POSITIVE DEALER EXPERIENCES

Lets hear your positive experiences and dealership recommendations!

OK-- I'll start.

I chose MARTENS VW/VOLVO of Washington DC because they have a sterling reputation around here and rated the highest in Checkbook's customer satisfaction survey.

They bent over backwards to make me happy. Sold me my car for just $375 over invoice and threw in free rubber floor mats and sold me a 6-disc CD changer for cost. They had a tiny scratch on the door repainted for me (it was on the car when I bought it) and gave me a brand new Jetta gasser to drive for 2 days while it was being done.

When I purchased the car they were straight forward. No pressure to finance or buy useless accesories. I was in and out in about an hour! They were courteous--even when I played hardball with the price.

Their sales manager even has a poster of an A3 Jetta TDI in his cubicle. They are big TDI fans and their service department knows all about TDI.

I had no problem giving them high ratings in the customer satisfaction survey! I even wrote them a nice letter after the sale.


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Ryan

1999 New Jetta GL TDI

Volkswagen TDI & Apple Macintosh

Keep it real.

Langan VW, Meriden, Ct

straight ahead sales staff & management
price seemed about right
courteous and prompt service dept; btw, they use the Syntec for the free oil changes, but the svc. manager's position on oil is ANY
ch-4 oil, synth or dino, is fine once you start paying for it......I think I'll be sticking w/ advice from this group instead.

[This message has been edited by TRryn (edited June 19, 2000).]

Dean Team of Ballwin (Missouri, USA)
I bought my 2000 Golf GL TDI from them in oct '99. The salesman Joe Cybulski was great. Didn't ask me why I wanted a diesel, the deal was quick and painless. He found the car in about a week and had it driven to the St Louis area from Indianapolis. I do all the maintenance myself and get the cartridge oil filters from their sister dealership in Kirkwood for less than $8 US. I don't know about their service dept. since I do the work. The only bad thing was that they forgot to put on the front license plate holder. I guess Indiana doesn't use them.

Joe Clements of Carter VW-Saab in Seattle was the only dealer who responded to my request for quotes with a price below MSRP and he treated me very well throughout the transaction. I still ended up waiting a couple weeks for the car I wanted, but since my old car was dead, Carter gave me a red Jetta gasser to drive until my TDI came in

UPDATE 11/09/00--DEALER SCREWS UP 5,000 MILE SERVICE:

I took the car in with a note asking them to use my oil because theirs doesn't meet specs in the owner's manual. i also asked them to check for uneven tire wear and the possible control arm defect. Heck, I even tried to bribe them with doughnuts.

I didn't get the "hastle free" loan car on time and had to bring it back before 6:45 p.m. OK--minor hastle.

They underfilled my car. They only poured in ONe of the two one-gallon jugs of Delvac-1 I gave then That would have been fine, BUT THEY DIDN'T TELL ME AND DIDN'T RETURN THE OTHER GALLON OF DELVAC!

I noticed the Delvac was missing, stopped and checked the oil and drove back to the dealership mad.

They also stapled a technical service bulletin that said to use 5W30 to my invoice (I provided 5W40). Unfortunately for them (and good for me), I knew of the more recent VW circular requiring 5W40.

If they can't change the oil, there's no way I'm letting them change the timing belt

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2000 Golf GLS TDI

[This message has been edited by Dante Driver (edited June 19, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Dante Driver (edited November 09, 2000).]

RIGHT ON! Keep 'em coming... <img src=http://smilecwm.tripod.com/splarka/as-boing.gif>

I had a good experience with a dealer at Stan Olsen's in Omaha, NE... however, I called two months later to tell him about this site and some other things and found out he no longer works there. This was especially odd because he had just started when I bought the car from him. He was very up front, honest and was interested and at least somewhat informed about the TDI.

I must say that I had some unfortunate experiences with this dealer before meeting the guy I bought the car from.

However, thanks to cdub I found a good TDI technician here.

well, i bought mine through priceline.com,
and Burlington VW/KIA in burlington NJ had my golf, so , they got the sale.

downside: i totally overpaid.
upside: it's the exact model i wanted, my dealer was a nice guy- not too pushy, and the total amount of time i spent looking for my car, was 70 minutes!

but burlington is 2 hours away from me so, for sevice i go to Three county VW in lyndhurst, NJ. the receptionist is a bit nasty, but the manager is cool.


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2000 Golf gls tdi manual.
blk/blk, lux pkg,
K&N/Momo shift knob,
mikro-audio!

www.johnlardieri.com
members.bellatlantic.net/~bphil/1.jpg

WhiteBelly:

Check out Three County VW in Lyndhurst, NJ for service. They only sell VW and Hummer, so they know the vehicle's very well. There are several service managers there, I seem to find Christian the most helpful.

