Stay Away From Wayne Mazda!
A Tale of Two Miatas
Wayne Mazda had two 2006 used Maitas on the lot. There was a gray one with approx. 60,000 miles and a blue one with approx. 30,000 miles. The gray one was priced at $15,000 and the blue one was priced at $17,000.
I requested a quote on the blue one and offered $15,000. They instead send me pricing for the gray one at $15,000. I called them up and let them know that it’s not the gray one I am interested in, but the blue one. They e-mailed me a quote of $15,595 on the blue one. I called up and said I will buy the car for $15,000. He said it was a deal, and I had him e-mail me the quote in writing. I confirmed that it was for the blue car and checked to stock numbers to make sure they matched.
I drove 45 minutes to the dealership, confirmed the price with the salesman and then took it for a test drive after thoroughly inspecting it. When I got back at the dealership to work up the papers I asked if they could fix a large scratch on the bumper or take another $100 off. At this point the salesman, who was very nice, went to the manager to talk things over. The salesman came back and said there must be a mistake, this must be the price is for the gray one. I showed him my e-mail, confirmed the stock numbers with him, and then printed it out. He brought it to his manager who came over to me and said that it was a mistake, but they can sell it for $15,995. He said they are losing money even at that price. I then left, angry and disappointed.
Moral of the story Wayne Mazda is your typical sleazy car dealership when it comes to working the final numbers; its only redeeming quality was the great salesman. Yet car dealers wonder why they get such a bad rap?
Wayne Mazda had two 2006 used Maitas on the lot. There was a gray one with approx. 60,000 miles and a blue one with approx. 30,000 miles. The gray one was priced at $15,000 and the blue one was priced at $17,000.
I requested a quote on the blue one and offered $15,000. They instead send me pricing for the gray one at $15,000. I called them up and let them know that it’s not the gray one I am interested in, but the blue one. They e-mailed me a quote of $15,595 on the blue one. I called up and said I will buy the car for $15,000. He said it was a deal, and I had him e-mail me the quote in writing. I confirmed that it was for the blue car and checked to stock numbers to make sure they matched.
I drove 45 minutes to the dealership, confirmed the price with the salesman and then took it for a test drive after thoroughly inspecting it. When I got back at the dealership to work up the papers I asked if they could fix a large scratch on the bumper or take another $100 off. At this point the salesman, who was very nice, went to the manager to talk things over. The salesman came back and said there must be a mistake, this must be the price is for the gray one. I showed him my e-mail, confirmed the stock numbers with him, and then printed it out. He brought it to his manager who came over to me and said that it was a mistake, but they can sell it for $15,995. He said they are losing money even at that price. I then left, angry and disappointed.
Moral of the story Wayne Mazda is your typical sleazy car dealership when it comes to working the final numbers; its only redeeming quality was the great salesman. Yet car dealers wonder why they get such a bad rap?
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I got a great little red one, a "91" with 50K original miles on it, you could have for 14.9K, no scratches ! I'm only 1 1/2 hrs. away from Wayne Mazda.
Way to get on your high horse.
By the way, he e-mailed me my quotes, on the company banner, with the stock number clearly listed, and the price of $15,000. Sad thing is, if they pushed the scratch issue and told me that was the best price they could give me I would have taken the car home then and there. It was a nice Miata, but there are others out there!
I can't wait to pick it up on Wednesday.
Manual or auto?
This is not my first Miata. I also had a 2008 Sport model with the 5 speed. It was a 2 year lease. I gave it back last September, but I've missed it so much in all that time that I decided I wanted to buy one to keep for the long hall. It's certainly not a practical car, but I have my paid for 2006 TSX for winter and road trips with more than one person.
What year is your Miata? Color?
I had a 93 before this one and the top was vandalized so I really wanted the helmet this time.
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You already lowballed them. Maybe the scratch was already baked into the price when they took $2000 off to begin with. Now I know all too well that some Mazda dealers will play BS games (like the one that claimed they were making no money during the employee pricing, when their bump-sticker and doc fee brought the price back up to MSRP), but with this one, I dare say you played poker and lost.
Looking at some of the other listings of Miatas of that age, $17K for a Grand Touring with those miles is not bad, and $15K is an absolute steal!
I know I'm being cynical here but for all we know, this could be a competitor or a disgruntled ex employee throwing mud.
Or, it could have been an honest mistake.
I think the gambling looser in this game was Wayne Mazda !
Honest misstake or dishonest mistake they should have honored the contract.
