I came into the dealer Friday, October 18th with my - B530e
I came into the dealer Friday, October 18th with my brother to look at the Mach-e and Lightning. My overall experience was great. I was greeted by a Salesperson name Oscar who was extremely polite, professional, and listened to all my needs. From the beginning, I explained my brother and I had credit challenges, both due to identity theft and divorce. After test driving the Mach-e, we were presented with the payment based on down and mileage. Both were exceptionally reasonable, and we wanted to continue with the purchase. After the credit was pulled, the manager asked for a co-signer which we knew could be an option.
My issue is with the manager. A lecture shortly ensued that we should “Crawl before we Walk”. I took offense to that due to the fact my brother currently drives a Maserati Quattroporte with a 561 payment, I currently drive a i4 with a 997 payment and a 760i with a 1,888 payment. The 550 payment on the Mach-e was less than the cars we were replacing, which those loans/leases are in good standing.
The finances are there and it’s clear we can make our payments, yet I felt we were being judged due to the credit alone. I understand it was less than stellar however identity theft was not our fault. If the bigger picture was looked at, the manager would have seen there were multiple paid off cars and other accounts in good standing. We were also told to get a “xxxxty car” and drive that sucker for a year to build positive payments despite already having car credit. The manager preceded to say he understood we were used to the image the Maserati had however we needed to humble ourselves. I told him it had nothing to do with image or else we wouldn’t be sitting in a Ford dealer looking at a subpar electric vehicle. In my opinion, that was crawling before walking especially with the payment being cheaper than the cars we currently had.
We explained a xxxxty car didn’t fit our lifestyle as we put 300 plus miles a day on a car and need it to carry equipment for our catering business and telescopes for my astrophysics research. It seemed once the credit was pulled, everyone demeanor changed. We also explained the Maserati no longer served a purpose for the phase of life we were in.
We both left the dealer feeling humiliated and embarrassed. Just to recap, Oscar was amazing. My issue is being put down by the managers while going through a life changing event. We were able to secure a Audi e-tron from Lexus Santa Barbara and appreciate them being professional, courteous, and understanding.
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