Get Ready Salt Lake City !!

[shack01]

Around 5 PM today a car hauler was spotted headed north on I-15 in the north part of Las Vegas. Six smarts on top and five or six underneath. No dealer in Las Vegas so there is a good chance these will be found at the Salt Lake dealership by morning. As Napoleon would say, "Lucky".

tm

[idahosmart]

Cool! It will be good to have my closest dealer with some smart cars in stock.

Tom

[bmx43]

Originally Posted by shack01

Around 5 PM today a car hauler was spotted headed north on I-15 in the north part of Las Vegas. Six smarts on top and five or six underneath. No dealer in Las Vegas so there is a good chance these will be found at the Salt Lake dealership by morning. As Napoleon would say, "Lucky".

tm

or they could be heading to Denver.

[timhood]

I was just at the smart center Lindon yesterday. I received a call on Thursday of last week that my car had arrived. Needless to say, this was a shock to me, because I had never received a previous call from the dealer finalizing my order and arrangements. Nonetheless, I went to the dealership yesterday with the intention of bringing a passion coupe home. Long story short, I left without the coupe. While there, I counted well over 20 smarts on the lot. I think it was about 27. So that carrier very well could have been headed for Lindon. It may even have had my car on it. (Now it can be someone else's).

[Alustiza]

Timhood.
So what happened that you did not get the car? Did it have to do with the BS Dealer Fee, or whatever they may be calling that stick it to the customer fee? I was not sure if they were trying to pull that fee, so this is why I ask.

[timhood]

Originally Posted by Alustiza

Timhood.
So what happened that you did not get the car? Did it have to do with the BS Dealer Fee, or whatever they may be calling that stick it to the customer fee? I was not sure if they were trying to pull that fee, so this is why I ask.

It was the dealer doc fee, the fact that they lied about it (said that if they charge it to one customer, they have to charge the same fee to every customer, which is not true in Utah), and that they wouldn't budge on it in any way. I even offered they could keep the fee and throw something else in somewhere. I even came down to asking for only floor mats and two smart shirts. Or split the $300 fee.

So it came down to $150. And my principles.

[jwight]

Good for you; start the orphan search or get in line for another smart and select delivery to another dealer. If they treat you like that on the sale why would their after sale treatment be any better?

[Alustiza]

This kind of BS behavior is why as soon as I get the call from Smart, I am going to have the car delivered to one of the states that cannot mandate that rip off fee. Thank you for having some principles, as very few people even know what the word means.

[eqwalker]

Wouldn't it be informative if we had a dealer rating list here so the dealers could be rated on their friendliness, fees, etc. My doc fee was only $89 and I heard of some that were even lower. My dealer transaction went extremely smooth and I have heard of others that were very good too.

[timhood]

Originally Posted by Alustiza

This kind of BS behavior is why as soon as I get the call from Smart, I am going to have the car delivered to one of the states that cannot mandate that rip off fee. Thank you for having some principles, as very few people even know what the word means.

Good news! I was able to stick to my principles and still end up getting the car!

The following day I received a call from the general manager of smart center Lindon. After playing phone-tag leaving messages back and forth for a couple of days, we spoke in person and I expressed my disappointment over the dealer doc fee. He reiterated about how the price of the car was being controlled/fixed/whatever by smart USA and how there wasn't room to discount it, anyway. He tried to offer taking the doc fee out of the extended warranty, but I wasn't interested in getting the extended warranty. Long story short, in the end, we worked out a deal where I got the car for the price I had wanted and even though the dealer doc fee was in there, the money was taken out by my getting all the accessories at dealer cost (I got the smart price sheets and was able to see how much money I was getting out of it).

So, in the end we both got what we wanted and they got what they wanted. And now people stare at me wherever I go!