Fred Anderson Honda

My name is Steven Owen, I live in Columbia SC and I recently purchased a new Honda Odyssey from the Breakaway Honda Dealership on August 31st. My wife and I were completely dissatisfied with the lack recently purchased a new Honda Odyssey from the Breakaway Honda Dealership on August 31st. My wife and I were completely dissatisfied with the lack of customer service we received during the entire process of the purchase. The following is a detailed description of the type of unprofessional behavior that we subjected too. We arrived at the dealership at about 1630. I had discussed the purchase of a vehicle that we saw online with Bud and found him upon arrival. We began the process with him and test-drove a van. While the test-drive was going on Bud took our SUV that we were going to use as a trade in to be appraised. We finished the test drive and waited for Bud to come back with an estimate for the trade in. After about 30 minutes we saw Bud again but he appeared to be helping another couple that had come into the dealership. This really confused us since we had not talked to any other sales person yet and there was no formal turn over of us to any one else. Five minutes later Christine came up to us and introduced herself and said that she would be the one that was going to be helping us from this point on. My first suggestion for your sales personnel is that if you are going to pass your customer on to someone else, ensure the customer is informed of it and not left wondering what is going on. We decided to purchase a new van over the used one that we originally looked at due to the amount the loan would have to be for due to the $11,000 dollar loss we were going to take on our trade in. This was fine with us because that was what we originally wanted but couldn’t work out with the 3 other dealerships that we had talked with. At this point Christine brought out Adam from financing to talk with us. Adam discussed our options and what the dealership could do for us. Since the loan would have to be for so much more than the worth of the van it was decided that I would have to pay $2,500 down. I informed Adam that at this time that would not be possible for us to do. Adam reviewed the contracts from our trade in and told me that I could cancel the extended contracts on the trade in and use that for the payment. I had never heard of this being done before so I asked Adam numerous times if he could show me where it said that it was possible to cancel the contracts and receive a refund. His only response each time was “Trust me, I’ve been doing this a long time. It can be done. Just go to the dealership I purchased the SUV from and they would help me.” That was the only attempt he made to explain the process of how it was done. I then told Christine and Adam that I didn’t have a check on me and asked how and when I needed to get it to them. Since I planned on getting options added to the Van I asked if it would be ok if I just brought the check with me then. They said that there shouldn’t be any problem with me bringing the check back to them. I told Christine and Adam the options that I wanted included with the van and that I would bring it back up on the following Saturday to have them installed since most of the parts would need to be ordered. They said Saturday would be fine and I told them again that would be when I would bring the check. Adam got up and left to start working on the financing and Christine was still with us and I asked her about canceling the service contracts and her response was “Trust him, he has been doing this a long time and if he said it can be done then it can be done. He knows what he is doing.” Christine then walked away to do something. The moment both of them were gone my wife who had just been sitting there listening asked me why neither of them would answer a question, instead of just saying trust us. While they were gone I took it upon myself to dig through the service contracts to find the answer for myself. It wasn’t until the end of the deal when I was signing the contracts that Jack answered the question for me. Jack even took it upon himself to explain to me how they determine the amount I would be refunded and how to actually apply for the refund. My second suggestion is to ensure your sales personnel know that “Trust us, we have been doing this a long time” is not an acceptable answer to a customers question. If they are not sure how to answer a customers question ask someone for help. Christine came back after about 15 minutes and tried to make small talk with us while the financing papers were being prepared. I asked her if she knew if the financing had been approved and she told us it probably would not be approved until Saturday at the earliest. This made me very uneasy to be leaving with a vehicle that I hadn’t been approved for so I asked if it doesn’t go through what would guarantee me that are SUV would be there for me to take back. Her only response was “Don’t worry about it.” Once again she did not answer to my question. I told her that with my background in the military that I have been trained to be prepared for anything so I asked my questions again. Instead of answering my question she changed the subject to my military experience. Before I could get a chance to ask my question again it was time for me to go with Jack to discuss and sign the papers. When I left Christine talked to my wife about being able to tell that I was in the military because I was stubborn. I guess Christine’s idea of stubborn is a customer expecting to actually get a question answered. My third suggestion is if a customer is repeatedly asking a question that means they want an answer not that they are stubborn. Before leaving to go with Jack I told my wife that if another sales person avoided answering my