Dealership-phobic, EXCELLENT exprience - HappyNewSoulOwnerLI
Ok five-star review and a) I'm really picky and b) I vowed never to go into a car dealership again. My review will make more sense in the context of my review of Fiat in Westbury, but this was shaping up to be the same, and it was a GREAT EXPERIENCE so I broke my vow and love my new car!
(The car is a 2019 Buick Encore, Essence Trim, black with black leather, SUPER well-priced. The price hype is real.)
TLDR: Waited weeks to find the right car at Hertz. The right car was at Hertz Bensalem, and I had to drive 120 miles right away to get it.
You can trust the no-haggle price not to change. My amazing low interest rate did NOT go up. No one added things I didn't want to the car, like upsells. No one lied to me. Everything was 100% on the up and up. This is a GREAT dealership with amazing deals on new-ish cars. You will save thousands of dollars. My review:
In September 2018 I was gonna lease a Fiat 500x, had a bad dealer experience, bought a Fiat 500e (from Carvana, also reviewed) and after a fender bender in January 2020, Progressive totaled it. So way too soon, I needed another car! And I noticed Hertz Car Sales had way under market price Encores at a high level (leather) trim, and option to buy online. Sold.
I spent three weeks saving various 2018-2019 Encores on Hertz, but they'd all sell more quickly than I could move to buy, be aware that they do sell FAST. March 12th, I was pre-qualified for a loan and the lender had its own search tool. I did a 200 mile range for the model (Encore) on Thursday morning with my new approval, and a specific car was a 2019 lower priced than most 18s- and it was in Bensalem, PA. (I was able to sort by APR.) And it was at Hertz, where I was already shopping and saving cars.
It HAD to be THIS car - the interest was magically 2%+ lower APR than every other Encore in a 300 mile radius. So I tried to order it through the site, and dealership said I had to come in. Now I am pleased this happened, but if you see my old review, that was how the last dealer (Fiat) bait and switched me. So I was terrified that would happen, and it was far away. I did not want to do this, at first.
Also, before leaving, I called corporate to ask about delivery but they had a local buyer (that sounds like a line, right?) and I had to physically pick up the car. And NOW I'm glad I did, because it WOULD have sold. And to do the sale, I WAS too far away to not take precedence over a local buyer because paperwork has to go through the mail. So it ended up being fine, don't freak out if you need to visit a Hertz instead of ordering online, it DOES give you priority for the car. (And Eric held it for me.)
My daughter and I drove my rental to Bensalem (Hertz helped me return it to Enterprise there) and I was SO scared it was a trick- I'd be stuck two states away and my deal would change, the low interest rate would go up, this AMAZING car deal had to be too good to be true. It WAS NOT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, the car is in my driveway right now.
Mike/Mohammad, my salesman, was very calm and kind and soft-spoken, not like the jerk salesmen on LI. I trusted him, but I was nervous about driving all the way to Pennsylvania for the terms to change. (WHICH DID NOT HAPPEN.)
Poor Eric (the finance guy) had to deal with me asking three times (in fairness it wasn't clear on either end) about what I thought were loan terms but was in fact "length of time at residence." And he was very patient! So I'm trying to haggle nonsense here. (And the prices DO stay as the online price, they do NOT go up.)
Mohammad then drove me to Enterprise just before closing, and we dropped off the car I rented on LI, which was nice, they made sure I wasn't stuck with two cars two states away from home with one driver.
The car is amazing, and the price was amazing- go look up KBB for 2019 Buick Encore Essence Trim. Mine was if I recall correctly $14,275 - and the price at Hertz was the price online (I made poor Eric go through every line 500 times).
Financing took about 45 minutes after we got back. I got to Hertz at 5PM, dropped off a car 15 minutes away, got my new car, and was seated at Cracker Barrel (you have to go to Cracker Barrel if you leave LI, it's the rules) at 7PM ish. So it all took less than 2 hours for ALL the paperwork etc.
Sorry this is so long, but I don't want people to miss out on the great selection of cars, great deals, and great experience because the corporate site makes it look more like Carvana than it is. In this case it WAS necessary to go to the dealer IF I wanted to secure a specific car, which I did want to do. All other Encores are around $16,000 at Hertz, and 2019s are more. So it was important, but I couldn't see that before I got there.
Great dealership, great cars, great buying experience, definitely 5-star.
[crossposted from Yelp]
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