Hello all!

I'm a new Porsche owner as of yesterday. I got a white on black C2S with premium plus, PDK, sport chrono and a few other things. I'm really excited as it's my first Porsche. I'm coming from my Mercedes CLS550, which is a very nice car, but not terribly sporty. I'll have some pictures later when I wash and wax it today.

While I'm really excited about owning the car, the buying process at a dealer in Houston was the absolute worst I've ever had for any car I've ever purchased. I've purchased Lexus, BMW, Toyota, and Mercedes in the past and the process was so much different.

Working with my sales person as an okay process, but the "business manager" process was very uncomfortable. I decided to lease this car after a bad experience of having my CLS hit by a person and struggling to recover my diminished value. I didn't want to deal with that stress again. I know that leasing is often more expensive than a pure finance deal, and I was okay with that, but definitely wanted to get the best deal possible.

The sales guy and I had reached agreement on sales price, residual, and money factor. I had everything in writing. When the "business manager" finally becomes available, after nearly 30 minutes of waiting, the whole deal almost went to ****.

We get in there and the lady starts off with throwing a payment number out that was hundreds of dollars more per month for a 10K instead of 12K lease. I immediately stop her and ask exactly what residual and money factor she is using. She gave a residual 1% lower than the number I had. When I attempted to correct her on it, she pushed back! I had to actually ask her to look it up, and lo and behold, it was exactly what I said it was.

To make matters worse, when I finally pry the MF she's using out of her, it's 10% higher than the number we negotiated in writing! Of course when I balk at that, she starts her, "well the money factor is the money factor". I had to make the verbal threat to my sales guy and her that I would walk out of there if the deal was not made correct, immediately. After some hemming and hawing and words like, "...we'll do this for you..." the deal takes the same shape it was originally in by moving the sales price around to compensate for the increased money factor. I'm not totally happy about this as it means I likely had some more room to negotiate, but the total lease price stayed the same.

This whole process took another hour or more. Eventually, the "business manager" seemed to catch on that, yes, I can do basic math and the process went a bit smoother. I requested that the GM call me personally. Today I'm sending an email to my sales guy detailing how I feel about the process and why I will be ranking the dealership experience as unsatisfactory on my survey. I will refrain from making the survey comments until I hear back from the GM to at least give them a chance to redeem themselves.

I was excited going into the dealership yesterday, and left extremely conflicted on whether or not I had picked the correct people to deal with or whether I settled because they just happened to have a car with the color and options I wanted.

UPDATE

I spoke to the GM this afternoon. He let me know that he was glad I contacted him. He was gracious and listened to my concerns about how I felt like I was treated poorly. He made a commitment to customer service and offered to repair the damage the road debris did to my windshield and hood. I was not looking for a change to the car deal we made, I honor my commitments and contracts I sign of my own free will, but I do believe the offer to repair the damage to my brand new car reflects on the dealer's customer service.

As a note, the GM indicated he had read this post. While I was careful to not directly call out the dealer, I did go through the post and soften some of my language. The event absolutely occurred as I recorded it, but as a token of my appreciation to the GM continuing service after the sale, I edited the tone down a bit.

 

Sorry to hear about your buying process, but did want to say congrats on your purchase/lease of your 991S (in the best color!)

 

Agree, congrats on your new 991. Too bad about the experience. Hope that someone from PCNA sees this and helps "raise the sights" with the Houston dealers on customer care during the entire ownership experience. Tough way to start, hope they recover.

In any case, congrats and enjoy your Porsche.

 

Congrats on the purchase, I am not sure I would have stayed and given them my buisness. I had a BMW dealership do this so I went somewere else. But I believe you will love your new car.. Enjoy.

 

What you do when they try to pull some nonsense like this on you is, you take what you have in writing to another dealer, tell them about the nonsense at the first dealer, then ask if they will honor the original deal you reached with the sales guy at the first dealership. They almost certainly will, if for no other reason than that they get the deal with no time investment, and, since you made it clear the reason you are there is the first dealer trying to scam you, they probably won't pull any of that on you either. Then, you tell the first dealership to shove it.

 

The GM knows exactly what goes on, they give the orders. If they don't know what's goes on, then they aren't doing their job.

I would hammer them on the survey, total BS and damages the brand, and P cares about image.

Congrats on the new car!

 

The "business manager/finance guy/gal" at the dealership is one of the biggest scammers at the dealer. They make a lot of their money by trying to screw you on financing and on the additional items they try and sell you like extended warranties, tire warranties, etc . Glad to got it all worked out and have your 991.

 

congrats!

and best way to let 'em have it is in the post-sale survey for the dealer.

 

Grats on the car. Be sure to post some pics when you get a chance.

I also had problems with a Houston dealer (north) that I'll never buy out of Houston again.

 

I'm glad you were paying attention. Imagine how many don't.
Did they try and play around with the doc fees, etc.?

At least you can put a smile on your face any time you want by going for a drive! Can't wait for pics.

 

I think that Porsche takes very seriously how customers are treated and if you contact them they will do whatever they feel is necessary to make you happy. This happened to me at a Honda dealership with a bait and switch with price and after I contacted Honda the owner of the dealership called me back and after that they treated me better than I had ever been treated by any dealership. So call Porsche and let them know what happened.

 

I appreciate everyone's supportive words. It was a really surreal experience, truth be told.

Got the wash, clay, and wax completed!

 

Isn't it sad that something as special as buying a Porsche can turn out to be such a miserable experience!!!

I wonder if the people that design, market and build such an amazing car knew how badly their product was represented here in the States, if they could or would do something about it?

The survey is definitely a way to let Porsche know how badly you were treated, social media is another way...leave bad feedback on sites like Yelp, etc...peer to peer opinions are very powerful in swaying people where they spend their hard earned money.

Enjoy your new car and hopefully your horrible experience will fade in your memory and all that will be left is a huge smile on your face!!!

 

I would have walked!

 

And NEVER service your car there. That's where they make the real money. Vote with your wallet.

Car looks great!