toyota and gmc
aggiepaintrain@gmail.com

I know this goes against most people's experience on here, but wife and I went with her son to Allen Honda and had a pretty good experience. They took all the add-ons off and gave him an additional $4000 off the window sticker on a pre-owned 2024 with a clean CarFax

The only bad part was there was only 1 finance manager there with over a 1.5 hour wait to see her. But, the sales manager apologized and gave my SIL a $100 bill to buy us dinner.

Also new sales guy's grandmother sold us our first house in CS. So maybe we got the friends and family discount?

That is a great experience!

75AG said:

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I know this goes against most people's experience on here, but wife and I went with her son to Allen Honda and had a pretty good experience. They took all the add-ons off and gave him an additional $4000 off the window sticker on a pre-owned 2024 with a clean CarFax

The only bad part was there was only 1 finance manager there with over a 1.5 hour wait to see her. But, the sales manager apologized and gave my SIL a $100 bill to buy us dinner.

Also new sales guy's grandmother sold us our first house in CS. So maybe we got the friends and family discount?

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Good unusual experience from what I had.

We went out Saturday and looked at cars and could not get straight answers from sales persons at two dealerships. Want bottom line out the door cash cost and they both kept going on and on about add ons and financing. Walked out on both.

The car lots are totally full and overflowing with new and pre-owned cars. You would think that they would be ready, willing and able to deal.

woodiewood said:

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75AG said:

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I know this goes against most people's experience on here, but wife and I went with her son to Allen Honda and had a pretty good experience. They took all the add-ons off and gave him an additional $4000 off the window sticker on a pre-owned 2024 with a clean CarFax

The only bad part was there was only 1 finance manager there with over a 1.5 hour wait to see her. But, the sales manager apologized and gave my SIL a $100 bill to buy us dinner.

Also new sales guy's grandmother sold us our first house in CS. So maybe we got the friends and family discount?

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Good unusual experience from what I had.

We went out Saturday and looked at cars and could not get straight answers from sales persons at two dealerships. Want bottom line out the door cash cost and they both kept going on and on about add ons and financing. Walked out on both.

The car lots are totally full and overflowing with new and pre-owned cars. You would think that they would be ready, willing and able to deal.

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I've concluded the local guys don't do enough volume to make deals and that every sale has to contribute meaningfully to the bottom line. People here regularly refer to Bill Fick as a great place to buy a Ford truck and that's true because he's the highest volume heavy duty dealer in the state and that success trickles down to the rest of the business.

If I'm right times like this are difficult for them to navigate because the carrying costs of that inventory are high and they don't have the business model to move it timely. They're stuck in their "profit per copy" mindset at a time when the market says they need to be more aggressive in their pricing to get people in the door.

I think the local dealerships play the odds. Every 6th,or 10th, or nth person will pay.

I just did a lot of shopping around Toyotas. Wichita Falls was the only one I for sure find that didn't have add ons. I think the AutoNation places were also good in that department.

Universally the rest wanted to add on something.
I ended up getting a used one on a Chevy lot in Rockdale and had a great experience there. Even that lot usually has add ons though.

I'll also add a negative experience from Hyundai. I couldn't get a response for over 2 days when I was ready to buy. When they eventually brought me in late, the price on their website showing the vehicle marked down $7k was suddenly full MSRP and with significant ad ons.

In all the delay, I also got to hear 2 different customer stories of having had their vehicle in their shop for a month. The second one was being told it had to go back in too. For how big of a deal the sales manager made about how awesome their warranties are, you'd think they would actually be able to use them. Granted, I'd shopped around enough other brands to know that his comparison warranties of other manufacturers were either at least 5-10 years outdated or outright fabrications.

So much wrong there!

pattybrhg said:

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I'll also add a negative experience from Hyundai. I couldn't get a response for over 2 days when I was ready to buy. When they eventually brought me in late, the price on their website showing the vehicle marked down $7k was suddenly full MSRP and with significant ad ons.

In all the delay, I also got to hear 2 different customer stories of having had their vehicle in their shop for a month. The second one was being told it had to go back in too. For how big of a deal the sales manager made about how awesome their warranties are, you'd think they would actually be able to use them. Granted, I'd shopped around enough other brands to know that his comparison warranties of other manufacturers were either at least 5-10 years outdated or outright fabrications.

So much wrong there!

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The transmission in my 2019 Hyundai failed at 109k miles on Sept 14 and it went to the CS dealership because a good friend of mine that's a mechanic said he wasn't 100% sure that replacing the transmission was the right fix based on his research. It sat at the local dealership for SIX WEEKS before I finally bought another car and another three weeks before I sold it for parts. No diagnostics, just a cursory scan to make sure it wasn't an easy fix. They told me it was behind two other vehicles that had been in that tech's queue for five months. FIVE MONTHS! WHO can live without their car for five months? That's absurd.

