Northwest Chevrolet GMC Cadillac of Bellingham

To Parent's & First Time Buyers in Particular Our daughter was looking to purchase her first car and we told her to go to a couple of different dealerships in town and see what they had and look f Our daughter was looking to purchase her first car and we told her to go to a couple of different dealerships in town and see what they had and look for something no more than 10K. We suggested the Toyota and Volkswagen dealerships off the top of our head and she went to this Chevy dealership first. While she's legally an adult, this is her first experience in buying a car. and wanted her dad to help with looking at the cars, the prices, etc. Her father is a mechanic by trade. He was in the middle of something when she called and asked him to go to the dealership and look at a car, he said he would be there in about 1/2 hour or so. She called back about 20 minutes later and said she signed the paperwork. They did not give her the opportunity to go explore other dealerships, or wait for her dad to get there. When she was talking on the phone with him, they had her sign papers. What she thought she was signing was financing for 16k and purchasing an extended warranty on a car with only 41k miles on it--the manufacturer's warranty expired at 40k miles. She did not know that the total purchase price with everything was over $26k. When she got home she was mixed with her feelings and wanted us to look over what she had signed. Only on one place in the contract does it show the total purchase price with interest and all totaled. She about passed out. What made the experience even worse, was the salesman made it seem to her as though she was getting a steal. She saw the same car, same year, with more features at lower prices in Seattle and beyond. In trying to be optimistic about the purchase, she said the salesman told her if she has any problems at all, it's all covered with the extended warranty outside of a few things that seemed mostly cosmetic. She works two jobs and is trying to help with putting herself through college. She is an honest, hardworking person. And, she does not always do well with this type of predatory pressuring that the salesman at this dealership was pushing on her. The "used car sale-man" stereotype fits this scenario all the way. She buckled and signed the papers before her father got there. We figured, sadly, very hard lesson learned, but one that will forever give her thick skin with these types of people hopefully. She's had her car for approximately 2-months and the check engine light already came on. The dealership told her to bring it in and they would look at it, but it would cost her $100. What she did not realize when she entered into this agreement, was there were co-pays, etc. She dropped the car off and the next day they told her there was nothing wrong with the car and cleared the check engine light code. They charged her $130. She had to totally re-budget her money and shuffle her payments on her other bills, etc. If she had rent, she would have had to choose between paying rent or getting her car back so could get back and forth to work.Thankfully she is not in that situation, but too many people are, as we were when we were younger. In addition to this, she was not informed that the Onstar feature in the car was just a trial feature--after 30 days it stopped and she was informed she would have to pay an extra $45 a month to have that, on top of the car payments and warranty, etc. The car has features that require either a monthly payment for, or contracts, as with the Onstar, Satellite radio, etc. She purchased this car based on the experience she saw us have with the purchase of our Toyota that had 74K miles on it and the check engine light never came on once until it hit 230k miles, which turned out to be the coil packs and is now running fine. We purchased that from Varsity Ford in College Station, TX "Gig 'Em". I don't know if the ethics are different up here than there, but we heard a strange noise with the vehicle a few months later and they told us to bring it in and looked at it and fixed the problem our of courtesy, to extend their appreciation to us as their customers, and to back up their reputation. We did not purchase an extended warranty either. Our total purchase was a little over $18k. We went to them based on word of mouth--advice an old attorney advised us--always avoid businesses and others who purchase full page advertisements in phone-books or who run commercials, etc. Always give your business those who you are referred by from others you trust. Good piece of advice for anybody to follow. Hence, the biggest concern with this dealership is their ethics and false radio advertisements. Any used car salesman or woman with any level of ethics, would not have sold our daughter this car and pressure her to sign the dotted lines before we got there to look over the car and what it was she was agreeing to. A salesman or woman with any level of ethics, would have waited and worked to show her cars that were for sale within the range she said she wanted to stay in. Any dealership with ethics is not going to train their salesmen and women to operate with predatory selling strategies and like Varsity Ford and others, would have checked out her car and turned off the check engine light as a total courtesy with that type of purchase. The ethics of the dealership reflects through how their sales people treat their customers in terms of making an attempt to match what the customer is looking for, and showing common courtesy to those who do purchase any vehicles from them. *NOTE: Nice clothes and calm talking is not the same. Walking the walk is quite different from talking the talk. They had enough nerve to still try sell us a Toyota in their inventory after watching how they treat their customers. After they charged my daughter for something that supposedly was not even a problem to begin with on top of everything else, no, we are not giving them our business. . I would not recommend anybody who is purchasing their first car to go to this dealership, especially alone. In general, I would not recommend Chevy cars to anybody (the trucks are okay), but at this price? Definitely do your homework on the car--it turns out this model also has many manufacturer issues, according to the mechanic who looked at her light. Think about how fast it depreciates, and listen to the recommendations and advice of trusted others. Allow yourself time to go and explore. A good, honest, and ethical salesperson will show that respect for you and encourage you to do the same and invite you back with hopes you return. There are good car salespeople out-there and they should be rewarded with the sales rather than the predatory ones. And while this seems as though this is an issue for our daughter and not us, we still support our daughter so she can go to college, etc. These types of things indeed trickle upwards and add weight to the whole family, when we are all trying to push ahead. More

Horrible service I went in for an oil change last week (not knowing) I had rodents until today (4/25) Service people never notified me that they saw that in my engine I went in for an oil change last week (not knowing) I had rodents until today (4/25) Service people never notified me that they saw that in my engine !!!! More