questions we would be leaving with the estimate sheet to go to another dealership and she agreed. I sat down in Jack’s office and he started going over the papers with me. First thing Jack asked me upon entering his office was if I had any questions. This was the first time any of the sales personnel asked me if I had any questions. I asked Jack my questions that had been avoided by Christine and Adam and he answered them straight out. He told me what would be done with my SUV until the deal was final and even told someone if front of me to pull it to the side of the building so it wouldn’t be touched. Jack was the ONLY reason I went through with the purchase of the Van at the Breakaway dealership. My fourth suggestion is that any commission that was made from me purchasing a vehicle be given entirely to Jack. When I left Jack’s office my wife and Christine were in the dealership parking lot putting all of our stuff in the van. By this time it was about 2045 and I wanted nothing more to leave but I still did a walk around the vehicle to inspect it. They had put gas in the tank and that was about it. All of the stickers had not even been removed and there were pieces of sticker remaining on the back window. The next morning I received a phone call from Adam at 0900. He told me that apparently there had been some confusion on my part as to when I needed to get the $2,500 check to them. He said that they needed the check right away and even talked about some one maybe meeting me halfway between Greenville and Columbia to get it. I told him that I would wake up my wife and talk to her about driving up there. I got of the phone with him and came up with the idea of just mailing the check. I should not have even had to think of a way because I made it completely clear to Adam and Christine and even asked them if it would just be ok to bring the check when I came back up for the install of options on the following Saturday. So either they did not listen to anything I said the entire time or someone else told them they needed the check sooner. If someone told them they needed it sooner and that is what he would have told me on the phone I would have been ok with that. Instead he said there was confusion on my part as to when they needed the check. So blame was passed to me. I called Adam back and asked if it would be ok to just overnight the check to the dealership. He told me that would be fine. I went to the post office and sent the check overnight shipping with a guarantee of delivery for 9/2 by 3pm. It cost me $25.45 to mail the check (See Photo). While I was out I went to the Toyota dealership to cancel my service contracts. As I was waiting to talk to their finance department I noticed I had missed two calls from Breakaway so I called them back. I talked to Matt and he didn’t know of anyone calling me or needing anything. When I returned home my wife told me that Adam had called her and told her to tell me not to mail the check. She told him that I had already left to go mail it and he said he would call me then. That was the missed calls I had but he never bothered to leave a message. I then called Jack since he is the only one we trust to answer a question. I told Jack that I had sent the check overnight and he told me that the dealership was closed on Sunday’s and would not be open on Monday due to Labor Day. He said that they would just have to get it one Tuesday. This means that I could have sent the check normal mail for the price of a stamp and it would have been there Tuesday, instead I wasted $25 dollars to send it with the approval of Adam. I got off the phone with Jack and told my wife the problem. Even though she begged me for a week straight and caused us to loss $11,000 on our trade in she offered to just take the van back so we no longer had to deal with the lack of service at the dealership. My fifth suggestion is listen to what your customer says and don’t pass the blame. On Tuesday (9/4) I had still not heard anything about whether or not the financing had been approved so I called at lunchtime to find out for myself. Luckily it had been approved. When I got home I had a voicemail from Christine telling me that one of the options I wanted installed couldn’t be done with another of the options we chose. I told her that was ok and which of the two options we wanted. She told me she would order the parts and let me know when they arrived. She also asked me when I planned on coming up to get them installed. This surprised me since I told her multiple times the night we bought it that we would return on the following Saturday for the install and she said that would be fine. Christine then told me that would not work due to the person that she trusted to do the install didn’t work on the weekends. If she paid attention to what we told her and she knew this before hand and she told me Saturday would be fine, why was I just now finding this out? So once again another person that did not listen to what we said but by this time we had come to expect it. My sixth suggestion is listen to the customer and don’t focus on just the sale. On Wednesday (9/5) I had not heard back from Christine on whether or not the parts had been order and if they would be there for me to get them installed on Friday. I called her cell phone and left a message. I never got a call back. My seventh suggestion is ensure sales personnel do what they say they will do. Don’t make the customer chase down the information themselves. On Thursday morning (9/6) I decided to try to text Christine to see if that would get me a response, even though texting is a completely unprofessional way of communicating with a customer (See Pictures). I asked if the parts would be ready and if the service department could get them all installed before they closed for the day. She told me the parts were