We didn't buy another Hyundai. My dad bought a new Elantra right before mine died based on my recommendation. Hopefully his experience is better. I won't buy another Hyundai.

We had a great experience 6 years ago at the local Mazda dealer. I'm really not looking forward to the next time we need a car.

We had a couple rounds of that with the local Chrysler dealership except for a very minor warranty covered issue. We couldn't even get a call back for almost 6 months. I made multiple trips up there to speak to someone face to face. That didn't go any better.

When we finally went back the like 4th time, almost all of the service managers had been fired, we were told by our new one, for fraudulent warranty claims being put in. Our new service manager started by asking us if our car was on the lot. He didn't know. He said they had cars that had been there for months and had no idea whose they were at that point. That doesn't even seem possible and I wouldn't believe me if we hadn't heard that.

Fast forward a day. We return and the new service manager was also fired.

We eventually got service that time. We now drive to Brenham.

The original service manager we had that wouldn't call or text back for 6 months is now back working there. It's safe to say, I'd strongly recommend against Lithia here.
Their sales team may be fine, but God help you if you ever need service... and based on their vehicles, you will.

For what it's worth, I've had very good service with Toyota here. I don't care for their sales department, but their service was good. Granted, with my Toyota I was there like twice in 10 years.

pattybrhg said:

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We had a couple rounds of that with the local Chrysler dealership except for a very minor warranty covered issue. We couldn't even get a call back for almost 6 months. I made multiple trips up there to speak to someone face to face. That didn't go any better.

When we finally went back the like 4th time, almost all of the service managers had been fired, we were told by our new one, for fraudulent warranty claims being put in. Our new service manager started by asking us if our car was on the lot. He didn't know. He said they had cars that had been there for months and had no idea whose they were at that point. That doesn't even seem possible and I wouldn't believe me if we hadn't heard that.

Fast forward a day. We return and the new service manager was also fired.

We eventually got service that time. We now drive to Brenham.

The original service manager we had that wouldn't call or text back for 6 months is now back working there. It's safe to say, I'd strongly recommend against Lithia here.
Their sales team may be fine, but God help you if you ever need service... and based on their vehicles, you will.

For what it's worth, I've had very good service with Toyota here. I don't care for their sales department, but their service was good. Granted, with my Toyota I was there like twice in 10 years.

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" He said they had cars that had been there for months and had no idea whose they were at that point."

They can find out who owns each car in about 2 minutes from either a VIN # or license plate # search.

woodiewood said:

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My inlaws bought an SUV from Atkinson Toyota a number of years ago. It had a recall on the engine and Atkinson Toyota delayed the service multiple times and evenually the engine had major issues and the service manager lied and tried to say he had not contacted them.

He fought them for about three months w/o a vehicle and after calling the national customer relationship director and multiple threats to sue Atkinson Toyota and the parent company, he not only got a new engine but Toyota National sent him a $1,500 check.

We have tried to purchase locally but due to the above mentioned issues, but we can't get any deal at all. I always feel like they think I am a moron. We purchase in Houston.

I buy local when I can, but I won't get screwed doing so.

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used to work there in college and this checks out. IIRC the service manager got the job bc he was at the time married to pauls daughter. if you knew a quarter of what went on there, man... , and some way creepy stuff happened too. I'm glad i left when i did.

i remember when the costa rican guys came in to look at buying ol' paulie out, they were allocated and parked an orange Lexus LFA in the service drive, but it never moved. i heard they didn't give him the keys. lol

Not only do I realize that, I even stated how crazy that sounded.

That doesn't mean it wasn't said.

Bumping this thread with a story from today.

Daughter of LOYAL AG had her car totaled by the hail storm so we're helping her navigate her first car buying experience. She's spotted a couple of late model Hyundai Tucsons at local dealerships and last night she had decided to buy one that's at Lithia. Test drive was good. It has a nominal amount of hail damage they were going to fix. Went in today to pay for it and be done and the terms sheet had $3995 in add ons. Same silly **** nobody wants, nitrogen in the tires, paint damage coverage, stains, etc. Told the salesman we aren't paying for those things. His response was that the manager that would do the deal without them is out today and he went to the other manager's office. The manager came back and said he can't take them off because they're in a bad spot with this car. I said I didn't care. He said he couldn't take it off and I said "so we're done?" He said yes so we left.

An almost 25% mark up for BS. Just tell me up front instead of wasting my time. Strike them from the places I might buy a car.

These stories have cemented that I'm never stepping foot into a dealership without an out the door price from any dealership, not just the ones in town.

Same here. Different dealership but the same issue with the add ons. When we were doing the test drive, the salesman said something about the add ons being included.
It wasn't until we sat down that I understood that "included" meant they were part of the deal, but not part of the prices.

