jsphlynch
Well-Known Member
I discovered this fact a few years ago. Was shopping for a gently used SUV, and found a very helpful salesman at the local Kia dealership. He really seemed to be playing straight with me. He even pointing out some minor damage that I had missed on one of the vehicles we were looking at. When I said something about his candor, he said something along the lines of needing to be upfront and honest with customers, because they will figure out anything incorrect he says (especially with the internet in the palm of their hands!) and hold him accountable for it.People swear they know good car salesmen. I think it's more so that they don't know the shifty things about them.
He ended up finding us a Sorento we really liked: only a couple years old, single owner, low mileage, and clean Carfax. A really big plus was when he pointed out that Kia's very good warranty was transferable.
At the negotiating table he used every single one of the standard car salesman tactics. I didn't really care about because I knew about them and was expecting them, and in the end got the price I wanted.
Fast forward 2 years: the car starts having really rough shifts when cold, and throws a code for a faulty temp sensor in the transmission (according to the internet, it's a common failure for the Sorento of its age). So I take it in to the dealership I bought it from, they likewise diagnose the bad sensor, and hand me a quote of several hundred dollars to replace the faulty component. I start insisting that it should be covered under the factory warranty, but the service advisor says it's out of warranty since I'm the second owner, and only a very truncated warrantee applies to the second owner. I tell him that I was told when I bought the vehicle at this very dealership I was told that the original factory warranty transfers. Service advisor turns a shade paler, and asks who the salesman was. Turns out he's "no longer with them." He offers to take me to the dealership's head sales manager, which turns out to be different that the one who was there when I bought the vehicle. Sales manager hears the problem and he turns a shade paler and says "well that's not right." But he says they'll pull the records from my transaction and if there's anything that indicates I was told I'd get the full warranty, or if I have any documentation in my files, they'll honor it. Of course, the promise of a warranty transfer was only something the sales guy had told me; it wasn't in writing anywhere. I was, to put it technically, SOL. However, the new manager admitted to me that the reason the salesman, the sales manager, and even the finance guy who had handled my sale were gone was because there was too much stuff like this going on, the dealership's owner learned about it and (to his credit) completely cleaned house. As I understood it, everybody on the sales side of things was canned.
Haven't been back to that dealership or any others in the same auto group ever since. I bought the sensor for something like $15 on Rock Auto and changed it myself, and the vehicle has been trouble-free ever since.
Sponsored