ivanz

Hi folks, just wanted to share my (mostly) horror stories about Lexus dealers in the lower mainland.

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but I spent the last 2 weekends going to 4 Lexus dealers in Richmond, Vancouver, North Vancouver, and Port Moody. Basically, all of them either try to rip you off or don't care about selling to you at all; except Regency (Vancouver).

Here is what happened in each one (during my search for an RX 350):

Richmond - Nobody even came up to me...stood like an idiot in the middle of the showroom until I finally found some guy who barely spoke English. He wasn't really interested in selling me a car and just said here is what it has and here is the price. I was quite shocked, as I've had better service at Uncle Bobs used cars on the side of highway 1. Did a test drive, the person just gave me the key and didn't bother explaining anything and just left.
Came back after the test drive to negotiate the price...not interested in lowering the price by a bit. Basically gave me an offer for my car which was the equivalent of selling it for parts (used toyota.ca "black book") which lists it at $12,000 in mint condition (lower mainland dealer average price was $22-24k!!). This "black book" is some sort of scrap metal value guide, which only works one way apparently (see North Van section). After being shocked at the shoddy service, I left and vowed to never go back there again.

Vancouver - The first dealer I went to. Met a really nice salesperson named Mario. He took me to the new car lot to sit in a brand new car (multiple times!) and see how it looked and felt with the features I wanted. He even let me drive a brand new car with only a couple kms on it! Was very straightforward on how much he can lower the price and how much it would be to trade in. Tried his best to give a good trade-in value, but wasn't able to give more than $13k since they do not sell used cars at that location. Recommended that I sell it privately to get the best selling price. There was no pressure to buy and we had no bad experiences there. This place has the best customer service, period. I am going to buy it here ASAP when I sell my car, privately.


North Vancouver - Ask for Cody, bought my GS 350 from him and he gave me a great deal. Kept his word about the final price and didn't tack on any nonsense fees. The other guys working there? Well...one other guy tried to sell me the same car for like $5,000 more and didn't want to lower the price one cent...tried to add on a bunch of fees and stuff...just ask for Cody and you should be fine. I really don't want to go into details, but it was comparable with buying a car from a used car lot on Kingsway with the guy who tried to rip me off.

Port Moody - Again, if you are not a foreign exchange student from the far east, nobody will acknowledge your existence. Finally found one person who eventually offered me $14,000 for my car (started at $9-10,000!) and about $1,000 off the price they had for the RX 350, but didn't really seem to care about selling it to me. He said he would give me $3,000 more for my Honda, but Honda offers $3,000 off all new 09's factory discount, so he can't ("new cars are cheaper now so are used ones blah blah"). WTF I though, where did you hear that??? Maybe for an 08. He said he is confident of it, and he can take me to Honda to prove it. I would have accepted $17,000 for my car, so I drove off to Port Moody Honda to confirm it. Pure BS it was, absolutely a lie. I asked 2 people at Honda, both stated there is no factory rebate (even for cash payment). Well I wanted to go back and tell this guy what a crook he was, but it wasn't worth going through traffic to get back.

Overall, the North Van and Port Moody sales dept people seem to be worse than used car salesman along kingsway (except one person I taked to at North Van). I only hope that Lexus management realizes this and gets rid of these people in order not to ruin their reputation.

So, to sum it up, only go to Regency Lexus if you don't want to be scammed and lied to; or ignored completely. Ask for a guy named Mario as someone previously said, he will try his best to help you lower the price and get you a good deal. Didn't deal with anybody else there, but he mentioned they were one of the best Lexus dealers in terms of customer service according to Lexus Canada (Gee, I wonder why?). If you want to go to North Van, be very cautious.

Hope that helps people decide where to shop and save them time and frustration. I put my car on craigslist, and there is definitely interested at what I am asking for it (~$19,000). So buyer beware, most are looking for clueless buyers to rip off for trade ins and pay way more above MSRP than is sane. I guess they consider 40% profit margins to be the norm on trade ins?

Kaydee

yep, Never been to any of the other dealership but regency, and that's one of the many reasons why I don't go to the others

Nextourer

lol.. you have no idea. When we traded our 2000 Corolla LE in, they gave us a decent trade (they negotiated on the price difference rather than $x off new price and $y above black book). Anyway, we got a good deal on a brand new 02 Camry XLE even though it was only on sale for a month. When I went back to check the price of our Corolla that they had put on sale, it was selling for > what we paid for it in Nov 1999 and nearly the MSRP in 2000 even though it was 3 years old with 36,000km!!

pironaut

Thanks for these tips. Go see Mario at Regency Lexus, I highly recommend him as well. Friendly and honest salesman. Went to Richmond as well, Brian is very informative but no deals over there really.

Jetfire

iTrader: (3)

I agree, I got my car from Mario. Good guy, takes away the headaches of car buying. If you want me to get a word in for you, just pm me and i'll contact him.

Johnny

I wouldn't worry too much about North Van. That dealership is owned by Jimmy Pattison, and if you look at his track record, salesmen who are not worth their weight in salt don't last very long in any of his dealerships, or any of his businesses for that matter. JP Lexus is the top performer, and that doesn't happen by accident. Anybody who can transform Glen Clark into a capitalist must be doing something right...

I've had nothing but good service from the sales floor; that doesn't mean there are no bad apples out there though. Every sales experience, and the perceptions that follow are as unique as fingerprints...