there and asked what time I could be there Friday. I asked what time they opened and again if they could all be done in one day. She asked if I could be there at 0830 and I said I would be there at 0815 and asked again if they could all be done in one day and if they could give me a time estimate for the install. Christine finally said that it could all be done in one day but never gave me a time estimate. I gave up again on asking questions. Time to complete would have been nice since I was driving over an hour to bring the van up. I decided to just drive home and pick it up the next day instead of trying to find an answer out. Later Thursday afternoon, Christine texted me with the details of where to go and who to talk to when I arrived. She told Mike Richards for the order and then when I was done to talk to Mark Becker to get the loaner car. Neither person was there when I got there but I did get to the dealership early. Mark Becker did show up and get me a loaner car but I never saw Mike Richards. Thursday night we got the phone call for the Feedback Survey. My wife and I both spoke and answer the questions. We gave the dealership and service very low rating. Friday (9/7) I arrived and dropped off the van and drove back to Columbia. When I dropped off the van the service department was very nice and did everything I asked. I showed them the left over sticker remains and asked if they would remove them. I also had them remove the Breakaway stickers from the entire van. After everything we have gone through to this point I did not wish to provide any advertisement of where I purchased the vehicle. The first time I take the van to the local dealership that I use for our other vehicle I will allow them to put there stickers on the van purchased from your dealership. Christine texted me and gave me an update on the van and asked if I wanted to go ahead and come pick it up. I told her that I would not make it back until Saturday and asked when they opened on Saturday. She told me to just come to sales when we arrived and it would be cleaned and ready for us. During the purchase process when we talked about getting them installed on Saturday we mentioned waiting for the vehicle and just spending the time in Easley until it was ready. Christine said she thought we were going to Easley to wait for the vehicle. I told her that was when we thought that we could get the install done on Saturday. She never answered when they opened on Saturday so about an hour later I texted again what time they opened and she finally responded over 3 hours later. During that time I gave up on her and just called the service department myself. We arrived at the dealership to pick up the van at 1000. When we arrived I walked into the dealership and saw Adam. I told him that we were there to pick up the van and he asked me to come inside. He walked over to an office area and came back holding a piece of paper. He said he had a couple of questions for me regarding where they went wrong with there service to desire such a bad rating on the phone survey. As part of my job I welcome the opportunity to give and receive feedback to improve skills. I told him first of all answer questions. The answers of I do this all the time is not an answer. He quickly became defensive and asking what questions he didn’t answer I told him about the service contracts. He told me that they were mine. I guess he meant that he didn’t want to dig through my stuff but if that was the case he didn’t mine doing it to find where to get the $2,500 from to make the sale. So I moved to the subject of mailing the check and how he said that would be fine then called and said not to. His excuse was that it was my choice to mail the check. I agreed but also mailed it with his approval to do so. He then asked me if I realized that the negative feedback went against him and the dealership. I’m not sure as to why he made that comment. By this point I realized he was not asking me questions to get feedback, it was only meant to be a confrontation. I then ended it by telling him to go get the keys to the van. He left and came back with the key and brought Christine back with him this time further escalating the confrontation. He asked me how he could of got such a bad rating when he did his job and got me the van. My eighth suggestion would be ensure sales people know that their job is not only the end result, it matters how you get to that end result. Adam also then tried to place the blame on me by telling me that buying a car is a high stress situation and that’s why I thought they didn’t answer what I asked of them and I was just confused by the whole situation. I was in the Navy for over 12 years deployed to war zones numerous times and was responsible for running a Nuclear reactor. I have been trained to excel under stress. At no part during the entire process did I feel stressed out. Christine then joined in on the confrontation and asked how I thought she didn’t answer questions. I told her about me having to ask 3 times in a row if the service department could install the parts all in one day. She told me she had all of the text in her phone and she did answer the question. I told her I also had them and I would be including them in this email. Christine then rolled her eyes at me so I told them that the conversation was over. I would have loved to discuss the rest of the issues I had with them if it would have been them trying to better themselves and use all of this as a learning experience. Instead it was an extremely unprofessional confrontation and I felt very embarrassed for them. Adults should be able to take feedback and grow from it instead of giving excuses and pass the blame to the customer. My final suggestion would be to ensure sales people clearly no what is consider unprofessional behavior. More