Good Luck!!!

I got mine from Gunther VW in Ft.Lauderdale.
I found them to be very low pressure and they took the time to tell me all about the Jetta TDI even after I told them I was six months or more away from buying. When I did decide that the TDI was the car for me they were the only ones in the Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, Palm Beach area that said they could get me what I wanted if I was willing to wait. All the rest said that what I wanted couldn't be obtained in Florida. Well I now have my Silver GLS TDI with leather seats, Luxuary pack, Monsoon, and CD changer. Most pleasent buying experiance ever. First new foreign car for me. (Worked for G.M. buiding Camero's and Firebirds for 10 years) Still get employee discount.

Ganley Westside Imports, North Olmsted, OH:
Readily agreed to a very fair price. Negotiations, such as they were, were as follows: "I'll give you $400 over invoice" "We want at least $500." "OK, sold, $19,100." This was via telephone. When I showed up to pick up the car, there was no pressure for extended warranties, undercoating, paint sealant, or any other such nonsense.
Two negative points: First, while communication was otherwise excellent, I wasn't given much information about the financing. This was at least partially my fault, as I didn't ask. Second, their pre-delivery inspection missed a problem with the stiching in the driver's seat.

White-Allen VW, Dayton, OH:
Since North Olmsted is 3+ hours from home, I went to White-Allen to have the seat fixed, along with a few other things I'd subsequently noticed. I dropped the car off Monday morning, and they said it'd probably be a couple of days (they had to send the seat to an upholstery shop). Tuesday evening, they called and said it was done. They also got a loaner car for me without my even asking.
One minor negative: I stopped by there earlier to let them know what was wrong, and schedule an appointment to have them work on it. The earliest appointment they could make was 10 days later. In this case, the problem was minor, so it didn't much bother me.


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2000 Jetta GLS TDI, Atlantic Blue

Metro Volkswagen in Irving, TX (DFW). Very nice and courteous people. Called them on the phone and told them what I wanted (2000 Jette TDI 5sp Silver) and made an agreedment on the phone. Got there and they had my car ready and basically the paper work ready to signed. No hassle or pressure to buy the extras.

Had my son with me while I was buying the car and some of the salesmen's kids were being treated to pizza and they invited my son to join them. I highly recommend them if you're in the DFW area. Also visit their site. It has every car on thier lot listed with MRSP and invoice.

Laz

I expected this to be one of the shortest survey's in history!

1st, My local dealer Jaffer International of Redditch, Worcestershire, UK. For being competent, helpful and very understanding about my modifications. And for some very good tuning advice – yes this is an official VW dealer giving out good recommendations about none VW changes.

2nd, The UK VW “On Call” service, my car has (thankfully) ever only had the one problem, the guy came out and fixed it on the spot – this included striping half the dashboard out to resolve the problem. But the best part was that it was all free!

Those of you looking to buy a TDI-- Take notice.

Not every dealer is a jerk! This thread can serve as a reference sheet for some good dealers for you to go to when the time comes to buy that New Beetle, Golf or Jetta TDI you've been contemplating.

... Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

strack,
i DO go to three county for service.
they were highly recommended by a NB gasser friend of mine.
but as i said in my earlier post, the receptionist needs to improve her interpersonal skills.
i'd like to think it's just stress because they're so good, the phone never stops ringing, so i should give her a break.

on the other hand, i'm glad she won't be doing any work on my car.

Most of these replies concern the purchase of a vehicle. I hope the dealer was cordial when making a sale and excepting your money.
The big (important) satisfaction survey deals with the service after the sale (IMHO). My best experience was looking in my rearview mirror and seeing the dealership disappear after my last free service!

[This message has been edited by tom (edited June 20, 2000).]

Gunther in Ft Lauderdale
No pressure, likable salesman (Shawn MCGhee, be sure to use my name), over the phone price at 350 over invoice, then 180 bucks extra at the dealer to take one off the lot with a sunroof (I love it!.

I also had to take it back; it was pulling to the right. Everyone there was curteous, pleasant, did the job in a shorter time than promised.

Of course I got the expected Survey Answer Sheet in the mail, but they deserved all 5's.

Those surveys must be important to the dealer, so if they f* up, burn 'em, if not, they earned the 5's!

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2000 jetta gls tdi auto
green/biege

Minuteman in Bedford, MA has my vote.
They do what they say they will.
Make a good faith effort to do it properly the first time(and usually do).
They communicate with eachother, as well as the customer. (sorely lacking elsewhere)

In summary, a functioning dealership.

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BeetleGo, went that-a-way

"You said this was a DIESEL?!"

