Berkshire Mazda And Jim Salvie's Signature Series

I am going to start this review by saying that Jim Salvie is the most honorable business owner / car dealer that I have ever had the pleasure of doing business with. I am a 50-year-old man and have done many is the most honorable business owner / car dealer that I have ever had the pleasure of doing business with. I am a 50-year-old man and have done many car deals in my time and I have never had an experience like the one that I am about to describe. I live in Pennsylvania and was looking for a used car as my work car had recently died. The criteria I was looking for was I did not want to spend more than $25K, the car had to be below 40K miles & most important it needed to have a manual transmission. To make a long story short, my internet search led me to a 2018 Mazda 3 at Jim Salvie’s Berkshire Mazda in Massachusetts, 215 miles away from me. I called and got the process started for me to come and see this car. It took a couple of days to get everything lined up and to figure out how to transfer the car over to me out of state if I did decide to purchase this car. I drove out there on April 7, 2023 to see this car. I checked the car over, took it for a ride and decided to buy this car. In the process of getting everything lined up, it became apparent that there had been a miscommunication and the salesman would not be able to transfer the car over to me. Jim Salvie got involved in the process and said that he would have the car shipped to me at his expense and I could finish the transfer from home. The car arrived 3 days later and I finished the transfer. As I started driving this car, I realized that something was not right with the suspension as ordinary bumps on the road hit very hard on the passenger side and it sounded like the wheel was going to come up through the wheel well. I took it to a Mazda dealer in my area for a state inspection and to have the suspension looked over. They said that they found nothing wrong with the suspension but did find a gouge and a cut on one of the tires and it need to be replaced to pass inspection. Not happy with this dealers’ findings I scheduled an appointment with a garage that I have been taking my cars to for 18 years. I asked them to make sure that they drive the car as a visual inspection was not identifying the problem. They called me and said that it needed new shocks and struts as 2 were bottoming out. I had the repair done and the car drove beautifully after that. I contacted Berkshire Mazda via the internet about these issues as it was never disclosed to me that the car had issues that would need to be addressed. These repairs cost me almost $1,500. After not hearing anything back from this dealer and believing they pulled a fast one on me do to the distance between us, I wrote reviews online that were not so glowing. Jim Salvie called me himself on a Saturday about these issues. Within our conversation it became apparent that I was sending my communication to the wrong place and Berkshire Mazda was not receiving them. I described what I had gone through with the car to Jim and he immediately explained to me that they stand behind every sale and do thoroughly care about their customers. He sent me the video of the inspection that my car went through before they put it up for sale and said that he would reimburse me for the repairs. A check arrived a couple of days later covering all expenses. He did not have to pay to ship this car or these repairs as I purchased the car as is, but because he is honorable and cares about his reputation, he covered these costs without me ever asking or making any demands even though he probably took a loss on this sale. He showed that profit was not his motivation. So, when he says that he cares about his customers, you can take him at his word that he will stand behind what he sells. That in my experience is very rare these days. For this very reason, even though he is 215 miles away, I will probably buy again in the future from Jim Salvie knowing how honest of a business that he runs. The most trustworthy dealer I have ever worked with. Thank you to Jim Salvie and his team! More