[jrdoming]

I'll share my story:

I went to the North Lake location to look at a 2016 340i that was listed for sale. Things were good at first and the salesman was helpful during the test drive. The car drove great and I decided to try and see what type of deal they would work on it. I had a 2010 335i coupe that I was looking to trade and according to KBB was worth up to 12k on dealer trade for the condition it was in. I expected them to low ball me but they came back and offered me $8K on the vehicle... They explained that there was an open recall on it with no resolution and that because of that the car would have to sit on their lot until BMW released the part to fix it. They stated that I should have been informed about the recall via mail (not sure why I wasn't).

My wife and I left the dealership at that point because the deal was not going to work out financially for us. After getting home I looked up the recall on my car and realized this was the Blower Motor recall that can cause cars to catch on fire in some cases. I talked to BMW NA and they stated that a fix was being released soon and there was no reason my car would be worth less on trade in. I thought about the situation and at this point realized that a dealer for the manufacturer of the vehicle I was attempting to trade in was using a flaw in the vehicle "created" by that manufacturer in order to pay me less for my car. This really didn't sit well with me the more I thought about it.

I spoke to the salesman and expressed my feelings about how the whole situation went down. I informed him that I was no longer interested in purchasing a car from the dealership due to the fact that I felt they were attempting to take advantage of an issue caused by BMW themselves in order to pay me less for my car. In their defense, once it trickled up to management that I was upset they did call and attempt to "make things right". At that point my trust was gone and I was not willing to attempt to work a deal with them.

I started looking at alternatives and found a great car up at Crown BMW in Greensboro. While it is a bit of a drive I will gladly do it again next time. This would have been my 3rd purchase from Hendrick Automotive group and each time there has been something that has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I had previously just grinned and stuck it out because they are the "only game in town" when it comes to BMWs in Charlotte and I just chalked it up to normal car dealer stuff. After purchasing from Crown BMW I can comfortably say that the process does not have to be what I experienced at Hendrick. All negotiation was straight forward over the phone and when we showed up at the dealer there were ZERO surprises.