Advantage Chevrolet of Bolingbrook

Bad and Good I saw a truck on the Advantage website that I was interested in. "Live chat" told me it was available by the stock # I provided. Received a call from I saw a truck on the Advantage website that I was interested in. "Live chat" told me it was available by the stock # I provided. Received a call from a sales rep. at the Hodgkins location who confirmed the vehicle was there and available. I arrived in an hour to look at the truck. When I couldn't find it I was told: 1) must be on our overflow lot 2) it's actually on our Bolingbrook lot 3) it's actually on a truck in transit from Bolingbrook (I said okay, I'll wait) 4) "um, sorry, the truck was actually sold already" As everyone knows, there is no possible way that a truck went from "available" to "sold" in an hour. I've never gotten out of a dealership in less than two hours, buying with a a cashiers check for the total in hand. I assumed this was a "bait and switch" and told everyone there as much and left. I called the General Sales Mgr. and left him a message. To Mr. Alanis' credit, he responded quickly and said he would look into it. He agreed that something wasn't right because, as he said as well, "there's no way they went from no pending deals to sold in an hour." Mr. Alanis called me back and told me that his staff at Hodgkins had been searching the wrong stock number? He said the truck was in Bolingbrook and was available but for some reason someone lied to me and he would get to the bottom of it. He told me he would have the Bolingbrook sales mgr. call me immediately. I got that call about an hour later and was told there was a "deal pending." xxx! I expressed to Mark the Bolingbrook sales mgr. that I was told it was available and was ticked off all over again. He replied, they (referring to the Hodgkins staff) don't know what I have available. Mark told me that if the other deal didn't go through he would call me. He called me back about 20 minutes later and said "if you're ready to make the deal right now, I won't wait on the other guy." I made an appointment to come in for later that evening. When I got to the Bolingbrook location I introduced my self to Mark and he handed me off to his sales rep. John Montgomery. John and I test drove and he did a nice job of explaining the features of the truck. When we came back in he explained the rest of the process if I was going to buy the truck. I mentioned that Mr. Alanis told me he was going to speak with Mark the Bolingbrook sales mgr. about doing a little something for me to compensate for my wasted trip down from Schaumburg and being lied to that morning. I got two $25 gas cards. I was underwhelmed to say the least. I suggested a couple hundred off the price and was given the story we've all gotten about the price listed online being "so low" because it's the "internet price." I still have yet to figure out what that means. So if you just walk on the lot and don't tell them you saw the price listed on their internet ad, you somehow cant get it? I suggested the install of a less than $200 accessory, for which I could download and print a $100 coupon toward. Nope, two $25 Shell cards. I made the deal regardless as the price was in my acceptable range. Now it's off to finance and credit checks even though my financing was already in place. I got the story that "each dealer HAS to run your credit." They don't. They run your credit even if you've already arranged financing in hope of finding a lender who gives them a bigger cut of the interest on a loan with terms acceptable to the buyer. Tim the Finance mgr. did this with me and actually told me that my pre-arranged lender was now offering me worse terms BUT his lender would give me the same terms. I told Tim I was calling my lender and did. My lender told me that my pre-arranged terms HAD NOT changed and to have the finance mgr. call their Dealer Relations Mgr. to confirm this. Tim chose not to call them and wrote up my paperwork with my original pre-arranged loan terms. He did tell me that "he could still probably do better than that with another lender, tomorrow." Which means he will run my credit past another lender in hope of finding the same terms I got but with a bigger cut to Advantage. If better terms were available, why didn't Tim offer them to me when I was sitting at the desk? FYI, I have "Excellent" credit on both the FICO and the Vantage scoring models. After this it was out to the truck with John to review OnStar and set that up. I understand that it's part of the process that gets done but Jesus, it was pushing two hours already. Anyway got that done with John, who again was a nice guy and informative. So from start to finish, on a truck sale to a motivated buyer (I had already sold my old truck, privately), with excellent credit, pre-arranged financing, a specific vehicle, nearly 50% down payment in hand, a wasted trip to Hodgkins, lied to about availability "it is", "it's in transit", "it's sold", "it is", "it isn't", and finally "it is", angry phone calls due to the preceding and finally finishing the sale I put in 5-6 hours but got two $25 Shell cards for that. Really, there is absolutely no reason or excuse for it being that hard or aggravating. Finally, because the Shell cards are hardly compensation for the aggravation, I'll say this: read these reviews knowing that I was offered even more gas cards for a positive review. More