Corwin Honda Kalispell

This review is going to be both lengthy and long-winded. This is in hope to give anyone reading this a full picture of my perception and experience I had with Corwin Honda. You will see a number of mistakes This is in hope to give anyone reading this a full picture of my perception and experience I had with Corwin Honda. You will see a number of mistakes I made going into this purchase. My review isn’t so much about the vehicle itself, my review is about how I was treated by several of Corwin’s employees in a time of distress. I want you to get the full story of the event and how I experienced it. First, I would like you to understand why this caused me such distress. I currently work 2 jobs, going to school full time, and raising a 14-year-old daughter, I also have a side gig that I work on about 10-15 hours a week. To say the least, I’m very busy and the stress of buying a new car was why I waited so long in the first place. Simply speaking, I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of being upsold, haggling prices, buying extras that aren’t necessary. I went to Corwin because of the reviews I read about them. I just want to go in and get out with a decent vehicle. I have passed on several cars because of the reputation other dealerships have. A few things need to be mentioned before we get started. I have bought 7 cars in my life starting from when I was 16. My experience with car dealerships has been nothing but positive. Every car I have owned has lasted me until I have decided to sell it or, in a few cases, it got totaled. The only mechanical repairs I have had to make on a vehicle was a timing belt (this was from a vehicle I and bought from a private seller) and I had to replace a battery once. After I make a purchase, I do my due diligence to make sure a vehicle is going to last me. To say the least, I feel like I have been spoiled in some way because for the last 20 years of purchasing cars I haven’t had any problems. We are all familiar with the stories of a shady car salesman and being sold the dreaded lemon, something I have never been through. So I have had a sort of blind trust when it came to dealerships, especially reputable ones. My very first car was a 98 Chevy Lumina and I purchased a service warranty that I never used. After that, I have never bought a service warranty and I have never needed one. My philosophy is that if I have to buy a service warranty to keep the vehicle on the road longer than a year, then the car is probably not worth buying. Service warranties seemed like a waste of money to me and I never bought one ever since. This was back in 2001ish I have rarely questioned the price of the vehicle and I have never negotiated on price. My thoughts were that if I am to buy a vehicle, I don’t mind paying a little more if it’s going to last me. I basically go in, find a car I like, buy it, then leave...that’s it. Done. I haven’t contacted the dealership unless it was to make another purchase. This brings me to my purchase at Corwin Honda. I saw an ad on Facebook For a Hyundai Santa Fe. At this point, I have been casually looking around for a new vehicle and this one caught my eye. I felt that the price was right so I went in. I talked to Randy D (there’s a few Randy’s in the story, Randy D is the salesman). I took it for a little test drive, looked under the hood, I’m sold. Really that easy. I go to make the purchase to figure out how much it’s going to cost me. And I see a $199 DOC Fee. In my mind, it is absurd to pay a documentation fee for making a serval thousand-dollar purchase. I was told that it was standard to charge that. When I pried a little more the response was “To be honest, a lot of salesmen don’t make a lot of commission on sales, so it’s a way for them to get a little more money” This was told to me, not by Randy but by another Corwin employee. I can appreciate that level of honesty and I’m even more sold on the vehicle now. I asked to take the fee off, he said he couldn’t but he would take the amount off the total price of the vehicle. I’m 100% satisfied with that. We talked briefly about possibly buying a service contract, Gap insurance, and other things because the vehicle will be sold “as-is”. I have already made up my mind that I am not buying anything more for this vehicle. In my past experience with reputable and well-respected car dealerships similar to Corwin, a service warranty is a waste of money. They really tried to sell me on the service warranty and when I refused, it seemed to annoy the financing officer. This was the only negative experience I had so far. It’s so minor is barely worth mentioning. All is said and done so I leave relatively happy. After a couple of days the blinker goes out and there is a strange raddle in the door. No big deal, that’s something I can deal with. I get a call from Randy D about 12 days after my purchase asking me how everything is going. I tell him about the raddle and blinker and he said to bring it in and he’ll take a look at it. I was grateful and said I would...I didn’t. I couldn’t be without a vehicle, I had already donated my other one so I would have been without a ride while they looked at it. This was small potatoes and not a priority for me. 30 days into my purchase all the lights start flickering on my dash and my power steering goes out. This happens while I’m on highway 93 near the college. I pull into the parking lot and the car just shuts off. The car is in a really bad spot and blocking traffic in the parking lot. I was given a jump and the car