A note of thanks but first, Buyer beware! - mcutah
A note of thanks but first, Buyer beware!
Just had by far the worst dealership experience I’ve ever had. We went in 7/1/2025 to buy a beautiful CPO 2022 Mazda CX-30 with just over 17,000 miles for my daughter in med school. We communicated that safety and reliability were our primary needs, followed closely by staying within the constraints of a very tight budget.
The advertised price earlier the same day was $25,648 on a car that books out around $24,900 (retail), with an outside chance of being valued at that list price if we’re being very generous. We figured we’d be able to come to a mutually beneficial deal. We were hoping to get a good deal, and the dealer makes some $$$$ (win-win). The published list price increased to $25,740 literally the minute we walked in the dealership doors. This was strange especially when no one from the dealership could or would answer for that when I asked specifically how or why that happened. We had a significant down payment, almost 40% of the asking price before any negotiating, and buyers with 739 and 843 credit scores respectively (qualifies for the best possible rate especially with the sizable down payment). After some ridiculous back and forth which I had specifically asked them not to do, they had the audacity to try and sell us the car for just a hair under $28,000 (almost what it’s original MSRP was when new in 2022 and another $2,000 beyond published list price. They actually wrote $27,600 + on the worksheet as the selling price before TTL) after we were extremely clear about what our terms needed to be due to our daughter’s extremely tight school budget. This was all after I showed them I had run the numbers based off their original list price and the higher rate they were offering without any negotiating. What they were trying to sell didn’t even come close to matching what they had posted online by way of selling price or rate. They were off by thousands of dollars. At this point the sales manager came out of his office all puffed up and asked how we were doing? I told him “less awesome than when we walked in,” he said “well I can’t do that deal, have a nice day” and stormed off. They clearly didn’t want our business.
We left, drove 3 minutes down the street and made an actual deal at the right numbers on a CPO 2025 Honda HR-V sport with 2,751 miles. This deal included an all but brand new car with a much higher current value, with way fewer miles, which has better reliability and safety ratings with far better brand reputation, and full factory and extended CPO warranties for thousands of dollars less than a 3 year old used car.
So in other words we went in to Tim Dahle Mazda - Murray to buy a beautiful used car with admittedly low miles for its year, and in great condition only to get completely jerked around on numbers and then dismissed. What a horrible experience, atrocious customer service, and beyond rude behavior from the business manager and sales manager. They did not listen to our needs, show any interest in us as anything other than a “mark,” or make any attempt to meet our needs or a make deal, they only tried to railroad us and put us upside down in a 3 year old used car just to make a buck. At the numbers they were showing we would have almost certainly needed gap insurance which is ludicrous with almost 40% down. We were there to buy, not to play games and get buried in a bad deal.
A word of caution to any would be customers of Tim Dahle Mazda Murray, Do your homework well before visiting this dealership. My experience was that their business model is to take people for everything they can and hope their customers aren’t savvy enough to know any better.
On the flip side, a note of sincere thanks to the management team at Tim Dahle Mazda for not allowing us to a make a horrible deal on the wrong car for my daughter. This led us to the absolute perfect deal on the ideal car for her which was happily and gratefully purchased from their competitor do
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