After work I drove about 15 minutes North to see what Barret had to offer in the way of Evo's because I plan on purchasing one within the next month or so. I walk onto the lot with pre-approved financing for $34k and insurance already taken care of, so basically I could have driven off the lot in a new Lancer Evolution that very same night.

My girlfriend and I stood out in the freezing cold for a good 12 minutes or so continually looking over both the yellow and red evo's they had on the lot. After a little while longer a salesman came running out to greet us, etc. He invited us into the office to get some information and see what type of deal we could work out.

I give him my information regarding what I'd like to trade in, what I'm looking at paying for the car, and how soon I'd like to buy it. He takes it to his manager to see if we can work a deal on the red evo for $28k, his manager approves and he mentions that "with the added loyalty bonus cash for owning your previous mitsubishi, we can make this work ... but it only lasts until January"

The salesperson then informed me that in order to test drive the car I would need to have my credit run and an application put in. At this point I hadn't even mentioned wanting to test drive the car (I have already driven good friends evo's, know what they are capable of ) Of course this sounded peculiar to me, I mean I wasn't sitting in a porsche dealership, but for all intensive purposes I was fine with that because I had not planned on test driving until I found the price I wanted.

Further price negotiations were made and the sales person kept telling me how expensive these cars were to maintain, and how much power they have, how great their service center is. So then I asked, as any sane person who's dealt with cars what I they had the car down for invoice price. Keep in mind the whole time this salesperson was going back and forth between his "manager" and us which began to get quite annoying. He came and told me that I couldn't know the invoice price on the car unless I planned on signing the papers for purchase tonight.



WHAT?

At this point I couldn't believe my ears, and when questioned he immediately baulks and starts blaming it on keeping his job. Now at any other dealership (including the srt-4 dealership, nor the STI dealership) did they have any problem telling me the invoice price. For whatever reason this salesperson wanted to give my girlfriend and I the runaround. What he did say is that he would sell me the car for $300 above invoice, but he still refused to tell me exactly what the invoice price on the car was.



At that point I told him that in order to continue negotiations I'd need to know the invoice price, but I wasn't going to sign a contract, nor run my credit in order to find out. If that was something he didn't want to do then I would be leaving. I informed him that the other dealerships had no problem telling me invoice on their cars, nor did they have a problem with me test driving their cars so that I can make a more educated decision. The salesperson once again refused, so my g/f and I got up and left.

As we were walking out the salesperson walked next to us telling us how the south dealership would have different invoice price than they would on the exact same car with the exact same extras.

I thanked him for his time, and walked out the door and went home.

Barrett Mitsubishi just lost a customer, thats for sure.

Is this common place for dealers these days?

I hope not, or I may be having a lot more fun in an SRT-4, or a WRX STI.



comments?

 

Barrett Mitsubishi is where I bought my evo from and I have to agree with you, it was the absolute worst experience I've had buying a car. If they didn't have the only black evo without a sunroof, I would've gone somewhere else. I got so angry with the salesman flat out lying to me that I told him to get the manager so I could deal directly with him. He was much nicer and we had a deal in less than half an hour for what I wanted to pay. As far as service, it sucks. I took my evo there for its first service interval and was not pleased at all. Now I am changing my own oil just so I don't have to deal with them.

Barrett has a sign that says, " #1 mitsubishi dealer in america!" (at least they did when I bought my evo.) Yeah right!!!

 

Yeah, I've heard they are pretty bad.

 

Common practice? Where have you been, under a rock? Dealers will say anything to anyone at anytime to get someone to buy. When I buy a car, I make it a practice to COMPLETELY disregard anything that they say orally. Nothing matters except what is on paper anyway. I'm sure that they wanted just to protect themselves against joyriding and the salesperson made up the credit rule to make sure you were actually capable of buying it. You prolly look or are young...so its understandable.

As a side note, when I went in to buy mine, the sales MANAGER said first thing that Subaru won't let anyone test drive an STi. I said ok, well, I'll tell you what...I'll bet you if I go down to Subaru and get them to let me test drive one that you will sell the Evo for half of holdback. Otherwise, I'll come back and pay you sticker for your Evo. He said no...and I said c'mon, you can even come with me....

 

Doesn't this belong in the south region forum? Just FYI, you can get the "posted" invoice price of any car just by looking it up on edmunds.com This of course doesn't include any incentives/deals that the dealer got when they bought the cars. It's possible that your sales person was an idiot and was refusing to give you the true dealer cost. Personally I think they were just trying to scam you into buying then and there. Sorry you had such a horrible experience. I got my car at Gillman and if you'd like I can send you the name of the sales person I dealt with (I had a great time buying my Evo).

Oh, btw, if you walk into the Porsche dealer, they will happily let you test drive practically everything on their lot w/o pulling your credit or any of that nonsense.

