Dealer satisfaction

[Bill Rowe]

Consider yourself lucky.  I'm sure there are some good dealers out there
but finding them is like finding a needle in hay stack.  In your case I
can guarantee you that the dealer paid close to nothing for that V8 when
the previous owner traded it in.  He probably made a nice profit when he
sold it to you so $238 was a drop in the bucket.  Personally, I will
probably never step foot into a dealership again except only to test
drive a vehicle I'm unfamiliar w/ and then look for it thru a private
seller who's got records and doesn't want me coming to his front door
after I find out he lied about something major.  By nature, dealers are
greedy and will lie about anything/everything to make the sale.  Just my
.02 cents.

-----Original Message-----
From: quattro-admin at audifans.com [mailto:quattro-admin at audifans.com] On
Behalf Of Roger M. Woodbury
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 4:55 PM
To: quattro at audifans.com
Cc: V8 at audifans.com
Subject: Dealer satisfaction


Since I never buy a car that is newer than five or six years old, when I
was looking around for a good, later V8 Quattro, I spent many hours on
the Internet searching for the "right" car...hard to do, considering
that there are relatively few, late model V8s with low mileage.

When I had bought my '89 200 Avant, I had gone to Minneapolis to
Carousel Motors to buy it.  A first rate experience, so naturally, I
called them to see if they had anything......nope.

So, my search continued, and I had serious flirtations with quite a few
cars over the year that I looked.  I decided to limit my search to east
of the Mississippi River, more or less.  I preferred to deal with an
authorized dealer, figuring that they have quite a lot invested in their
franchise, so "burning" some guy who finds them on the Internet might be
worth less than not selling the car to begin with.  So the
"qualification" continued, although there were few cars to chose from,
as I said.

Finally, I found a promising specimen in Pennsylvania....the right color
exterior, and almost the right color interior.  60,000 miles and two
owners, with a strong recent maintenance history.

We made a deal, and I flew to Philly.  The sales manager met me in his
A8, and took me the twenty-five minutes or so to the dealership.

Now, I am from Maine, and to see the inventory of Audis and Porsches in
this place was a near religious experience. I think there were more used
Porsches there than there are farm tractors in this county....but I
digress.

The car was pretty close to as represented by pictures and narrative
description.  A surprise:  completely new tires by the previous owner.
Seems that he just had the major service done....timing belt and water
pump etc, and then stopped in at the dealer and saw this natty slightly
used A8, and well, just HAD to trade.  I bought it and headed for Maine.

When I got here, the car went to my wrench for an inspection and a state
inspection sticker.  Now, the dealers' warranty was 1000 miles and 30
days, and the thousand miles was up before I got home.  But I had been
assured that the dealer did not fail to stand behind their cars.....

My mechanic found that there were a few issues with front end
pieces....and rear brakes before it would pass the mandatory inspection
here.  He called the dealership and spoke with the sales department.
They offered to split the cost with me, which was fine...I had driven a
pretty good price on the car, so something was better than nothing.

That was in June.  The summer being my busy time, I had the work done,
paid for it, and promptly forgot to send a copy of the paid bill down to
Pennsylvania.  Last week, sorting through stuff for taxes, I found the
receipt.

I really thought I was "SOL" through my own fault.  But I wrote a note
to the sales manager and sent along the bill.  That was Thursday of last
week.

Yesterday, I received a check for the agreed amount....$238 and change.

The point of all of this, is that long after the fact, the dealership
stood by its word and did as it said it would do.

I rate my experience buying a car through the internet from Don Rosen
Imports in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, to have been a first class
experience.  And I want everyone to know, that if you are looking for an
Audi you might find it there.  From my experience, it will be a first
class ride and the experience of dealing with them, will be first class
as well.

Roger