopher’s Dodge World dealership a seen the salesmen and everything looked good. I was fully aware, this was an older vehicle, and this year of truck this might be prone to breakdown, along the same lines as my car I was trading in. As a matter of fact this SUV was older than the car I traded in. In Today’s market, there are some good deals on car repairs, so I was less worried about this.
But this silly stuff is not the reason I decided to write about this.
It was the buying experience, that left me feeling unsettled. The sales man was a cool working guy, I mean, I guess most of what happened until the financing part of the buying experience I was fine with.
At one point it looked like the deal wasn’t going to happen for us, but deep inside I guess a little piece of me wasn’t ready for car payments. Then it came through! WOW, I was shocked! I had waited for about 3 hours sick as a fucking dog, and to be honest I was shocked we got the loan. We don’t have “good credit”, we have what I would call “experienced credit.”
The payment they said was going to be about $340.00 and I was ok with that.
But what was interesting was how this all unfolded. Because we went from not able to get funding for our deal, to now I was being sold products. But not really sold products, it was strange. What was more unsettling, he “the finance man” said that they “The Dealership” had taken profit from our deal to buy 2 points in interest form our loan, but this whole deal was all tied to these products, oil changes, and tire warranty “BUT” none of this would change our payment. But in fact, it would lower our from 11.9% to 9.9% percentage rate to our loan. This was really a red flag to me, and I can be 100% sure the “Dealership” didn’t do this for “me”. Like I said, they are in business to make money.
None of these products I would ever buy, but we could not have the lower percentage rate without them, which sounds like consumer fraud, but I am not an expert. Keep in mind this is something like you can’t say “no” to? No! Please give me the higher percentage rate, something don’t sound right!
links to law firm: Dealers offering lower percentage rate in lieu rate for costly warranty products: http://www.lyonsandfarrar.com/Consumer%20Law.htm
A fun fact: On our service contact, it says : These products where not offered to me in lieu of financing. In fact it was not in lieu of financing, it was to get a lower percentage rate.
*screenshot coming soon
I am not 100% sure the reason the payment didn’t go up, but my guess is because the missing percentage points is now replaced with the cost of these products, and these products pay a much better premium than the 2 points from the loan, but again I am not an expert. I feel like we offered these products, for the lower percentage rate, that we also feel like would had lowered our price and our payment.
*And we where asked not to cancel, or please don’t cancel rather. Who is not going to say “YES” to these perks! But remember, your interest rate will not be 9.9%!
Hmmmm, I mean, I need oil changes, but this is all crap.
I looked at the contract, while I was being fucked, figuratively speaking of-course …and thought to myself, “who could understand this shit?” I sat back in my chair and literary asked myself if I wanted to drive this SUV for $340.00 a month, for the next 48 months. How was I supposed to know what all this means, sign here, this means this-and-that we are just some saps that went to community collage, I would be willing to bet some real brain power when into these contracts. I would have never – in one million years had purchased any of these products, they are 100% worthless.
From my non expert opinion buying this SUV at Christopher’s Dodge World cost me and my wife an extra $4500.00-$6000.00 for our buying experience, not including interest, or car repairs it potentially needs for the minor issues, I figure the SUV has from driving it for the last 24 hours, is the truck in good shape? Its a nice truck, for the most part.
In my non expert opinion, the best I can tell Christopher’s Dodge World in Golden, CO basically absorbed my trade and my down payment. Used some tactical accounting methods to get the maximum amount it in products, another common unethical practice typical of car dealerships these days. Like I said, they are in business to make money. So, enjoy my money!
Is it a nice SUV? It looks very nice. Was it a good deal? PLEASE GOD I Hope so!
Christopher’s Dodge World boast a 4 star dealership, My wife and I give it one star.
Update to this story:
After talking to our sales man and the finance guy, we where thrown out of his office. And we where told to never come back, we are happy to do this.
Don’t worry we will never go back to Christopher’s Dodge World . The only problem is I would not be able to use my worthless products. More is coming….
Related stories about Christopher’s Dodge World and Car dealers.
Car Dealer Scams To Watch Out For – by Yahoo.com
More complaints about Christopher’s Dodge World: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/26990657/detail.html
Here’s what happened to a 20 year old single mother: http://christophersdodgeworld.info
Related reviews about Christopher’s Dodge World
Edmunds – Customers reviews of this dealship http://www.edmunds.com/dealerships/Colorado/Golden/ChristophersDodgeWorld/fullsales-128225.html
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