My Review Of Kirby Kia of Ventura:
The purchase has been a very painful one. It started out very well. We found a nice two year old Sedona with reasonable mileage at a reasonable price. That's when the pain started. First, they low-balled our trade in by $4,000. We worked through that and agreed on the terms of the deal. We signed the original contract on Saturday 5/4/13. We took the vehicle home and did a more comprehensive check of the vehicle's function. We found a few minor issues and one major issue. The major issue was probably one of sloppiness. The contract specified the vehicle mileage at 44,119. In fact, the vehicle had 4,600 more miles on the odometer. The minor issues could have been caught if a better job were done when preparing the car for sale. Things like the 12v outlets in the dash board did not work and a significant scrape on the bumper that was not obvious at night.
We headed back to Kirby on Sunday to drop off our trade-in and the Sedona for service and give them a list of items that needed attention. DJ was cool to our request but agreed to "take them to his manager". A few minutes later, he agreed to fix the items that obviously should be fixed and to ask about the items that could have been fixed, but might not have been fixed on a used car.
On Monday, my wife went back after talking to Thomas and finding out he hadn't been given the check list. (They seemed to be trying to make the list disappear.) She gave him the list and discussed with him and someone else. The someone else wasn't willing to agree to fix anything. He said, "We'll have to take that to the general manager!". Thomas (only reasonable person we've dealt with?) said, "No, I'm the used car manager, I have the authority to fix these things and will do so."
So, back to the Kirby Monday night to sign the adjusted contracts. They adjusted the mileage on the contract and extended warranty and agreed to fix the list of minor items. We agreed to pay for some of the repairs as that seemed fair. That's when the fraud started. When we arrived at Kirby on Monday to sign the adjusted contract and mileage, we studied the contract a bit closer and noticed a $298.00 charge for "dealer accessories". When we asked about this and whether it would add to the final price of the car, Eric Schutte, the finance manager told us, "That is for a voice services package that is provided free by Kia. It will not affect the final price of the car." We discussed this some more with him and discovered it is a package that is similar to the Ford Sync Services offering. Since we were told it did not affect the final price of the car, we did not worry. If we had been told it would affect the price, we would have declined the offer. This was never discussed at any point until we just happened to notice it.
Eric said he could only adjust the starting mileage on the service contract by hand. He had no way to resubmit the forms to the warranty company. This seems hard to believe, but we are prepared to check with the warranty company in a couple of weeks to make sure it has been adjusted correctly...
Then, we went home and did the math. The accessory did, in fact, increase the agreed upon price of the car by $298.00 plus sales tax.
At this point the issues are unresolved. We do not have the vehicle back and we are waiting for Eric's response to our request to remove the unwanted and unasked for "accessory".
So, here's why we rated above so poorly...
Customer Service 1 star -- Sloppiness by being over 10% off on vehicle mileage. Attempted fraud for lying about effect of accessory on price.
Quality of Work N/A -- We don't have the car back from service, so we can't tell.
Friendliness 1 star -- Staff is initially very friendly. But so is a shark just before he bites your leg off.
Overall Experience 1 star -- Have never had a worse experience when buying a car. Would NEVER buy another car from ANY Kirby dealership and will actively tell people how bad our experience was.
Price 1 start -- Initial price was fair. But, attempts at fraud and sloppiness on mileage and items that should have been caught before the car was placed for sale make this a very poor rating.
My wife and I are very easy to please. If you want us to leave with a great attitude and to tell all our friends how great a dealership is, DON'T LIE TO US! Tell us the truth and let us decide how hard we want to negotiate if we're not pleased.
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