Spent two hours there driving vehicles and looking at prices. We walked when they wouldn't take them off.

I don't like to waste the time of salespeople. They are just doing their job. I also don't like feeling like I have been misled.

LOYAL AG said:

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Bumping this thread with a story from today.

Daughter of LOYAL AG had her car totaled by the hail storm so we're helping her navigate her first car buying experience. She's spotted a couple of late model Hyundai Tucsons at local dealerships and last night she had decided to buy one that's at Lithia. Test drive was good. It has a nominal amount of hail damage they were going to fix. Went in today to pay for it and be done and the terms sheet had $3995 in add ons. Same silly **** nobody wants, nitrogen in the tires, paint damage coverage, stains, etc. Told the salesman we aren't paying for those things. His response was that the manager that would do the deal without them is out today and he went to the other manager's office. The manager came back and said he can't take them off because they're in a bad spot with this car. I said I didn't care. He said he couldn't take it off and I said "so we're done?" He said yes so we left.

An almost 25% mark up for BS. Just tell me up front instead of wasting my time. Strike them from the places I might buy a car.

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They lost my business a long time ago when they tried to charge me $1500 to take the entire engine apart because the fan didn't turn on in the first 10 seconds the car was cranked.

I would just like to know - who are the people buying cars from the local dealerships? Is it old ladies? I have never had anything but BS when trying to deal with these College Station dealerships. You still have to watch the Houston dealerships, but they don't act like the BCS ones.

I wouldn't even consider a local dealership if I were looking right now. It's just people who don't know what they're doing and will just go with whatever the salesman tells them. I cringe every time I see a nice vehicle with a CS Ford or Aggieland Chevy decal, because I just wonder how badly they got screwed

Update to today's story. BCS Toyota had a very similar car at a very similar price. We went there, told them we weren't willing to pay for the GPS tracker which lead to a price adopt offer it, wrote them a check and were on our way. No nonsense, no BS fees. Just a nice easy transaction.

John Gray and Nate Daniels were great and did exactly what they said they would. Daughter is thrilled.

For every good there's a bad. I dealt with BCS Toyota recently buying a car for my wife. We were trading her car in and went to Carmax and got a really good offer on a trade in, but they didn't have what we were looking for. BCS Toyota had 2, but really only 1 we wanted. They told us if we could get the offer from Carmax verified they'll honor it. This was over a weekend so in the meantime we went up to the dealership and couldn't find either of the cars. Texted with the salesman when we were headed to Carmax, text him when we left Carmax in BCS with the offer in hand and he told me he'll be waiting on us. We show up and instantly we know somethings up by the **** eating grin. He said someone just put an offer on the car, but they seemed a little iffy on if they could get the money. I asked if we could see it and he said no. We hadn't even seen or driven the type car we wanted so we asked to see the other one they had for sale. He said absolutely, went to get the keys, but oh no that one just sold too. That one stayed on their site for sale for a couple weeks.

It was pretty obvious they were just calling BS on our Carmax offer and were never going to honor it. Carmax was awesome to deal with. We had dealerships telling us they had access to Carmax's database and we were lying about their offer. I got someone higher up from Carmax and he told me nobody has access to that information. They never ended up getting what we wanted but we found one in Spring who also honored that trade in and they were awesome to deal with other than having the car prepped for paint to touch up areas when we got there so we had to spend a day in Houston instead of just a morning waiting on it to be done.

Thisguy1 said:

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For every good there's a bad. I dealt with BCS Toyota recently buying a car for my wife. We were trading her car in and went to Carmax and got a really good offer on a trade in, but they didn't have what we were looking for. BCS Toyota had 2, but really only 1 we wanted. They told us if we could get the offer from Carmax verified they'll honor it. This was over a weekend so in the meantime we went up to the dealership and couldn't find either of the cars. Texted with the salesman when we were headed to Carmax, text him when we left Carmax in BCS with the offer in hand and he told me he'll be waiting on us. We show up and instantly we know somethings up by the **** eating grin. He said someone just put an offer on the car, but they seemed a little iffy on if they could get the money. I asked if we could see it and he said no. We hadn't even seen or driven the type car we wanted so we asked to see the other one they had for sale. He said absolutely, went to get the keys, but oh no that one just sold too. That one stayed on their site for sale for a couple weeks.

It was pretty obvious they were just calling BS on our Carmax offer and were never going to honor it. Carmax was awesome to deal with. We had dealerships telling us they had access to Carmax's database and we were lying about their offer. I got someone higher up from Carmax and he told me nobody has access to that information. They never ended up getting what we wanted but we found one in Spring who also honored that trade in and they were awesome to deal with other than having the car prepped for paint to touch up areas when we got there so we had to spend a day in Houston instead of just a morning waiting on it to be done.

