Prestige Kia

Reviews 3

AL

Alyx Singerhouse

Normally, I am not a person who reviews businesses online. However, after a pretty appalling experience around 530PM Thursday, July 9th at Prestige Kia in Eau Claire, I felt compelled to write my first review. Unfortunately, it will not be a positive one. To make a long story short, I was in the market for a new car and was looking to buy essentially on the spot. When we got to Prestige Kia, we looked at cars in the lot for at least 15 minutes without a sales person (or any employee) coming to check on us. Keep in mind, the dealership was absolutely NOT busy at this time. Finally, after walking around the lot, waiting for someone coming out to help us, I found a vehicle that I wanted to test drive. It was priced around $36,000. At this point, since there was still no one to help us, I decided to go inside and seek someone out. When I walked inside there were three employees standing together talking, I stated (to the group of them) that I had found a car I would like to test drive and that I was definitely in the market for a new car. I was told by a salesman, that "thats not how it works here," and "you need to come with me first to make sure you can test drive our cars." So, we went to the desk and he asked for my license. After having been to other dealerships, thats fairly standard before test driving. However, when he started putting my information into the computer, I asked what he was doing. He told me that he was "obviously putting your information into the computer." By now, I was already offended not only by his actions but by his tone and his condescending behavior. He started to ask about my budget and I explained it in terms of the total price of the car (which the one I want to test drive fell into) and in monthly payments, which by no means were unrealistic. At this point, he started to ask about how I was planning to finance the car, which I explained in brief and then yet again (by now it is another 15 minutes later) asked if I could test drive the car and if I liked it, we could talk more about the financing. This request was met with a big sigh, a lot of attitude and then an, "I guess so," and something that alluded to my credit (of which he knew nothing about at this point) and him essentially acting like I was wasting his time, I left. I thanked him for his time, and I was polite, but it was the worst car buying experience that I had, and like I said, I went to several dealerships. I did end up making a purchase the next day, and that experience compelled me to write me second review, which unlike this one will be 5 stars. If anything can be learned from this, I think that your staff needs to know how to talk to people. Bottom line, if a customer walks into your dealership you should treat them with respect regardless of the vehicle they are considering purchasing.

JE

Jessica Mahlum

I bought a Kia Soul Saturday. That same night, when I got off work, the car didnt start. After turning the key over about 20 more times, it finally started. I got it home. The next morning the car wouldnt start again. I did the same as the night before. Tried and tried until it finally started. I am under their "bumper to bumper" warranty so I figured everything should be covered. Secondly, I just bough the car less than a week ago. Everything SHOULD be covered. I called the dealer Monday morning. The woman I spoke to informed me that the battery wasnt covered under the warranty and that she would have to talk to the guy who sold me the car to figure out if they would pay for a battery-if that was the problem. Immediately, I wanted to take the car back. Is it possible that I would have to pay to fix a car that had problems the same day I bought it? Neither her or the guy who sold me the car apologized. That would have been enough to take the edge off the anger I felt. But nope. The lack of people skills and genuine caring in the dealership is astonishing to me. The one person who seemed genuinely sorry about the situation is the man I dealt with at the service center. After some pushing I finally got a guarantee that I wouldnt be charged to fix the car. But should I have to worry about this in the first place? I have no idea what would have happened had I not had the pre-existing "bumper to bumper" warranty on the car for the next 2,000 miles. Nothing would be covered and I would be left fixing a car I bought less than a week ago? Disgusting. From the tiny details to the big problems, I have not been impressed with any part of this experience. The sales guy told me the car would be cleaned and "gassed up" when I picked it up. It may have been cleaned but the car was far from having a full gas tank. Not even close. Everything that was said didnt seem to happen. Bad character. Bad experience. If I could go back in time, I would not have stepped foot into this dealership. Now I have to worry about wether this car will be breaking down, what will be covered, how much more money I have to spend....Im not happy. More pointers should be taken from the man I dealt with at the service desk.

BE

Betsy Pribel

My husband and I went looking yesterday evening, just to look. No intention to buy. They were open so we went there. We said how we have never even sat in a Kia before so we wanted to before we thought about buying because why look at Kia if we dont like it. Well I get a little upset when they automatically go to my husband as the main income before they even know what I do for a living. I also do not like giving my work number out When we just wanted to look. They took our keys, drivers license, and registration so we kind of felt trapped. First car we went to didnt work - way too small. The lady helping us was nice but just couldnt figure out what we wanted. I dont think they asked enough questions for why we wanted a new car and what our primary use would be. Finally found an SUV we liked and we were told it would make our payment budget go up, as we thought it would. Somehow it doubled our top number for where we wanted to be at a payment. The lead manager lady that helped with this I found very rude. It seemed like she thought we would never be approved for anything so why are we wasting time. So then they were working more on lowering the payments and I said something about the same vehicle, different color and I think brand new that was listed for less. (btw, when I asled what the original price on the one we test drove was, it was like pulling teeth.) They said that vehicle had rebates. Well what are they? Do we qualify? Never went through any of that. They low balled our trade in. Never gave us hard numbers. I dont even know if they ran our credit or what the interest rate they were offering was. We hadnt planned on buying a car but we might have other than the business end was handled poorly. There was another guy that was trying to help lower the cost (idk what happened to the manager lady - seemed like we were wasting her time) but they couldnt make it work out so we asked for our stuff so we could leave. They tried to go over numbers again and we were like no, we want to go. Unfortunately that soured the experience for us. Looking online we saw the same vehicle we were looking at buying for a lot less and with less miles. Glad we didnt make a rushed decision.

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