I went through two separate dealers prior to my third, which I'm expecting delivery from this week. For both of the first two dealers, I ordered the exact vehicle I want, at MSRP, and placed a $500 refundable deposit.
Dealer #1 who is closest to me was friendly enough and offered a printed copy of the order form as well as a receipt for my deposit. I was a bit nervous as the associate I was working with was clearly new to the job and possibly to any job. They wouldn't state a timeline shorter than 6 - 9 months. In subsequent calls to the dealer to check on order status, such as whether or not they had placed an order yet with Kia and where I was in line, I couldn't get a straight answer. I got a manager on one call and she was cold and seemed annoyed about my call, simply saying that it's 6 - 9 months.
About a week later I decided to hedge my bet with an order with Dealer #2, within 45 minutes of me. Same deal of MSRP and $500 refundable deposit. This order was done over the phone after seeing a post by one of the reps at the dealer on this forum. I placed the order over the phone, gave them my credit card, and literally never heard from them again. Nothing. No email confirmation. No text. Nothing. I did call and follow up to confirm the order and inquire about timing, and got confirmation of the order deposit (and saw my CC statement), but didn't get any specifics on where I was in their queue.
After both of these I started going back to Failcat + dealer calls, which I'd already done about a dozen of. On one of these calls, I found a dealer about 5hrs away that has my exact car (plus two options i don't really care about, but am okay with) that someone just changed their mind on. I found out about this after chatting with him for a little bit, and mentioning this forum and seeing his name, at which point he revealed this car was coming available. During the process of confirming the incoming car matched my spec, I learned that Dealer #1 had screwed up and actually ordered me a NE car, which is not what I wanted. Man, I would have been BUMMED waiting 6 months for that.
I cancelled both my orders, got my refunds, and put a deposit on the Dealer #3 vehicle. I received immediate follow up via text with order confirmations, and have had numerous back and forths since as we've been tracking the vehicle timeline. I'm expecting delivery this Thursday 10/22, but will see.... My plan is to catch a short flight and drive the car back, full PPE for the trip down.
@Ladybug1, find another dealer. there are many fish in the sea, and it's too big of a purchase to not get excellent service.
her!
