avoid this place like the plague.
I went to look at a car last night. An 08 Cadillac CTS4, at Windsor Nissan, in East Windsor, NJ.
This is the car, if it gets pulled, or gets changed, I have screen captures. The vehicle's price is $20,900.
http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...r_id=278027964
and on their site, the price has already changed (I have screen caps here as well of the original price):
http://www.windsornissan.com/vehicle.asp?v=1035880#1
Before I drove all that distance, I used the contact form on autotrader and sent a message to the site, basically asking if the price was correct and if the car was still in stock.
I received this reply:
"Hello Alex:
This is John from Windsor Nissan. I just received information that you are interested in a Cadillac CTS. I am pleased to inform you this vehicle is available.
Please click the following link to view this vehicle on our website:
www.WindsorNissan.com
We are open from 9 AM to 9 PM Monday through Friday, and from 9 AM to 6 PM on Saturdays. Which day and time are you available for a test drive?
Sincerely,
John Kerrigan
Internet Manager
Office :609-448-1411
Windsor Nissan
509 Route 130
East Windsor, NJ 08520"
Note the careful wording doesn't actually answer the question about price, and it also says "interested in A Cadillac CTS", not the specific one. I know all about dealerships tactics, and even if they already sold the car I was looking for, this email would never had said "sorry it sold", it would say exactly what was said above. Sure, they have A CTS they're willing to sell me, just not the one I wanted.
So I replied back:
"John,
thank you for the quick reply.
I'm specifically interested in the bronze (orange) 08 CTS4 you have listed on your site and autotrader for $20,900. I just want to confirm the price, and that it's still there. I'm not actively car shopping, but I happened to notice the ad, and it's the right price for the right car with the right options.
--Alex"
And I received back:
"Yes it is here and the price is right
John Kerrigan
Internet Manager
Office :609-448-1411
Windsor Nissan
509 Route 130
East Windsor, NJ 08520"
Couldn't say it any more clearly than that. So after work I took a ride out there with my brother, and sure enough the car was there. I'll note, it took 2 hours to get there, and it was about 80 miles. It says $33,000 on the front window of the car and window sticker. So I get a salesperson (Tony), and he gets me the keys out of a drawer right inside the dealership door, and I look the car over for a minute, and basically bring up the massive price discrepancy.
He says, he doesn't know anything about that, so we walk inside the dealership for him to check on the computers. At that time he remembered their power was out. My brother noticed there was even a sign that said the power had been out since 4:30pm. That will come back in a minute. So I pull it up on my iphone and show him. And sure enough, $20,900. Tony carefully words his reply that he's not sure if it's accurate and he'll have to check with another person.
I explain that I had emails from John Kerrigan stating the price was correct, and I thought there might be a mistake in the price too, which is exactly why my contact with John SPECIFICALLY wanted to check the validity of the price. I offer to show them to Tony on the iphone.
At this point, I was hoping for SOMETHING for my trouble, not necessarily for them to sell me the car thousands of dollars in the hole, but at least something of value to cover my gas money - $20, gift certificate, hat and t-shirt, whatever. I just didn't want to leave empty handed really since it was 100% their fault this situation happened.
Tony gets another person, presumably a manager, who I believe was identified as Mike. Tony fills him in on the situation. Next is where things completed turned.
Mike says something to me to the effect of "Sorry sir, that car sold this afternoon. For $27,000. We had someone come in and purchase 20 cars at once. All the keys are in the back office for those cars. Isn't that right Tony?" There were so many holes in that story, you could drive aircraft carriers through them. Tony even wouldn't commit to the BS, he kept his mouth shut and stopped making eye contact with anyone else. He obviously knew Mike had crossed the line, and even he was embarrassed.
So I picked up on a few things in his story. First off, no one buys 20 cars at once. Second, my last email from John Kerrigan was at 2:09 PM. So the window they had to sell this particular vehicle was less than 2 hours until the power went out. Not likely. Third, the keys to the car, supposedly in the back room, were taken out of a drawer in a desk in the showroom, by Tony, while I watched, and were currently in Tony's hand. Fourth, the car was parked in 3 deep. And it started up slowly and a little rough, as though it hadn't been started in days. I seriously doubt anyone would buy a car without test driving it.
And last, this one I noticed after the fact of course, but as noted above they already went to the trouble of changing the price of the car on their website, within 3 hours of leaving there. If it really had sold, wouldn't they have removed it from the site instead??
So this guy was totally full of ****, and beyond that it was an embarrassing insult to my intelligence. Mike walked up totally uninformed on the situation thinking he would be smart and defuse the situation with a whopper of a lie. Even the price he noted - $27,000 - I'm sure that was carefully crafted so that he hoped I would reply "$27,000, wow, that's a wonderful price, a mere $6,000 more than the one I drove here for. Do you have another one like it you can sell me for that price? Maybe 2 or 3?"
My reply: "That's a great story, but I don't believe a word of it." Let's just say, that led to a big scene, where Mike confirmed his maturity multiple times over again and we left without accomplishing anything. Except the loss of about 10 gallons of my gas, and 5 hours of my time.
These guys are scum. They live up to, or exceed every shady car salesman stereotype imaginable. Do not deal with them. If not for the other people they've already screwed over countless times, so they don't screw you over instead. Do research online too. I'm not the only one they've played games with.
