madsedan
Well-Known Member
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- #1
I have been looking at trading in my GTI to get into another Mustang, I had previously owned a 2015 GT base with PP, some nice bolt-ons, etc but the base infotainment and lack of carplay, sat radio, and leather seats pushed me into something more comfy for commuting. Now that I drive less for work I want to get into another one and going to buy a nice used model with premium and performance package if I can find it. Lots of options under $27k at local dealers but the quality of the cars is vastly different and the dealers seem blind to what the market is on these.
Over the last 3-4 weeks of casual browsing and inquiring on autotrader and cargurus I have seen the same cars sit for weeks at the dealers, one in particular was on cargurus for 45 days before I went to see it. They fall into 3 categories so far...
-Car looks great in pictures and seems to check out until you see them in person and realize every piece of sheet metal has a scratch with crappy touch up or highway dings all over the front, etc.
-Car looks great in person but drives janky because the previous owner bounced it off the rev limiter at every stoplight. I've driven two cars that was clearly needing repair, one with a CEL on the test drive.
-Lastly is the cars that push the limits of what can legally be sold. In my state we have emission/safety testing and as far as I know a dealer can't sell you a car that can't pass those test. So how the hell can a dealer sell a car with no catalytic convertors or mufflers, CEL's that they claim will go off eventually because the car has an intake that requires tune on it but they flashed it back to oem to certify the car.
I was so tired of the bullshit from Ford dealers selling Certified cars Saturday afternoon I just couldn't take it anymore and snapped at the sales manager that was thanking me for coming by and wanted to know how to earn my business. I had come in to see a 2017 with aftermarket wheels and a slightly lower ride height but was labeled online, and still is, as a Ford CPO car. When I got there I checked out the car, got on the ground and can see the sway bars were aftermarket, crappy welded exhaust with no mufflers or resonator, intake requiring a tune, and lowering springs on stock shocks that should keep this car from being CPO'd by Ford. When I asked if they were going to reduce the price by the $1,495 for the certified warranty because of the aftermarket parts they told me the price didn't include that and it was non-negotiable on the price. When I brought up the autotrader add on my phone to show them what it said they claimed that the car "could" be certified if I negotiated it into the deal. I decided to play along and see how far we could take this so I insisted we walk back to the service and finance guy that handles the Ford certification process, we met with a guy in finance and he confirmed that the car couldn't be certified with all those parts on the car but I could buy an aftermarket warranty. When I told him that would likely be voided by the mods as well and then pointed out that the cats had been removed they said it would need to go in the shop before they could sell it.
What the hell is wrong with these Ford dealers, am I wrong for expecting them to at least put a car up on the lift before claiming CPO and putting up for sale?
One huge dealer I went to Saturday is apparently really big on buying branded title lemon/buybacks from Ford and putting them on the lot. Their adds say nothing online and the only thing you have to indicate it is if you look at the Carfax. These cars were priced just as a normal title car would be, grossly overpriced for a branded title car in my opinion, so any normal person walking up to the largest volume Ford dealer in the area would assume this $27k 2015 mustang gt with performance and premium package that looks great and drives great must be good to go, why else would this huge Ford dealer put it on the front of their lot right?
So I am taking a hiatus for a few days, no autotrader, no cargurus, I'm just going to wait until Friday evening and update the search engine to see if anything decent comes up at a dealer within 100 miles of my house.
Over the last 3-4 weeks of casual browsing and inquiring on autotrader and cargurus I have seen the same cars sit for weeks at the dealers, one in particular was on cargurus for 45 days before I went to see it. They fall into 3 categories so far...
-Car looks great in pictures and seems to check out until you see them in person and realize every piece of sheet metal has a scratch with crappy touch up or highway dings all over the front, etc.
-Car looks great in person but drives janky because the previous owner bounced it off the rev limiter at every stoplight. I've driven two cars that was clearly needing repair, one with a CEL on the test drive.
-Lastly is the cars that push the limits of what can legally be sold. In my state we have emission/safety testing and as far as I know a dealer can't sell you a car that can't pass those test. So how the hell can a dealer sell a car with no catalytic convertors or mufflers, CEL's that they claim will go off eventually because the car has an intake that requires tune on it but they flashed it back to oem to certify the car.
I was so tired of the bullshit from Ford dealers selling Certified cars Saturday afternoon I just couldn't take it anymore and snapped at the sales manager that was thanking me for coming by and wanted to know how to earn my business. I had come in to see a 2017 with aftermarket wheels and a slightly lower ride height but was labeled online, and still is, as a Ford CPO car. When I got there I checked out the car, got on the ground and can see the sway bars were aftermarket, crappy welded exhaust with no mufflers or resonator, intake requiring a tune, and lowering springs on stock shocks that should keep this car from being CPO'd by Ford. When I asked if they were going to reduce the price by the $1,495 for the certified warranty because of the aftermarket parts they told me the price didn't include that and it was non-negotiable on the price. When I brought up the autotrader add on my phone to show them what it said they claimed that the car "could" be certified if I negotiated it into the deal. I decided to play along and see how far we could take this so I insisted we walk back to the service and finance guy that handles the Ford certification process, we met with a guy in finance and he confirmed that the car couldn't be certified with all those parts on the car but I could buy an aftermarket warranty. When I told him that would likely be voided by the mods as well and then pointed out that the cats had been removed they said it would need to go in the shop before they could sell it.
What the hell is wrong with these Ford dealers, am I wrong for expecting them to at least put a car up on the lift before claiming CPO and putting up for sale?
One huge dealer I went to Saturday is apparently really big on buying branded title lemon/buybacks from Ford and putting them on the lot. Their adds say nothing online and the only thing you have to indicate it is if you look at the Carfax. These cars were priced just as a normal title car would be, grossly overpriced for a branded title car in my opinion, so any normal person walking up to the largest volume Ford dealer in the area would assume this $27k 2015 mustang gt with performance and premium package that looks great and drives great must be good to go, why else would this huge Ford dealer put it on the front of their lot right?
So I am taking a hiatus for a few days, no autotrader, no cargurus, I'm just going to wait until Friday evening and update the search engine to see if anything decent comes up at a dealer within 100 miles of my house.
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