 

Protect themselves my a$$. I test drove an evo at Barrett with no app, no credit check, no proof of insurance, and no copy of driver's license. Personally, I think the salesman screwed up but I'm not going to tell him how to do his job. I don't believe what salesman say either, but it's at least got to be somewhat believeable. Not a flat out lie. Also, I've bought an Acura integra GSR and had a pleasureable experience with a nice salesman. Then I bought a Toyota tacoma TRD and had an even more pleasureable experience from an even nicer salesman. And service at Acura and Toyota was friendly and painless. In my opinion Barrett salesman have the wrong attitude for selling cars and their service manager was pretty rude.

My wife has such a kind heart and gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, and she couldn't stand the Barrett salesman.

 

I thought most people researched that info before going to the dealership lot? It never occurred to me that a dealership would voluntarially tell you the invoice. Historically, that number was a secret. It's only been since the advent of the www, that this info is more widely available to consumers.

Guess that GM works the negotiation process the old way.

SC~ who is moving this to the south regional board.

 

When I bought my car they were surprised that I knew what invoice price was and had already added the destination charge on (most people forget about that extra $500+). I spoke directly with the sales manager to get my deal (which wasn't spectacular but I was happy with it). They also didn't let me test drive the car until we had agreed on a price and they had ran my credit. But, their invoice price was different than what I went in with. Gillman (the dealer I bought the car from) tacked on $330 to the invoice price for 'advertising' as well as some paint protection plan and pinstriping. I think I ended up paying just under their invoice price (not Mitsubishi's invoice price) but can't remember exactly what their invoice price was now. So, he wasn't lying about the invoice price being different per se, as some dealers do like to skew it slightly.

 

I've never had a problem with getting an invoice price from the Nissan dealership, the Subaru dealership, nor the Dodge dealership when I visited.

Isn't it illegal for them to require a credit check before test drive?

Don't they HAVE to disclose the invoice price on the car when asked?

Whoever mentioned Gillman and the great service, please PM the name of the salesperson you spoke with. I should be visiting them later this week.

 

Got mine from Metro, owned by Barrett from what I understand and the whole buying process was fine but once they had my money they treated me like sh*t.

 

I bought mine at Barrett Georgetown. Not a great dealership, but is there one. My experience is that ALL car salemen are idiots and I don't trust a word they say. Back when I was looking at a Eclipse GSX, the only option was ABS and the sales guy said "You don't need ABS with a car with AWD".

Basically, go to Edmunds.com and print out all the prices and charges and walk in with that print out. That way you can deal on every option and the car.

Also, I don't know who your sales guy was but I didn't need a credit check for a test drive. The guy just took me out for a spin.

So far service has been bad. The EVO will be my first and last Mitsubishi ever. Just too many major issues early in the car's lifespan: paint quality and warp rotors (or whatever it is) inside of 12000 miles!?!

 

I had a similar experience with the Subaru dealer here in Raleigh NC. I had wanted a Subaru WRX for the last couple of years, and when I went in to look I got no attention and finally when I did get to speak with someone he said "No test driving the STi."
I went to Mitsubishi, told the Saleswoman I was interested in the EVO and may buy within the next couple of weeks, she says "Let's go for a ride, which color do you want to drive?"

A few days later I brought my wife by to look at the car, the saleswoman offered another test drive! Gave me a DVD of 2Fast 2Furious, posters & stuff. Told her I was considering the STi, RX8, and EVO. I ended up with the EVO and am extremely happy with my choice. It was a great experience.

 

I bought my RA from Gillman and they were great, they showed me their invoice price when I talked to the manager. Dealers do different things when it comes to their invoice, it depends on how many cars they sell, because they can get fleet deals from Mitsu. I know at another Mitsu dealer around here, they were tacking on 3k for "market adjustment" on the EVO's, when at Gillman, they were selling it for MSRP +options and TT&L. It was because the other dealer wasn't selling as many EVO's as they were supposed to, so they marked them up.

 

Don't even get me started on Barrett. They used about every dirty trick in the book on me, and I have only been back there to pick up the plates, buy an oil filter, and sell back the PitPass they sold to me. I think I posted my experience in a thread a long time ago, search for Barrett and you'll probably find it (I think it was called "Evos in Austin").

From now on I don't know what I'm going to do. Maxwell closed and that's where I was getting my filters from. Guess I'll get them at Gillman or order them from mitsubishiparts.net. And I dunno about their service department, I met the tech that PDI's my car at a local barbecue place and he seemed alright, but I don't know anything about the quality of work there. Doesn't sound good from trubidou's report.

If worse comes to worst I guess I can just hoof it down to Gillman in San Marcos. The tech there, Frank, is a nice guy and seems to know what he's doing. I watched him doing a clutch on an Evo until one of the bigwigs threw us out of the shop. But for most maintenance I'll probably just be doing my own stuff.

 

i bought my car from gillman, but theyre not good either, and their service center sux.