KJ1

I'd like to post an account of my brief experience of this dealer that happened on Friday.

As many of you know, I am shopping for a car. I saw on Napleton's website that they had a CPO speed yellow2003 996 Turbo. I went after work on Friday to take a quick look. I had no intentions of test driving at the time, I merely wanted to give it a once over and see if it was worth a PPI.

I was met in the lot, a few minutes after arriving by a "salesman" named Louis (I'll offer his last name if anyone wants it). I was almost immediately dismissed by this person as a non customer. Perhaps, it was because I wear casual clothes to work. ie shorts and a t-shirt, perhaps it was because it was Friday at 17:00. Who knows. "Louis" could or would not offer up any information about the car I was looking at, made no effort to offer any assistance at all. He acted as if I was wasting his time when I asked him to get the keys and open the car.

I then told him I would want to arrange for a PPI. He told me he didn't know the "policy" on that, and brought me over to the Service dept. The service department then proceed to tell me what their PPI covered and that they would be happy to inspect a car for me. I told them no I am interested in having the car on your lot inspected by my chosen place. They were under the impression I wanted to bring a car in.

"Louis" then told me he would have to talk to the sales manager "Bob". He was unable to give me "Bobs" contact information.

"Louis" offered to call me after he spoke to "Bob". He called me at 10:00 am on Saturday and told me they do not allow cars to leave the dealership and then hung up on me.

I have not been treated so poorly or dismissively at a Dealership since I was a teenager.

I will not give a dime to Napleton Porsche ever.

Receiver

Not really surprising. I'm not much of a fan of Porsche dealers. The last straw for me was when one of them offered me $25k for my CPO C4S which I sold privately 2 weeks later for $44.5k.

jbossolo

WOW. Thanks for posting this here.
You should x-post at the Cayman forum, as Napleton is big there, with their Cayman HSR series car and everything.

One of Twenty

Try Maciej Musial. Stand up guy up there.

KJ1

Greg,
I am sure there are some good guys there, but unfortunately I will not go back there.

Jboss, I might x-post. Perhaps they do enough business with the Cayman racing that they don't care about getting a new customer for a lowly CPO 99 Turbo.

GTgears

Why don't you call Bob, the manager and have a person to person conversation about your shopping experience? Posting it all over the internet instead of talking to another human being just doesn't strike me as terribly productive. If you are genuinely interested in the car and if you actually want to be heard by the people who are in a position to change how the dealership is run, the good old fashioned thing to do is to complain to a manager.

I do a lot of business with Napleton because it's my LSDs that are installed in every one of their Interseries races cars. I have dealt with a number of people there in all kinds of different departments and have never had a bad interaction with any of them. It sounds to me like you got the new guy or someone having a bad day, or something along those lines. If it were me, I wouldn't judge the whole dealership based on a single interaction with a single employee.

What's it going to hurt you to pick up the phone and speak to the sales manager about it? I doubt he's going to change their policy about off-site PPIs, but at least your input is on the record with them.

KJ1

I did call on Saturday, I left a Voice Mail with "Bob" detailing my experience.

No call back as of yet...

I agree that the management needs to hear about it.

Could be this guy was new, could be he had a bad day, could be he thought I was an a$$hole... either way he failed.

GTgears

I definitely wouldn't go deal with that guy again. Like yourself, I expect a bit more respect and attention when I walk into any business. Doesn't matter if it's the local REI and I am shopping for climbing gear or a luxury exotic car dealership. There's a certain way customers deserve to be treated and if one salesperson doesn't give me that, I find another one who will treat me differently.

It just sounds like a nice car and if it were me I wouldn't let it get away without another shot at things. I've been pleasantly surprised a few times by giving a business a second chance.

brad@tirerack.com

I have dealt with Napleton on many occasions, but primarily through their services dept. Never had any issues with them.

As for your salesman, Karma gets those that judge people by appearance. Many of my best customers are never seen with dress clothes on.

LVDell

I feel your pain. Almost 10 years ago we started looking at 996 CABs. My wife had just finished her residency and her lifelong dream was to own a Porsche. After all her hard work in med school and residency we decided to visit the dealer. There she was, a thing of beauty sitting on the showroom. We were ignored 100%. Not even greeted. Just looks at like we had no business in there. Didn't realize we had to drive up in a certain car or dress a certain way.

Scroll forward a few months and we went back to visit. The car was still there and we were approached by an arrogant saleswoman. When I asked her for a test drive she told me to come back when I was ready to buy. WTF???? We left. We visited one more time and were approached by a salesguy that treated us like we were wasting his time and he "pawned" us off on what appeared to be the new guy since he had other things to attend to. Whatever. We asked the new guy if we could drive it and he literally ran to get the keys. My wife went for a drive and when they pulled back into the lot with the biggest grin I have ever seen I told the guy "I'll take it". Never seen somebody so excited to sell a car. Needless to say the other salesguy that pawned us off tried to "take it from there". I told him, nice try and that the new guy is doing the sale and getting the commission. The Cayenne came out a few years later and we bought one from him and then after that had him searching for GT3's for me.

Every time I went back to that dealer, the two salepeople that treated us like crap would tuck their tails between their legs and had that look on their face like "damn, I really screwed that one up".

Asquared

I bought my Targa from Napleton, and I know many of the guys there. They've always done an excellent job of customer service on both the sales and service side.

I know several of the sales guys, but I've never met Louis, so perhaps he is new. Being new is not an excuse, I just think it's possible your experience was an anomaly.

KJ1

Ok...

I just got off the phone with Bob.

I'll be brief. Bob sounds like a stand up guy.

I'll be talking with him later in the week.

-Karl

Last930

I've dealt with the service dept. at Napleton for many years and always have been treated well; I have sent a bunch of people there over the years. I haven't bought a car from them, but I have gotten to know the general manager and he's an upright guy. I'm sure he'll be fair to deal with.

fdorn

+1 Napleton did my PPI 3 or 4 years ago. The have done any warranty work that I have needed. There service is top notch. They are not the cheapest place in town, but the quality has to be one of the best (especially for track prep). Gino was the one who took care of my PPI and since then, I believe, he moved to sales. He was also straight forward with me.

R5 Turbo 2

Wow....some of you 911 owners need to get a life.

Do you know how stupid you sound with some of these stories?