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Yeah that's not fun. I told our daughter if we didn't get the car at Toyota we would recalibrate and shop in Houston. It's frustrating for sure. I drive a Tesla so no dealer interaction at all but Mrs LOYAL AG has a 10 year old Cadillac that we will need to replace at some point soon and we'll go to Houston. No desire to buy local at this point for what she's going to want.

Agree with BCS Toyota. Wife was looking for a new car late last year and we tried several dealers. Never considered a Toyota for her until we went there to browse. Saw a AWD hybrid RAV4 she liked but it was sold right before we got there. Salesman called us two days later with the exact model and color. No BS during the whole transaction. Enjoyed the experience so much that I bought a Tundra at the same time.

We have bought a couple of vehicles from Carmax and never had problem with sales. They just don't give as much on trade in as dealerships.

I saw this advertised on FB recently and thought it would be relevant:

https://www.thecarconsultantllc.com/

Don't know him personally but have a lot of mutual friends and know he has worked at multiple dealerships in the area.

Have never bought locally, 40+ years. Its always been Houston, Austin, etc.

Hopefully some of these car dealerships have to fire some people if car sales slow down. Big wake up call.

In an unexpected turn of events my own car shopping saga led me back to Allen Honda (and boy did I shop around). I had the good fortune to deal with "Honda Bob," and after some back and forth ended up with a deal I was very happy with. Successfully pushed back against the add ons, and ended up with a 2.5% interest deal that was just fine.

In full disclosure my case may not be one that is generalizable as I have an offensively high credit score, but it was odd to me that after months of negotiating and meetings and time spent etc, I ended up right back here.

FlyRod said:

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In an unexpected turn of events my own car shopping saga led me back to Allen Honda (and boy did I shop around). I had the good fortune to deal with "Honda Bob," and after some back and forth ended up with a deal I was very happy with. Successfully pushed back against the add ons, and ended up with a 2.5% interest deal that was just fine.

In full disclosure my case may not be one that is generalizable as I have an offensively high credit score, but it was odd to me that after months of negotiating and meetings and time spent etc, I ended up right back here.

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They're counting on two things. First that you won't invest this kind of time. Second that you'll get emotionally attached to the vehicle and they can push you across the finish line because you want THAT car.

One of the things I liked about buying my Tesla is that there's no sales process. We went to the Cypress store to test drive one and the lady that helped us answered a ton of questions and taught us a lot about the car. She didn't go on the drive and encouraged us to use the whole 30 minutes we were allowed. When we dropped it off she stopped what she was doing and had another Q&A with us. As we were wrapping up she said she can't sell me a car and that her job was to educate us. All she asked was that we answer the survey about how she did. If we wanted to get a car that day there were a couple of computers we could use to order and they could help us make sure that car was on the lot. We bought one seven months later and in the interim we got exactly zero calls or texts trying to nudge us along. The occasional email was more about features and upcoming developments. When we purchased it was through the app and, when there was a delay due to some EPA issue with 2025 Model Y support was super helpful in offering to move our order to a different model, helping us find a 2024 Y in stock, etc. Easiest car buying experience I've ever had.

Off topic a little, but I wonder with these tariffs if small(ish) town dealers will even be able to compete with large cities?

75AG said:

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Off topic a little, but I wonder with these tariffs if small(ish) town dealers will even be able to compete with large cities?

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My experience with Lithia noted above suggests that there are people that simply aren't willing to put in the time or effort to get the best price. Lithia literally let me walk over $4000 in junk fees and wasn't phased by the fact that Toyota had a nearly identical car for the same price without the junk. Lithia only does that if they know enough people will pay it. So yeah I don't think it's gonna matter much. To the extent prices go up they'll go up everywhere and enough people will pay it that they'll be fine.

We have bought many cars from Honda Bob. He is the only salesman at Allen that I will even consider. For some reason all of the other ones seem like fast-talking used-car salesmen. Not Bob.

I will say, however, that we bought our last Honda from John Eagle Honda in Houston.

Bob tried to get us what we wanted and the deal we wanted but the sales manager was not willing to budge on the ridiculous $4,000 market adjustment fee so we walked. Hated doing that to Bob, but I was not going to give in to the sales manager who was being an ass.

I was actually concerned about this but the Sales Manager actually played nice.

Just bought a new truck and tried to go local, but they wouldn't budge on anything so I checked some dealerships and found a truck dealership in Bastrop OVER THE PHONE gave me an out the door price that was $8k less than MSRP (with all the extras taken off as soon as I asked) so took it to the local dealership and they simply said if you can get that, take it, we wont even try to match it. Docusign time and the dealership honored the out the door price with no snags and delivered the truck from Bastrop in a flatbed to my house the next day. So much easier...I will never go into a dealership again except to test drive if I need it.