Good Lord, that post was almost a year old. Still applies, I guess!

we todd it

+1 Regency.

i know the little chinaman tech there name Brian.

ivanz

I only serviced my car there the first time, and they took a good chunk of paint off the bottom-right corner of the hood (all the way to the metal). After I told them, they said it was nothing and that it was like that when they got it (as if I was blind and couldn't see a huge white patch on a black car). Cost to fix: around $500-600
What pissed me off even more was the fact that the crappy salesman got half the commision. The guy was a classic snake oil salesman, who lied about almost everything. I proved him wrong every time, before he finally asked me to leave! I contacted the other guy later on about the same car, which I eventually bought.
Wouldn't buy or service anything there except from the guy who sold me it.

mazuka

+ 1 vouch for regency.

Dealt with mario too. Having been torn over a few different cars at different locations, it was mario's willingness to pick me up a few times after I had left the old porsche with regency and his offer to help me source out and even personally install some aftermarket parts that struck a cord with me (ended up doing everything myself but I appreciated his sentiment all the same).
That and he let me take out a brand new is350 for a rip with a friend to test it out while he waited back at the office, with the only condition being that I come back in 20 minutes. pure awesome.

hapuhapu

iTrader: (1)

i only know when i try to call richmond for service i always end up on the answering machine, so i ended up just servicing with regency

absin

So i had decided i wanted to get a 2011 IS 250 and I live in Coquitlam, So my first Dealership was Port Moody, me and my Mother went to just look and test drive the IS to make sure that was the car that i had wanted to get, The first sales man was nice and all, But when i came in a week later to do the pricing and trading in.. IT was a NIGHTMARE i was with a sales man named Bruce Mcfarlene, First off i gave him a price that was reasonable and was in my budget, We asked for 2000 off, he said there was NO way we were going to get that the only thing he could offer us was 500 off.. which is a JOKE all on its own, no one pays sticker price that is un heard of.. second i was trading in my 2004 Cavalier coupe, Low Kilometers, Silver, Good Shape.. he comes back with black book price.. $500 dollers, He must have thought i was Dumb.. My car sold for $4000+ on craigslist and other websites. I was willling to just take $2500 he said there is no way and there was about $2000 Repairs on the whole car!!! This guy was pissing me right off.. I had to walk. That was my time at PORT MOODY. NEVER go there people. They do not want to give you any deal, The prices you see are what you get. I HIGHLY recommened you do not go to Port Moody Lexus.

I decide after that Horrible expeience to go on the internet and search other peoples experiences with Lexus in the Low mainland, and see that Regency was the most talked about and the best comments and that Mario Hernandez was THE GUY to see, turns out he is AMAZING no bull****, gives you the BEST deal right there, tells you what you need and what they are going to try and tell you, you need.. and to not cave. I gave him the price i was willing to work with and he cut his own commission to fit my budget.. The barganing too 10 mins we had a deal.. we told him we needed to be out of there in a hour.. we did paper work and EVERYTHUNG in under that time.. he even ended up giving me my third Maintence free, value of $150.

Pretty much, If your gonna go buy a lexus, Go to Regency and see Mario Hernandez.

OriginalSN

I wish I had the foresight to visit these forums prior to going into Regency to purchase our next car. I would of asked for Mario right from the start  I just know that I highly recommend staying away from William Chang at Regency. Unless of course you enjoy having an out of control grown man yell insults at you when a deal goes sour at the last minute...I will add more detail in a different posting later on.

ddhleigh

Ouch, sorry to hear you had to go through that... Doesn't sound like a Lexus rep, more like an used car salesman... Would love to know what happened. Did you file a complaint with the GM?

OriginalSN

Yes complaint filed. Deal is still in works with a different salesperson and manager overseeing things. I feel bad for mentioning salesperson's name and was about to delete the post - but saw that it was already copied and pasted! Anyway, no matter. I will share more after the deal is complete. Depending on how things pan out, I will dish. It was highly unprofessional that's all I gotta say. There also some other things that happened during the negotation process that I'm not familiar with so being a newbie here, I'll lurk around and see if I can answer my own questions.

Golfson

It doesn't matter if you mention names on here or not, forums are for perople to express their experiences freely than for others to gain experience, and also information exchange. If it affects the salesperson, he should blame himself for not being a professional, afterall, he's in SALES! Reputation are built by yourself, not given by others...
Look at Mario from Regency, I don't even know who the guy was until 5 minutes ago from reading the posts! And from now on if people asks me where to buy a Lexus, there! Mario from Regency!

I don't have much input regarding purchasing a new vehicle from a stealership, I haven't gotten a new car since 2003, that was not a bad experience. I went to get a Mazda 3, wanted it in white but none were available (yup, white Mazda 3s were rare back then), but only a blue one were available, in the specific options I wanted (no leather, 5 spd). So i struggled a bit and finally said okay, but the salesperson didn't wanna lie to me and being very nice and told me that another stealership have a grey one, which can be traded for a white one from the island for me. He could of not mention that to me and make the sale, but than he knows i really wanted a white one, so that's what i did and bought it from another dealer. But i didn't let him down either, after that within a few months I recommanded a couple friends to him and he sold 2 Mazda 3s! Almost 3 cars, another friend of mine almost bought a Mazda 6, but didn't. See? He let 1 sale down and earned 2 sales back!

After that, I have one more dealer experience, from Volvo, and all my other vehicles after that till now are all used either by owner or used car dealer, but i don't wanna go too far off the topic.

Regarding trade in another vehicle, dealing with dealers always cause a big loss, but less hassel. So the best way is to private sale it, more hassel but worth it!