Bad Experience with dealer

(Original post was lost. Reposting)

CoNICElli – a "NICE" place to do business? NOT!

In mid-July, I was in the market for a 2005 Prius.
This was before the 2006 energy bill was passed.
Through an inventory search on the web, I located the package and color I wanted at Conicelli Toyota in Conshohocken, PA.
I called Conicelli and it turned out that the car was onboard a ship that was due in port in 3 days and the car was scheduled for delivery to the dealership up to 10 days after that.
I put down a $1000 deposit for a deal to purchase the car at MSRP.
No problems so far. The salesman seemed efficient if not particularly knowledgeable.

About a week before its scheduled delivery date, I noticed the car still showing on their inventory on their web page so I called the salesman and asked him about it.
I told him I was a little concerned because I didn’t want the car sold out from under me.
He told me that their web site is run by an outside company and not to worry about it.
He assured me that, since I put a deposit on the car, that car was mine and could not be sold to anyone else.

Well…I let all 10 days pass and heard nothing from the dealership so, at the end of the next day I called the salesman.
He salesman asked me how I was doing.
I said “You tell me.â€
He then told me he would go check on the status of the vehicle and get back to me.
After about an hour, I called him back and was informed that someone had sold the car to someone else the previous day, which was his day off.
I asked him when they discovered this and he told me they discovered it that morning.
He offered no explanation as to why I was not informed then.
I believe they were probably trying to locate a replacement vehicle for me (unsuccessfully).
I asked the salesman what he was going to do to make it up to me.
He offered only his apology and a promise to (eventually) get me another car just like the one I ordered.
That’s when I stopped talking to the salesman and started talking to the sales manager.

After a couple of days (weekend in between), he told me he would get another Prius to be delivered in another 2 weeks (Later he revised the delivery date by an additional 10 days and denied stating the previous estimate.)
After being prompted (Conicelli volunteered only inexpensive apologies.), he offered $200 off MSRP.
This was at a time where I was receiving web quotes from other dealerships, who had not abused my trust, for $300 off MSRP.
He eventually went to $500 off but wanted a guarantee that I would write a favorable review when I received Toyota’s survey.
I told him I couldn’t do that.

The sales manager made it clear that he would rather have an unhappy non-customer than either an unhappy customer or a happy customer receiving a good deal after having had their trust abused.
He was, throughout the process, very inflexible and had a very annoying behavior of talking over top of me, regardless of whether I continued talking or not.

In a later conversation, on consideration of the incentives in the new energy bill, I proposed a deal where he could make me a satisfied customer by applying the $500 off he had already offered me to the purchase of a 2006 to be delivered in January. Rather than viewing this as an opportunity to repair their reputation, he instead stated that I must not have been all that upset with the additional delay caused by their having sold the car out from under me if I was willing to wait until January. (Pardon me but “What an nice person!â€).

I eventually made a deal with Del Toyota of Thorndale, PA for a 2006 Prius to be delivered in January to take advantage of the new tax credit.
Because I knew several friends interested in purchasing Priis in January, Del cut us all a deal at $500 under MSRP each.

The folks at Conicelli would not even listen to me long enough to hear that I had friends interested in purchasing Prii.
I want to stress here that, my conversations with Conicelli were rational and calm although completely unsatisfactory.

I did not receive any sort of contact after canceling the order by voicemail but saw that the car showed up on their active inventory web page the same day. However, to add a little more stress to the situation, my credit card was charged for the $1000 deposit I had put on the car days AFTER I had cancelled the order. I called and at least had no trouble getting the transaction reversed.

Based on my experience, you can expect to be treated, at best, efficiently at Conicelli Toyota as long as nothing goes wrong.
If something goes wrong and you are not happy (go figure), they will likely prefer you go away rather than make an effort (other than nice inexpensive apologies) to repair the relationship.

I have other friends interested in purchasing Prii who are not ready to commit yet that I have shared my experiences with.
I don’t think they will be buying from Conicelli.

(End of original post)


Am still looking forward to January and my 2006 Prius from Del Toyota in Thorndale.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll prepare my defenses in advance.

 

Thanks. I'm pretty happy with Del for now and have a pretty good deal (pre-huricane/gasoline price spike) that they're continuing to honor.