Scummy company with literally dirty cars
After financing us a really old car with a 20% interest rate the first time my husband went in, we really didn't want to do business with carhop again. But, they kept calling and emailing us over and over, and we have a second child on the way, so we thought we'd give it a go after getting an email saying we could get a nice car at their LOWEST interest rate. You can see proof of that in the photo below. This was a mistake.
We have been paying off this car for two years. We actually make two payments of 184 each a month, even though we have a 2001 LeSabre, and due the high interest rate and the rip off upfront cost, we still owe over $2,000. By the way, we sometimes make a third additional payment. We have kept the car in great condition, and just replaced the transmission. My husband works on cars so he's made lots of repairs and upgrades to this car, including a high end sound system.
We went into Carhop for an appointment. We sat in the hot lobby for at least half an hour waiting for some assistance. No one even went outside to look at cars with us. We have our child with us and I'm very obviously pregnant. After finally re doing all the paperwork, they tell us to test drive a specific car. I told my husband our child and I would just wait as a I didn't want to be playing musical car seats all day. Well he comes back and says not only does the car have mechanical issues, but it has no AC. It's 105 degrees and the carhop associate had seriously been trying to talk me into taking my 1 year old in car with no AC?
He gives us keys to another car. I could not even get in this car because it wreaked so badly of cigarette smoke. I could see that the interior of the car is FILTHY before opening the door and as soon as I do open it, I gag. It was that bad. Again, I have my child with me and I am very obviously (and this point have mentioned to him, hey, I'm 33 weeks pregnant, I can't have a car with no AC) that I'm pregnant.
So they say ok we'll see what car we can get you / we'll get special approval. This is after months of calls and emails saying we qualify for any car on the lot, which seemed feasible seeing as my husband now makes substantially more money, and we have never been even one day late on a payment in two years.
They show us a third car, which is the car we actually came into look at. My husband drives it and tells me it does not have any issues. I go to look at it. It doesn't smell like smoke, but it is DISGUSTING. I mean there are chip crumbs on every single surface and crevice of this car. There is dried soda on the back doors. The steering wheel says, "STUPID" in sharpie on it. It would have take hours and hours of detailing to get it to a reasonable condition that I would have felt comfortable letting a toddler and newborn in it, but again, my husband works on cars, so we have access to professional detailing equipment, so we tell them okay, we will consider it.
That's when they sit us down and tell us this 10 year old car, that sells for $16k brand new/current model, mind you, is $9,000 and the trade in value of our car is $200. So they want to sell us completely disgusting a car at double KBB value and take less than what we pay a month as a trade in fro it. They also wanted us to pay 14% interest.
The manager came out and tried to talk us into taking the overpriced car, but would not budge on the 14% interest or the car cost. She said they are over KBB price because carhop does a lot to fix and recondition the trade in cars. I told her how nasty the cars were and she acted shocked and said she had no idea. Sounds like a bad manager if she doesn't know what's on her tiny lot.
I don't know how these people sleep at night. Ripping off desperate people is a horrible way to earn a buck, and if they're gonna be rip off artist scum bags they could at least clean their office, and keep the thermostat lower than 81 degrees.