Recently, my husband and I purchased a Lexus NX 350h at - Wendy
Recently, my husband and I purchased a Lexus NX 350h at Lexus Escondido. Our experience started out pleasant enough. Our sales rep, Michael, was friendly and knowledgeable and facilitated a test drive as soon as we expressed interest. Our only disappointment with Michael was that he said our old car only had a trade-in value of $7500 despite showing him an offer from Carmax for $10,000. Michael said he didn’t believe Carmax would give us $10,000 and offered us $8,000. We declined his offer, and went back to Carmax. They paid us $10,000. Thank you, Carmax! Regardless, our overall experience with Michael was fine, but that was only a portion of the purchasing experience.
Unfortunately, our experience in financing was so awful that we really regret not walking out and going to another dealership. My husband and I have both purchased from various dealerships many times. Heading into financing, we were prepared for a sales pitch, as we know it is part of the process. However, we have never had such an unpleasant experience as we did with Misael. He started out friendly enough, but was soon lecturing us on our intent to pay off our loan early (which we had not even brought up to him). We did not appreciate his unsolicited advice. My husband and I are intelligent, well-educated retired teachers, but he spoke to us in a condescending manner. After we refused his hard sell on the warranties, he became very unfriendly, more condescending, and more aggressive with his sales tactics. He made comments like, “These warranties are especially important for folks like you”, implying that we could not afford repairs. He used the phrase “Folks like you…” or “People like you…” in a disrespectful manner several times. In one attempt to change our minds about the warranties, he told us that we would likely have this car for the rest of our lives (I’m only 58; my husband is 61). He attempted the hard sell on THREE different occasions during the process even after we made it very clear that we did not want to purchase any additional warranties. Several times, he mentioned that more and more people are bringing in their cars for repair because of all the new technology. That didn’t make us feel very confident in Lexus! He even had the nerve to ask, “Have you even owned a luxury car before?”. My husband and I felt extremely uncomfortable and disrespected throughout the whole finance process. Misael made many assumptions about us! As stated earlier, we regret not walking out and going to a different dealership.
We have a choice in where we want to spend our money, and no one deserves to be treated as we were. Buying a new car should be exciting and uplifting. As a customer, you should feel valued and appreciated. We felt judged and belittled.
So far, we love our new Lexus. But if we decide to purchase another in the future, it will NOT be from Escondido Lexus.
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