Toyota of Stamford

I’ll start with a short summary of my experience at Toyota of Stamford, then I’ll explain my situation: I now own a car that gets much less gas mileage then advertised, feel like I overpaid by quite a Toyota of Stamford, then I’ll explain my situation: I now own a car that gets much less gas mileage then advertised, feel like I overpaid by quite a bit, had my credit score unnecessarily lowered (since they ran my credit twice), received a "coupon book" that doesn’t have what they claimed it did and genuinely feel like I've been lied to and taken advantage of in every way possible. If we just had one or two things go wrong, I would have never posted a long, negative review...but there were so many annoying things that happened, that I felt the need to take the time to write this. Please read on for details and the full story: I'd like to start by saying I expect nothing to come from this; The deal is done, we own the car, it's all over. I'm not writing this review to try and "get something", I just want to warn everyone of what to expect from Toyota of Stamford. I'd also like to point out I'm not using anyone's name from the dealership, as I don't want to get anyone in trouble. Everyone's allowed to have bad days...but that doesn't mean I have to sit there and take it when someone treats me badly. I'll start from the beginning: I first visited Toyota of Stamford with my wife a few months ago (August 2013) when we were looking for a new SUV. We had visited pretty much every single local dealership and after arriving at Toyota of Stamford, we were approached by a stereotypical "sleazy used car salesperson". We were really interested in the Rav 4, so we decided to endure the salesperson's patronizing sales games. A good example of one "game": When I asked about prices and financing, the person refused to answer, instead asking me how much I wanted to spend, what vehicles from other manufacturers we were looking at and how much they were selling for. When I insisted on getting a price, we were taken to the person's desk. Instead of talking price and financing, the person pulled out a printout and read comparison features of similar models of competing SUV's. My wife and I politely got up and walked out, as the salesperson was literally not answering any of the questions we asked. We were still interested in an SUV and liked the Rav 4, so instead of going for a test drive, we rented one. That's right: We'd rather waste the money on renting a Rav 4, than deal with that salesperson for a free test drive. After driving the rental (brand new 2013 Rav 4) for a few days, I realized it gets 19 miles per gallon. NINETEEN, all on the highway...almost 30% worse than Toyota claims (that’s not Toyota of Stamford’s fault, but it’s worth noting). We ended up deciding to just keep our current car. Then, in early October 2013, we decided we needed to replace our other car (we wanted a used sedan this time) and went back to the same dealerships we visited when we were looking for SUV's. As before, some of the dealerships were great, others were terrible. When we walked into Toyota of Stamford, we purposely avoided the person we dealt with last time and were approached by someone we'll call "salesperson #1" (remember, I don't want to use anyone's real name). Shortly after our conversation started, salesperson #2 kept coming over and interrupting. They were both polite, but I still don't understand why salesperson #2 kept interrupting? Was #1 in training and needed help? Was it some cheesy sales tactic? Anyway... We tried to find a car that was cheap with a warranty. Salesperson #2 said they found a car that fit our needs and quoted a price in the high twelve thousands. It was more expensive than similar cars from the other dealerships, but we wanted to keep an open mind, so we decided to take it for a test drive. Salesperson #1 took us around in it and the car turned out to be a happy medium: I liked the Mazda best, my wife liked the Ford best and neither of us minded the Toyota, so we decided to take it. The next time the price was mentioned, we were filling out paperwork for the loan and my wife and I noticed the price was listed as around $13,900. We were both surprised, since we thought Salesperson #2 had previously quoted us a cheaper price, so we questioned it. I want to be clear: We didn't yell, we didn't cop an attitude, we just both said we thought the other salesperson quoted a lower number. Salesperson #1 immediately snapped at us and launched into a mini rant: "No way!! I can sell that car all day for thirteen-nine, there's no way it would be less!!..." Salesperson #1 continued on the short rant and we sat there and listened, perplexed as to why we were getting snapped at (we weren't’ getting “yelled at”, but we definitely weren’t being spoken to the way we should have). Someone who overheard salesperson #1 went and got salesperson #2, who (politely) confirmed that the higher number was the actual price. I'll be completely honest: It's totally possible that both my wife and I heard salesperson #2 wrong...and it's equally as possible that salesperson #2 accidentally said the price wrong when it was first mentioned. We're all allowed to make mistakes, but if we knew the price was higher (MUCH more expensive than the Mazda I liked), we wouldn't have even bothered with it. To be honest, I would normally just walk out of a dealership in a situation like that and the fact that I stayed means that everything past this point is my fault. In fact, I've walked out of this dealership before (as mentioned earlier) and I've done it plenty of other times when dealing with other dealerships in the past that treated me badly (which, sadly, is quite common around here). There's never an excuse for being snapped at...especially when I'm the customer. Also, my wife and I were both being polite...it's not like we started yelling about the price, we just asked. I'm not sure if this was all a misunderstanding, or if the price swap was intentional. Honestly, it doesn't matter to me: I’ve bought many