Atlantic Audi

What an experience.... I normally buy a car every two years but the financial management team at this dealer are the reason I'm sticking with BMW for now and going to have my car a few years longer. T years but the financial management team at this dealer are the reason I'm sticking with BMW for now and going to have my car a few years longer. The salesman I worked with was Ammar, and he was great. Very professional and knowledgeable. Very down to earth. That's really all I have to say about him. If he worked elsewhere I'd buy from him again. Its after Ammar that things went bad. First, I arranged pricing of an Audi at this dealer and they are three hours (one way) away from me. I drive very high mileage (about 25k miles a year) so I buy cars frequently. I arranged the price and had agreed to try audi financing to see if they could match or beat USAA in terms and rate. I made it clear that I would be trading in my 2007 BMW 328xi with 95k miles, but still under warranty, and I disclosed its defects (scratches on driver door). Upon arriving I test drove the car with Ammar and then started the games. I was put in the waiting room for the financial team. That took a solid hour. I was in there FOREVER. Then, they offered me an interest rate 2% or more over the terms USAA offered so I declined.... Liz went back to talk to her manager, interest rate was lowered, etc. This kept happening. Liz was playing ball, as much as I hate it and offered me the biweekly payments, although I suspect they were actually bi-monthly (big difference), but her manager got upset and came in when I simply said I was going with USAA for financing and that was that. Then I was told that the price I had was only if I used AUDI financing, which it wasnt. Ammar had agreed to honor the price otherwise. They refused to do that until I forwarded them an email showing proof. They almost came close, but 2.5 hours later I was still in the dealer. I found myself arguing with the financial manager. He was yelling at me about taking Audi financing, because it would "only" cost me $300-$500 extra over the life of the loan and that was "peanuts". He then reiterated several times that the car I was currently driving was "a disaster" and how he was going to lose $500 on the deal. Anyone who has ever bought a car knows that dealers arent selling cars to lose money, they sell cars to make money. They never lose any money on a deal. The cost to fix the scratches would have been minimal with their in house team or they'd probably just flip the car immediately like BMW did with my Ford. I remained calm but had trouble with that because two young gents on the sales floor were staring in through the glass because of the volume of the finance manager as he was aruging for me to spend more money because my vehicle was a disaster. Once I explained the concept of accrual of interest on biweekly vs monthly payments (like how you actually end up paying about two payments less if its true bi-weekly, and you save hundreds in interest, even if the rate is the same), he argued that his calculator was broken and not working and sent someone to go get a new one. You cant beat basic math and 7th grade finance. Lower interest rate + biweekly payments = huge savings. Arguing that my vehicle was a disaster, yelling at me, and telling me how me LOSING $300-$500 was "peanuts" and I shouldnt be worried about it = losing a sale. I got up to walk out twice and they relented. I should have legitimately walked out earlier. I asked what incentive they could offer me to take audi financing, off set the interest I would pay with lowering the $750 in various fees, upping my trade in value, etc and I was stonewalled. He argued the fees were never negotiable, except there was a gigantic asterisk by them that said they were negotiable, and reiterated the argument that I was driving garbage. Eventually he gave me "permission" to use USAA financing. Then when it came time to pay, I told them I would be writing a check for an extra $1000 to put down (just to lower principal) and the rest would be on the loan. The loan is the standard check from a bank. It has dealer instructions, they fill them out, fax, call, scan, email etc it in to the bank and they get paid. I never had a problem with using USAA when I bought my Ford, Mercedes or BMW> The finance manager told me if I was using USAA financing that I would have to leave my car there and I would not be driving the Audi because they wouldn't have the money instantly and there's no proof that the funds would clear from USAA....yes, USAA the bank that serves the military community, is large enough to advertise during the superbowl and has one of the highest customer satisfaction rates possible. They said If I used Audi financial that I could drive the car today. At that point I just left. This is the behavior you expect from a shady used car dealer in a rural town with "buy here pay here" financing. Not a luxury car dealer. I have 12 years of military service both as enlisted and as an officer so I know what constitutes professionalism and bad treatment. This was the example of bad treatment and was absolutely NOT professional (Except Ammar). I called another Audi dealer on the way home. I worked with them extensively but they didn't have the Audi I was looking for and I spoke to them, explaining the situation and they were shocked. They advised me to call corporate, which I likely will. I wrote to Ammar on my way back home and let him know how they acted was out of control and I received a call back in about ten minutes offering to drive the Audi to me and do the deal, driving my car back but I couldn't bring myself to buy the car from them any more. The treatment was so bad that it had become against my moral fiber to do any business with them. Follow up/update: i've started getting letters from the various banks they applied for an auto loan through. These letters are counter offers because the loan amount was too high for the car. The car I wanted to buy was 24,995, plus I had a trade in so I would walk out owing around $21k. The counter offers are reducing the amount of the loan applied for to $36,600!!!! What in the world would I need that amount for and why was I put in for an OUTRAGEOUS amount. I'm guessing it had to be at least $40k.... I absolutely never authorized that amount and would never. So far I have three counter offers! More