This was by far the least stressful experience I have ever had buying a car. The staff was friendly from the Car Salesman, Sales Manager to the Finance Manager. You have an amazing team. I would recommen ever had buying a car. The staff was friendly from the Car Salesman, Sales Manager to the Finance Manager. You have an amazing team. I would recommend everyone to come and see your dealership. Many thanks to Ariel, Adam and Jack. All of which were fabulous to work with. I love my new car. More

Great experience at Breakaway Honda! Was looking at Honda or Acura and never left the Honda dealer. Ariel was a great salesman. Listened to me and got me out of the dealership fairly quickly! Would defin or Acura and never left the Honda dealer. Ariel was a great salesman. Listened to me and got me out of the dealership fairly quickly! Would definitely recommend. More

Bud and the entire sales team were very knowledgeable of the vehicle I was interested in and expedient in their analysis of the trade. No one likes to be delayed when car shopping so great job guys. Sco the vehicle I was interested in and expedient in their analysis of the trade. No one likes to be delayed when car shopping so great job guys. Scott Street More

Ariel was both very friendly and professional at the same time. The entire experience was extremely hassle free. I felt no pressure to purchase a particular vehicle or any additional options. He worked ver time. The entire experience was extremely hassle free. I felt no pressure to purchase a particular vehicle or any additional options. He worked very hard at getting me exactly what I wanted. The finance manager was great to work with as well. I would highly recommend your dealership and especially Ariel as I feel he is the reason I had such a hassle free and pleasant experience. More

Talked to Mr. John Miller over the phone due some confusion on a price quoted on line and via email. CRV I wanted was in and I'd put a HOLD deposit down but hoped to clear up confusion BEFORE driving confusion on a price quoted on line and via email. CRV I wanted was in and I'd put a HOLD deposit down but hoped to clear up confusion BEFORE driving an hour to finalize purchase. I found Mr. Miller's attitude over the phone totally unacceptable and difficult, and would never work with him again. I just purchased my 2nd CRV at through Christine Brunt. The newly designed 2012 CRV is incredible ... Just wish my purchase negotiation had been smoother. More

My experience at Breakaway Honda was excellent! My sales rep. Danny Green, was extremely helpful with answering all of my questions and concerns. He was very curtious and professional. He was knowledgable o rep. Danny Green, was extremely helpful with answering all of my questions and concerns. He was very curtious and professional. He was knowledgable of the car I was interested in purchasing. He made the process easy and exciting! I would recommoned Breakaway Honda to anyone interested in buying a new or used Honda. More

Mark is an excellent guy. He was really easy to work with there wasn't any high pressure sales tactics. He has a great personality and really knows the product line. there wasn't any high pressure sales tactics. He has a great personality and really knows the product line. More

Breakaway was interest in what kind of vehicle. Dan is a wonderful salesman. He ready worked hard to get me in the car i wanted wonderful salesman. He ready worked hard to get me in the car i wanted More

This is the fifth Honda I have purchased and Christine Brunt has been the sales person I have worked with most. She is friendly, informative, and helpful. The service department has always taken good care Brunt has been the sales person I have worked with most. She is friendly, informative, and helpful. The service department has always taken good care of the cars I have purchased. I would recommend this dealership to anyone. Ask for Christine Brunt. She is great! More