cars over the years and have worked with some really great dealerships before. Toyota of Stamford was not one of those. I should have just left and never looked back, but I was really tired of the whole car buying process and just wanted it over with. I realize that since I didn't walk out, I shouldn't be complaining, but I'm posting this review to warn others, not to complain. We continued to move forward with the paperwork for the loan and we were shown an extended warranty plan. Normally, I laugh at these, since they're usually overpriced and are only valid in specific scenarios (doesn’t cover a lot of items, for it to be valid, you have to have your car serviced at the dealer, etc), but the finance person made a claim that seemed too good to be true: If we bought the extended warranty and didn't use it, we'd get all of the money back after the warranty period was up. I made sure to ask many times and the finance person insisted it was true, so we bought it. I figured I’d only use it if something really expensive broke and if not, we’d just get our money back after the warranty period was up. Next, we waited a LONG time for the loan approval to be finalized. It wasn't until a few days later that we realized the dealership ran a credit check on each of us twice. Anyone that keeps track of their credit will know that every "hard inquiry" will lower your credit score and they never told us they were doing that. Also, I'm sure that added to the long wait we were subjected to. I understand that wasn't 100% the fault of the Toyota of Stamford employees, as they were simply waiting for the loan results after they submitted them. Still, my wife and I waited for over an hour, when at other dealerships, we were approved in literally minutes. After a total of about two hours, the final paperwork still wasn't back from the loan center, but we were approved, so they allowed us to take the car with dealer plates on it and come back the next business day for the real plates and registration. I admit, that was a very nice gesture. A few days later, I went over all the paperwork and found nothing that backed up their money back guarantee on the warranty. I called Toyota's main customer service (very friendly, very polite), who said that guarantee doesn't exist. I asked if they could cancel the extended warranty and refund my money. They said they could, however the money would be taken from the last few payments of the loan; They couldn’t write me a check for the amount and they couldn’t re-do the loan (minus the money from the warranty) and lower our payments. That’s not at all what we wanted, so I said I’d like to see if we had other options. I asked to file a complaint and they assured me someone would call to follow up. The next day a manager from Toyota Of Stamford called and claimed that the money back guarantee was from the local dealer itself, not Toyota corporate. I had all of the paperwork in front of me and told them I couldn't find anything in writing describing that. The manager said I must have not received the correct paper and it would be mailed to me. The manager didn't mention any of my other complaints, just that "there was a meeting with everyone involved". I imagine the "meeting" was a bunch of people high-five-ing that they got to rip off another customer, but I digress... The "paperwork" arrived two days later. It was simply an invoice that had the words "MONEY BACK EXP 08-07-2019" highlighted. That isn't even remotely adequate as proof of a warranty, or explanation of how the guarantee works. I'm still questioning if it's actually real and don't really know what to do. Sadly, I think my only course of action is going to my lawyer, which will (of course) cost more money. After just over a month of owning the car, I decided to rent a minivan from Toyota of Stamford's car rental service. See, when we bought the car, they gave us a little "coupon book", with things like a free oil change and a free car rental. They even bragged about how since we bought a small car, if we ever needed a bigger car to move something or carry a lot of people, we could use the free rental ticket. Well, that's exactly what happened, I needed to move something large and figured I'd use my free rental...but when I got to the Toyota rental area, they said the coupon was only valid if your car was in for service, you couldn't just use it as a free rental coupon. I explained what the salespeople told me, but they said there was nothing they could do. I didn’t argue with them, as the people at the Toyota rental center are always really nice, but it really bothered me: Once again, I've fallen victim to the salespeople's lies. Also, at this point, I've driven about 2000 miles since purchasing. 99% of the travel is highway mileage and I get about 29mpg. Toyota claims that car is supposed to get 37mpg on the highway (once again, not the dealership’s fault, but still annoying). At the end of the year, that adds up to a lot of money. So, that's pretty much it. Not only will I feel the sting of this experience every single month for five years when I write the check for the car loan, but I'm still forced to deal with these people on a regular basis: They won't honor the warranties, unless the car is serviced at a Toyota dealer (for the record, this isn't just a Toyota issue, 99% of car companies require this...they just never usually tell you). To reiterate: This was all my fault and I only blame myself. I should have left the dealership after the price discussion and never gone back. I was just sick of car shopping, sick of dealing with bad dealerships and wanted it all to be over. I hope if anyone was planning on buying a car from Toyota of Stamford, they’ll read about my experience and know what to expect. Other than the gas mileage, the car is fine, so if you feel the need to shop there, just remember to be explicit about how you’d like your credit run and get everything they promise you in writing from the time you walk in until the time you sign the final paperwork (or just go to a different Toyota dealer). More