Quality Toyota Corona CA: Buying Experience

Well, it's been 6 months now since I bought a leftover 2011 Prius GenIII in early February 2012 from Quality Toyota in Corona CA, right on 6th St. My buying experience with them would've been a distance, unpleasant memory now, that is until I got a email from J.D. Power soliciting a survey of my buying experience with them. Well, Bud Gordon (dealership owner), you're not going to like what you're about to read, or actually be shared. Sorry.

Car dealerships generally are muttered as a four letter word, with a bad name and reputation as how consumers view them. Quality Toyota surely lives up to those negative reputations in full. Most car shoppers just "strolling on in for a look" without doing their homework first will definitely be taken advantage of by the sales folks here. No mercy, be it teenagers, seniors, grandmas or babies:

'Good Sales Guy, Bad Sales Guy, and the Newbie?': I first met with a Newbie sales guy mid-afternoon, so fresh and innocent looking with those Bambi eyes, it makes you want to buy a car from him because you don't want him to get fired next week for not making quota. I came back that same evening with my girlfriend to look at the white Prius. Newbie brings in his "supervisor", this turns out to be the Bad Sales Guy (BSG). We sit down and within 3 minutes haggle over a set of thin OEM floor mats that I don't want, but the BSG insist I must buy for an additional $175 because they "come with the car". Told him he can keep them, I rather pay $175
for aftermarket WeatherTechs. He said no way. My Girlfriend and I got up to walk out. As we were approaching our car in the parking lot, Bambi comes out with another "supervisor", this turns out to be the "Good Sales Guy" (GSG) to coach us back inside to sit down and see what they can do to help us get into the Prius we were looking at. He couldn't "give me" the floor mats, but he just charged $25 for the entire set.

'READ before you sign!': GF went home to cook. I stayed behind to finish paperwork. After I finished filling out forms for finance (I got 0% for 36 months and I put 30% down), it still took them almost 30 minutes before I was wisked in to see the Finance Guy (it was like getting a audience with the "Wizard" in Wizard of Oz). He was a grumpy fella with a stern demeanor with a dash of smoker's air about him, I wished he popped a mint since his office was small with no windows. He shoved the sales contract in front of me to sign listing the fees, charges, etc... Expecting me to initial and sign away without even a glance. Wrong, I took the pen as if I was to do just as he was anticipating, but I took the contract off his desk, held it in my left hand and leaned back in my chair to be more comfortable to study the contract and figures, line by line by line. I spotted something odd, so I asked the Wizard, 'What's this "Vehicle Recovery fee" of $275?'. Like I was a slow to learn 6 y.o., the Wizard gruffly answered, "That's if the vehicle stolen and recovered and returned to us, we can give it back to you.". I was perplex with that arrangment, so I asked further, 'But I'm adding comprehensive cover to my insurance. If the car is stolen and recovered, wouldn't it be returned to me or covered by my insurance anyway? Or does that fee you're charging me cover the insurance deductible? And it's not GAP insurance since I'm putting down 30%, which is way over the minimum limit of 10%'. The Wizard was not happy with my questions, instead of answering, he almost yanked the contract from my hand and said, "You don't want it? Fine, but you better hope your car doesn't get stolen." He tore up that contract and printed out a new one within 15 seconds without the $275 "Vehicle Recovery Fee". It was passed 8:30pm now. I settled in the chair and scanned each line of the new freshly print contract 3 times before putting my first initial on it.

I'm sure that all of the above mentioned characters are just that, characters that they have to play out because their jobs, this dealership (management?) requires them to. For example, I'm certain the sales guys take turns play at least the GSG and BSG role. For the previous customer, my GSG might have been the BSG, and vise versa. How can the BSG be the BSG all the time and still make a living? Bottomline about Quality Toyota is: I would not buy / lease another vehicle from here, nor would recommend anyone to. Ironically, their Service Dept. is pretty decent, especially that one female Service Writer/Advisor they have. Very nice and friendly. They just need to clean up their customer service waiting area a bit, especially that "Customer Business Center" room. it's really dirty in there, including the chairs (most are broken anyway) and the Cat 5 / LAN data ports in the walls are not HOT / live. I do take my work laptop and tried to work from there a few times why waiting.