Philip sent a message to Michael J. Jackson – Chief Executive Officer of AutoNation Inc. – Email Address that said:
Greetings Mr. Jackson,
My name is Philip
I am contacting you today, because my wife Susan I purchased a $50,000 2016 Silverado XLT in Tungsten Gray with Coca-Dune interior from Autonation Chevrolet of West Austin Texas. We unfortunately did not receive the exact vehicle we were promised would be delivered to us, and have been trying to get this corrected, to no avail. I would think that after having spent nearly a year's salary on a vehicle, we would get what we were promised.
Please let me give you some details of our transaction. First may I say that we did our research, and knew exactly what colors, features and options we wanted on the vehicle. In an effort to get the best deal, we emailed the sales managers of several local Chevrolet dealerships and stated that if they could find a vehicle matching our requirements, we would be happy to purchase it from them.
On the next Saturday morning, we ended up going to two dealers that said they could help us. We were offered a Black High Country at one dealership, but did not like the exterior nor interior color as much as the Tungsten Gray Coca-Dune, and so went to the Autonation dealership to see what they were offering.
They told us they had the exact vehicle we wanted, but had to transfer it from their Huston Texas dealership to their Austin location, and would have it available for us on Monday. In the mean time, they gave us a loaner Silverado XLT with all of the same features options, with the exception of it being Ocean Blue.
Well the vehicle was not available on Monday, nor Tuesday. We ended up taking delivery on Thursday. Because we had been driving the loaner for a week, we had already become very familiar with all of the features of the vehicle we were anticipating receiving. Because of our familiarity with the vehicle's features, we did not feel that we needed to have the salesmen run through all of the vehicle's features at the time of delivery.
Unfortunately this decision was a great mistake! After having given our trade-in to the dealership, and driving off of the dealership lot, we noticed about 5 miles down the road, that a major safety feature we were requiring (the Advanced Driver Alert Package), was not on the vehicle. We immediately called the salesmen that we worked with and informed him of the missing feature.
The salesmen said that he hadn't noticed the missing feature either, but would work to find the exact vehicle we wanted, and that they would swap out the trucks once they found a replacement.
We did not hear back from the salesmen, so after several days of waiting, we ended up calling him to get an update on their progress. We were then told that the only truck they could find that matched every requirement we had asked for, was out of state in Missouri, but that they did not trade vehicles with this other dealership. So the only thing they would do was to have us return the truck to them and we could then go drive to Missouri ourselves to buy the other truck!
At this point, my wife I decided that rather than pushing the dealership to keep looking for a replacement vehicle, instead we would keep the truck that we were given. However, as a compensation for the misrepresentation, and inconvenience, we would like for the dealership to provide us with an extended warranty beyond the default 3-year 36,000 mile warranty. We offered this compromise to the salesmen, and he said he would have to run it by his manager.
We again had not heard from the salesmen nor his manager for several days, and so we again called the dealership ourselves to get an update. The manager then told us that, of coarse we could get an extended warranty if that is what we wanted, but would need to come into the dealership to work out the details. This sounded questionable, and we thought that they could easily add a warranty to our new vehicle without us having to come into the dealership again? But we thought that we would give them the benefit of the doubt.
When we arrived at the dealership to finally get this issue resolved and put this all behind us, we were taken to a back office and told that the only thing we were being offered for our trouble was an extended warranty for an additional cost to us of $1,300!
This was not at all what we were expecting from this dealership, and actually was more of an insult to my wife I, than any type of compensation!
We really do like the truck, with the exception of the missing safety feature. But at this point we are very disappointed with the way we were treated after having made a purchase from this dealership, and with the way this deal was handled in it's entirety so far.
So, Mr. Jackson, in closing I am graciously asking if there is anything you can do to help my wife Susan I become a satisfied customer of Autonation Chevrolet of West Austin?
Best Regards,
Philip