Scott's VW in R.I. Good Salesperson (Greg Cabral), no pressure (I even backed out of my first deal but no fuss from them), good price.

They didn't even attempt to sell me any add-ons (rust-proofing etc. etc.).

Since I bought out of state, I'll be taking it to Langan in Glastonbury for service....we'll see how good they do!

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Skeeter

2000 NB TDI
White/Grey

Selbst mein hunds sind Deutsch

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ThinkDiesel:
Lets hear your positive experiences and dealership recommendations!

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Southpoint VW in Baton Rouge and I'm from Miami!

Looked for 3 months for a Golf, GLS, Blue, TDI, with CD, Mudflaps and Tinting. Tried Gunther in Ft Lauderdale - they couldn't find what I wanted, and couldn't tell me if they could "order" it. Deel didn't want to deal, just "negotiate", heck I just asked them for a selling price!

Found Southpoint through an Atlanta dealer. Emailed them on a Thursday, They called Friday morning, offered the car at invoice + 3%. By the next Friday I was in BR with spouse (ditched the kids for the weekend) And back to Miami we went (via New Orleans, Mobil for Cirque d'Soliel, gambling etc (talk about a weekend break in!)

PS - Any Miami TDI owners wanna get together ( or S. FLA? drop me a line!)

Eric
Codpilot@bellsouth.net

Sierra Motor Mall
Ottawa, Illinois
VW/Mazda/Chrysler/Dodge

The service people have always done a good job on my car.

Brian, 97 Passat TDI

When I first started posting here I told everyone how easy it was to deal with Montesi Motors in North Haven,Ct. I recommend them very highly. I was treated well. I told them all about Fred's, even told a guy who was taking delivery of a TDI Bug while I was there. I only wish they would post their inventory here. They gave me a good deal on the exact car I wanted, and were very polite. I even got follow-up calls to make sure everything was OK.

Lou

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2000 Jetta GLS TDI Auto Silver Arrow
1986 Golf DSL
1982 Jetta DSL

The guy who sold me my car at Ken Garff VW in Provo, Utah managed not to piss me off too bad. He did coach me on the "survey", though. Other than that I try to avoid the dealers.

-mickey

Chapman VW in Scottsdale, Arizona

Requested Klaus to perform my oil change since he has been working on VWs for 35 years (22 of those with Chapman). The car came back to me when promised, clean and with no extra oil spilled over. Two thumbs up for me.

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2000 Jetta TDI Auto - Silver Arrow/Black Cloth (Hers)
2000 Jetta TDI Manual - Bright Green/Tan Cloth (His)
1969 Baja Beetle - Yellow/Black
http://www.jettatdi.8m.com
http://www.bajabug.8m.com

[This message has been edited by 2000 TDI Lover (edited June 22, 2000).]

Hiley Mazda / Volkswagen in Arlington, TX.

So far, so good. No errors yet and very attentive service.

West Side Motors, just outside Minneapolis, Minnesota city limits.

Over the last 16 years, I've purchased three VWs here from the same guy (Tom Jurva; ask for him). No pressure, product on the lot (VW is all they sell; no Toyotas or SAABs here), service department full of people who've been there since _before_ there were water-cooled VWs, ... and Tom would rather drive a diesel than anything else.

Highly recommended. I just wish the service department was open longer ...

I agree with DZLLOU. Montesi Motors in North Haven CT is great. I bought mine through priceline.com (Montesi's offer was $125 over invoice, $1,300 less than sticker.)

I never saw a human (and only talked to one for all of 10 minutes) before bringing the money & picking the car up. The "salesman" did a great job of explaining everything. The add-on guy smiled ruefully when trying to sell me the everything-else package & I declined, but didn't pressure me.

The service guy scheduled me right away when I needed my 5K. They used synthetic on the refill and got the amount right on (no overfill). Then 'cause I drive the same 750miles/week, they just set me up with regular 6 week appts through the end of my warranty period. (They're on Thursday nites after work -- their service dept stays open 'till 7 or 8 on Thursday.)

Got a call a couple of days after the service from their customer satisfaction people to see how the service dept treated me, if the car was done right, was it clean, etc.

Bottomline, they made almost nothing (relatively speaking) on the sale except for the volume points (they're the state's largest VW dealer), did a great delivery job, and are now doing a top flight service job.

Great folks. I might even buy another from them without making them go the priceline bid route. If only VW made a TDI mini-van (gotta have one for the wife & kids).

ThinkDiesel,
I also bought my Jetta from Martens VW in DC. I was very impressed as well.

Sarah

Rusty Wallis VW in NE dallas, Got my wife a 00 NB gls dti, Silver, Gray leather, auto in less than 2 weeks when other area dealers said no way. We had previously used Central VW, but they showed no interest in selling anything not on the lot.