turned on for a second, I parked it in a better spot but not an ideal spot, then it shut off again. I know a few people in the Occupational Trades building that work at the college so I have them take a look under the hood. Everything was clean and looked just fine. They ran a test on the battery and it wasn’t getting a charge. So that leads me to believe it was a bad alternator. I call Corwin and they transfer me to Randy D on his personal cell phone. He said that he was off for the rest of the day and he would call me first thing in the morning. I am parked in a bad spot at the college that isn’t a designated parking area so I felt this was kind of urgent, I made that clear to Randy D as explained my thoughts on it. The car was in the parking lot for a few days. I had to miss work the and my daughter was late for school. I had to find a last-minute ride. Luckily, I was able to call the car donation place and ask for my car back, they were sympathetic to my situation and allowed me to have my car back. Even though I signed all the paperwork and they were the rightful owners of my old vehicle, they were kind enough to let me have it back without question. I would have completely understood if they hadn’t. The next morning around 9:30, I still haven’t received a call from Randy. I give Corwin a call and I was told that Randy was in a meeting and he would likely be out in the next ten minutes and he should be giving me a call around that time. I waited until a little after 11 AM and called Corwin back. I spoke to Tom ( not his real name because I don’t want to throw him under the bus at Corwin) He told me Randy was off for the day. Tom told me he would try and text him to see what we should do about this vehicle. I didn’t hear back from anyone, it is now 4:30 PM. I call Corwin back and speak to Tom. He told me that Randy was fishing. At this point, I am pretty angry. I felt betrayed, lied to, and I feel like I’m not being taken seriously. Especially when their “on hold” music is talking about how they value customer service. Poor Tom got a taste of my anger. He seemed genuinely concerned and wanted to help but I was too upset to accept anything. After about a minute of me ranting about how I felt and I was able to calm down a bit. Tom said he was trying everything he could to help me out. I believe him wholeheartedly. We get off the phone and I wait about another hour and still haven’t heard from anyone, so I call back…...Again. I speak to Tom, He said that he talked to the financing officer and asked if I purchased a service warranty, Tom reminded me that I didn’t buy a service warranty and that I told the financing officer that “I don’t need a service warranty because I do my own work on vehicles and that I thought they were a waste of money”. That is 100% true. Tom didn’t seem to say this malicious intent, he seemingly was just passing on the information. I was incredibly irritated at this point and my response was “Do I need a service warranty to buy a car to last longer than 30 days?”. I went into another rant about my experience with other dealerships and how my only mistake was ever trusting Corwin to sell me a vehicle that was reliable. He sat through that then asked if I could get it towed to Corwin and he’ll see what he can do. I commend Tom’s patience, understanding, and willingness to help. I finally feel like I am being heard The next morning I have it towed to Corwin. First-person I see is Randy D. First thing out of my mouth was “I thought you were going to call me first thing in the morning”. His response “They told me they were going to call you”. I said, “maybe they did but YOU told me you’re going to call me and you didn’t”. At this point, I could see that Randy D was incredibly uncomfortable and I felt bad. Any anger I had subsided and I tried to make idle chit-chat to calm the situation until we could come to a resolution. He said he had to wait for Randy A to make a decision. Randy A came out and said they will fix it, perfect, done, thanks. Chris calls me the next day and said that the battery terminals were corroded with battery acid. I had three people look at it and none of us saw any signs of corrosion. But I accepted that, trusted they fixed the problem, picked up my vehicle, and left. The next day the same thing happens. Dash lights flicker, then the car shuts off and I lose control of the vehicle for a brief second. The power steering went out almost immediately and I wasn’t expecting it. I call Randy D. I tell him it happened again. For some reason, he felt he needed to remind me that I didn’t buy a service warranty and that they fixed it the last time as a favor to me. This in no way feels like a “favor” but more like good business but I let this pass, I’m not going to be lead to believe that this is some way how they do business. Maybe it is, but I just don’t believe that. I have the car towed, once again, to Corwin, They fixed it a couple of days later. This time they said it was a bad battery and they replaced it. Again I’m reminded, by Chris, that this was a favor and that they are really going out of their way for me. It’s becoming more and more clear that this IS how they do business. The very next day the car wouldn’t start. It kept trying to turn over but just couldn’t quite do it. I take my other car to work that morning. I figured it was due to the cold weather so not really a big deal, that happens. Well later that day, my service light comes on saying the car needs to be serviced. I try to use the buttons on the steering wheel to look at what the