Darcars in Frederick, MD

My wife and I got fed up with waiting for a Ford Freestyle we ordered back in April to show up (last week we were told it was put on a train in Chicago on Monday, and as of yesterday, it still hadn't made it to Baltimore). Friday night we talked about it a lot, and decided that a hybrid was a much better choice. Saturday morning I called Darcars in Frederick and Silver Spring to confirm inventory, and went up to Frederick.

The guys at Darcars Toyota in Frederick were great. They're a little nutty for the Prius, and it's good to see. They don't really let people test drive the new ones on the lot (they have a demo Prius for that), so they all have just the few miles on them from moving them on and off of the carrier. They have only a few salespeople that are allowed to sell them (they have to be checked out on the car first, so they don't give out bad info), and Prius customers get priority. And their "Hybrid Manager" will talk your ear off for hours about the car if you give him the chance (Really, Joe, we loved talking about the car with you!).

They had 8 Priuses on the lot on Saturday when we were there. They got 5 more today (they say that they get more than their fair share of them because they handle them so well). We were able to walk in and drive off on Saturday with a Silver #6 for $300 under MSRP. We also purchased their (dealer's) maintenance package for $810, which includes oil changes when we want them for life (not just at specified intervals. We just have to pay for the filters when we want them changed), seasonal inspections, major mileage inspections, paint sealant (one time), tire rotation whenever we want it, car washes whenever we're at the dealership, and detailing (engine cleaning, carpet shampoo, hand wax) for no more than $75. Plus discounts on parts, service, and accessories. Elected not to get the extended warranty from them, since their price on that was a little high.

The guys up there were very responsive to phone calls, both presales and post. I can specifically recommend our salesguy, Martin Jones. Very knowledgable about the car. My wife was up today for the paint sealant (they like to block off a few hours for it), and they were still great. Martin was watching for her to show up, even though she went straight to service rather than stopping on the sales floor. They provided her a complimentary loaner so she could go shopping. We even asked them about whether or not we could provide our own filters for the oil changes, and they said that while it had to be Toyota filters, they'd gladly sell us a case of 10 at wholesale cost (a little under $40). And they said that that price would be good when we needed more.

Honestly, I can't say enough good things about Darcars in Frederick. There was no pressure. We walked in and told Martin that we were planning on going over to Silver Spring (since they had a red #6 we thought we wanted), and so we just wanted to look and make sure we liked the car before we drove over there. But we told him we weren't going to waste his time with a test drive if we were going to buy at another dealership. But he pretty much insisted on giving us as much info as we wanted on the car, and doing a test drive even if we were going over to the other Darcars to buy. They had another red on the lot (that someone else was buying already), and it turned out we didn't really like the color, so he got the sale anyways. But I truly believe that he wouldn't have blinked if we had left to go over to buy across town. Even when we told them we wanted to go across the street to look at the Accord, all they did was give us a little information about the differences. By the time we got back 10 minutes later to tell them that we decided on the Prius, they had already sent the car we said we would buy (if we bought a Prius) into final prep, figuring that we would be back. And so far, the service department has been great as well.

-Todd

 

OK, I know this post is a little ancient, but I just want to update it. First off, sales. We were back this past weekend to buy a new Matrix XR from them (no Prius this time due to money and other factors). We got to work with Martin again, as well as Joe, and I've still got nothing but great things to say about them. For a while Martin was in the finance department, but he's back on the sales floor now. Got a good deal, everyone treated us like people instead of a check, and there was no pressure. Oh, and Martin mentioned that some people had come in asking for him by name after my post last year, and that his managers all took notice of that and he was really happy. Also told me that if people go in and ask for him and mention my name (Todd Palino), we can get a referral bonus for service.

Anyways, we've had much more experience with the dealership in the service department over the last year, and I can tell you that those guys are on the ball too. We've been doing all our maintenance through the dealership, using their prepaid maintenance plan. The car's been in every 5k like clockwork, and they always do a great job. About a month ago, when we were heading in to take a look at the Matrix for the first time, we called service on our way to the dealership and asked them if they could do the recall work and an alignment (to correct a problem they had noticed the last time), and they had no problem taking our car 10 minutes later and getting it back to us quickly. Same thing this past weekend when we asked them on Friday evening if they could take the Prius on Saturday afternoon for the 30k service while we were at the dealership.

-Todd