From the Perspective of the salesman, Michael Krantz, he was probably the most upstanding, personable, genuine salesman I have ever met. AutoNation Ford Frisco, is lucky to have this man working for them. I would go to this guy to buy a car hands down over and over again. Now, From the perspective TRADE values, those guys who look at your car and you never actually talk to, PLEASE go over each and every single number before agreeing to buy a car. The very first amounts on trades we're lowballs. And when I say lowballs, I mean not even within the vicinity of the trade values on KBB or NADA. They offer a value on your trade, which is below value to begin with, take a bunch of deductions and you're left with an even much lower value. The fact that a customer buying a brand new SUV, gets slapped with a $1000 Car Fax Report, is absolutely absurd. To deduct for mileage, after you're already lowballing, again ridiculous. I traded in 2 cars, BOTH between VERY GOOD - EXCELLENT condition. I would say the ONLY deduction I actually agreed with was the tire deduction on one car. Probably was thing we were most "shocked" by...we were sent the window sticker showing the MSRP on the SUV we purchased, 2-3 days before we went to make the deal. So up until we received the paper stating the final price with trades, we believed we were paying $36,910 for this SUV. We come to find out they marked the up the price of the SUV, apparently, (according to them) due to high demand $2500. In all my 20+ years of purchasing vehicles, I had never seen this. I ended up getting $4500 more for my trades, so we ate the $2500, but I already know that dealerships purchase cars for less than the MSRP, so they just made a free extra $2500. In hindsight, after thinking about the whole ordeal that had us at a dealership from 10am-4pm, after my head was clear, I really should have fought that $2500, because that is not the price we were shown that the vehicle was selling for, high demand or not. THE ONLY REASON, I'm giving 5 stars is because of Michael Krantz. If it hadn't been for him, I'd probably be giving the dealership about a 2-3, just because of the dollar amount we ended up paying for this vehicle. We had done all our research and felt at worst case, with $12,000 down payment we'd break even or be within $2k. We ended up $9k over retail and that was a hard pill to swallow. Dealerships prey on the fact that they have something you want and they will get you if you're not careful. Just check, double check and triple check all your numbers. Know the value of your cars on trade. AND if you're shown the MSRP days before you go to the dealership, DO NOT let them hit you with an upcharge due to high demand and you'll be ok.
Brandy Riggs
Mar 1, 2021