warning light actually is, but none of the buttons work. I go down to AutoZone and run a code check..nothing because its a maintenance issue. I call Randy A who is, I believe, the sales manager. I told him about my issues. At this point, I don’t want this vehicle anymore. It’s not working out for me and it’s not anything I had expected it would be. I tell him that I want to just return it for another car. I’m not even opposed to purchasing a different car, I just don’t want this one. He reminds me that I bought the car “as-is” and “everyone knows that”. This was incredibly condescending. I respond by saying “I just don’t want the car anymore and I want to make this a win-win for everyone can you please work with me here.” He said that they don’t typically do things like that and he would have to ask. We made an arrangement to talk the next day between 11 AM and 12 PM on February 13th. The next day at 11:30 AM I realized we didn’t establish who was going to call who. And since my experience with Corwin returning calls has been a mess, I thought I better take initiated and give Randy A a call. When I called Corwin Yvonne answered, I told her the situation and she said she would page Randy A. She placed me on hold then after a minute she returns to the phone and said “I paged Randy and he isn’t answering. I’m okay with that and I say “Will you leave Randy a note saying that I wasn’t sure who was suppose to call who and let him know that I’m available anytime today and he can call me”. I never heard back from Randy. I am aware that I purchased this car “as-is” and what is fair is fair. When I signed the paperwork and I was the owner, I took on the risk that this car may be a lemon. I didn’t have it looked at by a mechanic, I didn’t look at any of the history reports, I didn’t buy the service warranty. I did a lot of things wrong here. What is fair is fair, but what is right is something different. Although this may be what is fair, it certainly doesn’t feel right. This turned out to be a very costly, incredibly stressful lesson that I learned. It appears that maybe I was too much of a thorn in their spine and are tired of me calling and they just simply want me to disappear. I’m looking for a resolution beyond “I need to check on that and I’ll call you back”. I will continue with updates More

Was excited for me new car and left dissapointed A month ago I came in to price out a new Passport. I spoke to a manager and salesman and came up with a number that made me happy on a top of the line A month ago I came in to price out a new Passport. I spoke to a manager and salesman and came up with a number that made me happy on a top of the line model for a 15k lease. The quote included some accessories I wanted and I was pretty happy! They were going to wave the transportation fees to get me the car and everything. I had a few questions post this meeting as I wanted to make sure I got the right vehicle for the right price. After some research I decided to forgo the Elite and go with a Touring. About a 2k difference that should have saved me $50 a month and was told as much. I didn't love the the wheels that came with the touring but I'm very budget minded so was okay with the lower model. Today I went to pick up my car and the price for this lower model passport was coming in at the same quoted price as the Elite....Wait what! Then they come in and say oh well that's because of the added accessories. BUT the quote for the Elite I had included accessories. Then they come back and say, oh well part of the increase is the transportation fee. Once again something they said they would wave. ALSO they didn't have the right milage I wanted for my lease. I was there for 2 hours trying to get this all fixed, and they did their bare minimum and just kept telling ME I was wrong. "This is the math, this is the price of the car" etc etc. I understand that people may not have negative intentions, I do my best to assume the best in people. But it all felt like a bait in switch. I wanted to walk away but I put down a $500 deposit to get this car driven to the dealer. So now as a customer of Honda, a company I had trusted, wanting this to be an awesome buying experience I left just upset. Trust me, you don't want to leave a dealership in a new car sad and frustrated. That's not how it's suppose to be. So here I am with my new car, with the wheels I didn't love, without the running boards I wanted, in a lower model vehicle, paying almost just as much for the Elite they quoted with all the accessories I wanted. The one positive thing about today was the lady working in finance who acknowledged how screwed up everything was and tried to help as best as she could. Here is my advice, if you go with them, get everything written down, with signatures. Or maybe just don't buy from them and avoid the potential frustration. I didn't want to have to associate my review to any one person cause it feels more like a company fail, so don't associate this review to anyone person please. More

Only reason why I gave a 2 star rating is because of the salesman i dealt with, Jason. Very easy going, not pushy, and a credit to the company. However, their advertisements and sales tactics are a little m salesman i dealt with, Jason. Very easy going, not pushy, and a credit to the company. However, their advertisements and sales tactics are a little misleading. Also, when I traded in my vehicle I forgot some stuff in the center console and when I came back for it the next day, it was stolen. So make sure you grab everything when you trade More