Patriot Chevrolet

Not sure if I'm a one off as from what I've seen & heard is nothing but excellence from Fred Beans dealerships... But here goes my story of purchasing a Certified Pre-Owned GMC... I'll say this first heard is nothing but excellence from Fred Beans dealerships... But here goes my story of purchasing a Certified Pre-Owned GMC... I'll say this first & foremost Doug was EXCELLENT & COURTIOUS & I would recommend him to ANYONE. I found the vehicle I purchased online & emailed Doug to schedule an appointment for a Saturday Afternoon (driving from Southern Maryland to PA). Got there pleased with everything, I was late for my appointment & Doug was out. Not a problem, didnt expect him to be waiting for me. When he arrived (10 min later or so, he was out with another customer), he apologized & was very curtious showing us the truck we were interested in. The vehicle was priced at a great deal & we loved it, purchased it on the spot. All the sales process went great, the only concern I had was that "the service manager had been driving the vehicle for the past few weeks". Not a big deal, but half an hour down the road, of a 4hr drive home. The Change Oil Soon light came on. Again, not a huge deal, but concerned me as we just purchased the vehicle. Certified Pre-Owned comes with a free maintence plan, so no costs to us... Monday morning on the way to a local GMC service center I notice that the rear end of the truck was vibrating like it was out of alignment, so I get the local GMC service center to check it out while I'm there for the oil change. It turns out not be the alingment, but the transmission. The torque converter needs to be replaced. The truck only has 55k miles on it & the local service center says that it should of come up in the inspection process. Not to mention the Service Manager had been driving the truck for a period of time. I would like to think he would notice things like this & get them checked out prior to selling the vehicle. The truck is currently being repaired under the certified pre-owned warranty, so no out of pocket costs, but I've owned the vehicle over a week now & was in possession for only two days... More

My wife and I were looking for a new Chevy Equinox so we went to Fred Beans, it was the closest dealer to our house. We pulled up, right in front of there show room and we were looking at a row of cars dire went to Fred Beans, it was the closest dealer to our house. We pulled up, right in front of there show room and we were looking at a row of cars directly in front of the building. We could see all the sales people inside. We stood there for about 20 minutes and NO ONE came out. On guy looked like he saw us then quick dodged behind a wall like he was hiding from us or something. We stood there for another few minutes while we googled another chevy dealer on our phone. We found Kelly Chevy right in Phoenixville. We ended up getting our new car there with Frank and had a great experience. The service at Kelly Chevy was untouchable. I highly recommend them. If you want to be ignored.....go to Fred Beans. More

We went in to buy my daughter a 2011 Cruze on a Tuesday afternoon. We walked around the lot for about 10 minutes - no one came out to talk to us. So, we went inside and after a few minutes, were greeted by afternoon. We walked around the lot for about 10 minutes - no one came out to talk to us. So, we went inside and after a few minutes, were greeted by a young man who said that he was with another customer, but that he would get someone to help us. We were introduced to Will - told him what we were looking for and he said that he had the car and we could take a test drive. The 3 of us got in the car and I expected Will to explain all of the features/highlights of the car. However, my daughter was left to locate the seat controls, mirror controls, etc., etc. all on her own - no explanation about ANY of it. During the test drive, we basically had to ask all of the questions in order to learn about the car. Back at the dealership, we started going over numbers. My daughter had a car to trade-in and rather than just take the keys and have their service department (or whoever values trade-ins) look at it, we were drilled about everything from when/where we bought the car to what condition the brakes were in! IMO, this was a complete waste of time. Only then, did they finally send someone out to take a look at the car. When they worked up their final numbers, their trade-in offer ($500) was $1500+ LESS than KBB ($1500 to $2500). Brian (I believe he is their finance manager) insulted us by saying that the car wasn't worth what KBB said and that we'd never find a dealer to give us $2000 for it in trade. Obviously, we weren't happy about their final offer NOR were we impressed with their less-than-hospitable attitude. Since this was the first dealer we visited, we told them that we were going to look around and per Brian's request, we promised to bring them any offer we got from other dealers, so that they could have the opportunity to beat it. Tuesday evening, we went to El-Mor Chevrolet in Morgantown. We were greeted with a smile as soon as we entered the showroom and it just got better from there. They were incredibly friendly and took the time to go over every feature of the car before we took it out for a test drive. During the test drive, the salesman was a WEALTH of useful information! Back at the dealership, they took a look at her trade-in, without asking us anything about it, other than "can we have the keys". Their trade-in offer was $2000, which is right in line with KBB. The final deal was GREAT and affordable for my daughter. However, being the honest people that we are, we told them that we had promised Brian at Fred Beans that we would take him the offer and they said that that was perfectly fine. No hard feelings! Wednesday, my daughter called Brian and told him about El-Mor's offer. He set up an appointment and she went in later that evening. The Fred Beans associate's attitudes got even worse. They questioned everything on the written quote and after "moving numbers around", it all came down to a difference of $250 (higher than El-Mor). During the course of the evening, the unprofessional behavior continued - one salesman was watching youtube videos and yelling comments across the room - another associate, who was asked to help, took his time to finish text messaging someone on his personal cell phone, while my daughter waited for assistance. It was almost as if she was interrupting their evening by coming in to buy a new car! For the life of me, in this economy, I don't understand why anyone in sales would treat a potential buyer with such disregard. Unwilling to lower their price a mere $250 to match El-Mor's price, my daughter told them that she was going to continue looking around. At that point, she was asked if that was really what she was going to do or, was she just going to buy the car at El-Mor - because he would rather she just told him rather than wasting his time. Obviously, she made it very clear that she would NOT be buying a car from this dealership. I would like to say that I was surprised at the treatment she received however, prior to going in to shop for a new car, I already had a bad taste in my mouth about them because of several bad experiences we had had with their service department. On one occasion, we had taken my daughter's car in for inspection. We were called and told that, among other things, the car needed new wiper blades. I explained that I didn't understand why because I had personally replaced the blades the previous day! On another occasion, we took her car in for some noise in the front end. They found the problem, but in the course of diagnosing it, they allegedly found an oil leak from the motor that was going to cost $1500 to fix. Mind you, there were never any oil spots under the car and the oil level NEVER dropped between oil changes. We took the car to another repair shop and they said that they couldn't find any oil leak! Needless to say, that was the last time we took the car to them for service. Again, I don't understand the bad attitudes towards a new car buyer. It was incredibly unprofessional. More