"I know I'm being cynical here but for all we know, this could be a competitor or a disgruntled ex employee throwing mud"
Or just a disgruntled customer as he should be.
Moreover, the first price he gave me was over the sticker of the car they said they quoted me on. Lies all around basically.
At the end of the day, the transaction with Palisades Mazda was super smooth. I got a price, went to another dealer, called back Palisades and said give me the car for X and I will buy it right now. He said yes, I drove back and bought it. He made some money, I saved some money, everyone it happy!
The best was that Wayne Mazda e-mailed me to see if everything went well. I said no, I got lied to on the agreed price, but don't worry about it, I bought a new Miata from Palisades Mazda.
I'm used to the back and forth of buying a car, but this was an outright lie. I confirmed the vehicle and price multiple times. The information was in writing, I figured I was set, I was ready to make my move and buy, and when I got there the salesman confirmed the price, only to have the sales manager put the brakes on it when I was ready to write up the paper work.
I would have never done anything like that. Why lure in a customer with a lie that is going to only cause trouble?
Our store made an occassional mistake and we would simply take the loss when we did.
We once put the wrong sale tag on a new Civic and, naturally a customer jumped all over it. It represented almost a 2000.00 loss but we ate it.
So, you have new smeared them through the mud and, I suppose that is your right.
Maybe they are a sleaseball store and if su, they deserved it.
For what it's worth, when a car dealership is good to me, like Palisades Mazda, I will sing their praises to anyone who will listen.
This isn't hard, just be honest, that's what I try to do. I actually felt really bad for the salesman. We were about the same age, and he had just lost his previous job and was now selling cars. Nice friendly guy, great test drive, and he lost the sale to this "mistake".
Have you looked at other reviews on this store and, if so, did you look at them before going in?
I'm not defending them. There are a lot of sleasy stores out there and I had to live with that stigma. I got lucky and I picked a great store.
You seem legit and it seems they deserved what you did.
A friend of mine went to that exact dealership in 2009 to buy a new Miata or Mazda3. She said that they did not budge on the price and warned me that they were sleazy before I went there. I told her, "They are the only ones with a used one in the blue I like, plus I have the quote in writing, what can go wrong?". She said don't count your chickens before they have hatched, and I guess she was right. Live and learn!
I wish I had the salesman's name, because I want to write to the dealer and let them know what a great salesman he was. I've recently dropped two such letters in the mail to Infiniti and Mini since those salesmen were great too. I remembered selling electronics in Sears, and though it was rare, it was awesome when someone would let my manager know I was a great salesman, so I figure I would do the same for them!
Letters didn't come very often but they were very much appreciated.
If the only reason your friend thought the store was sleazy was because they wouldn't budge on the price, that's not reallya fair assesment.
At the time, those models may have been in short supply (like a lot of cars are right now) and it may have made no sense to discount them.
But, there may have been other reasons too.
Writing a letter to the owner or GM outlining what happened while giving praise to your salesperson would be a great thing for you to do!
While that's true, the trolls are usually first-time posters who publish their rant and then disappear. That's not the case here.
Good for you!
We once put the wrong sale tag on a new Civic and, naturally a customer jumped all over it. It represented almost a 2000.00 loss but we ate it"
As any reputable business would!
Exactly.
Now, a funny story I've told before.
A few years ago, we had a Red Tag sale and most of our new car inventory had red tags hanging form the rear view mirrors.
Tagging the lot was a huge job for the Lot Attendants and they followed a list.
Well, we made a HUGE mistake! We tagged an Odyssey at a price that would have lost us over 2500.00! Simply a matter of putting the wrong tag in the wrong car.
A large family landed on this car.
Knowing a mistake had been made, the salesperson brought the tag to our Sales Manager. It was like, OMG!!!
But...believe it or not, these people actually offered LESS!!
So, I went out and explained to them what had happened. I told them we were willing to take this huge loss.
Didn't matter! They still offered less.
So, I told them..." I will honor this price NOW...if you leave, I will change the tag and put on the correct price.
This resulted in a huddle where they discussed this in their native tongue.
" No!..We will pay you XXXX"
Me..." we really hope you do leave because I am not kidding,,,I will change the tag as soon as you leave our lot"
And so, they left.
Two hours later, they screamed into our showroom...." We take the car!"
" OK, great! It's still a great deal at the revised price!"
I know what they did. They spent those tow hours frantically driving to the neighboring Honda stores trying to get a better deal than our mismarked tag"
They left slowly shaking their heads.
We dodged a huge bullet that day!
Not an educated consumer...
What a happy day that was for me!