My old car - a Nissan Pathfinder with 160,000+ miles on it - required repairs roughly 3x the car's value. So, a new car was indicated. We started out looking for a replacement Pathfinder at the local dealership. But, the guy at Nissan didn't know too much about cars, and the new Pathfinder had devolved from a sporty 4x4 to a grocery hauling 7 seater van! So, we started looking at options online, and identified some dealerships to visit.
We called around, and by far the best response was Tatiana at BMW's online department. She provided straight information about cars and options, explained what was available and why, etc. It is refreshing to get customer service that is actually customer service. With her help, we identified a couple of possibilities on their lot.
Long Beach BMW is a massive facility, and so you have to guess where the front entrance is. We always go in a side entrance for some reason, and then have to hoof it to the front desk. The front desk is staffed with a bunch of people who don't appear to be doing anything, but who tell you to wait while they get you the person on duty. But, the wait was just a few minutes and we were set up with a car loving BMW expert who walked us through various choices/options.
We finally settled on a car, but by now the evening was growing late (7pm Saturday) and so our guy was working on his own with little support from his team. Getting our car out for the test drive took a while as he hoofed back and forth getting the keys needed to move the cars blocking us from our test drive.
We test drove our purchase - a 2015 BMW 528i - and were amazed at the car. You can find tons of writeups on the car elsewhere. They have a specific street course they want you to drive, I drove around it a couple of times. Still loved the car, and decided to buy it.
This is the point in the story where things slowed down. It's roughly 8pm, Saturday night. We offered to come back the next day but both the sales guy and management stated they had no problem at all completing the transaction that night. But, there were a couple of problems.
First, our sales guy had obligations that night, and kept having to text while he was with us. Second, nobody kept in touch with us while they did paperwork. So, we were seated and left alone for close to an hour. I had been offered water earlier and finished it, but nobody offered my wife anything. She was pretty thirsty (we were at the dealership for about 3 hours); I ended up asking a random employee where she could get some water and he helped us out. After the first half hour, I asked and was assured paper was in progress. When we bought a car at another dealership, the paper was completed with us present, so we were able to communicate about title, financing choices, etc. We were all agreed that we wanted to get out (because it's now after 9:00p on Saturday) and so the finance guy was working to do the paper as fast as he could, which is of course without our input. But what it meant was that my wife wasn't on the title when they drew up the paper, which did not exactly endear me on the home front. The guy offered to redo the paper, but by now it's 9:30 and nobody wants to start the paper from scratch at that point.
In signing the papers, this dealership REQUIRES YOU TO WAIVE YOUR RIGHTS to addressing problems in court AND REQUIRES YOU TO SUBMIT TO BINDING ARBITRATION if they choose. The guy promised me that it's the same with every dealer. The language requiring arbitration is on a form that is used statewide, but the clause remains significant insult to the consumer and should be removed.
Our car guy/salesman was nowhere to be seen, though he appeared as we prepared to drive off. While we were waiting on the paper, the dealership had the car detailed and filled with gas. It was beautiful to drive home in.
I'd like to end on some positive notes: the facility is clean and well-maintained. Everyone is courteous. Because the electronics are relatively sophisticated, they offer individual "trainings" with a "genius" to show you how to use all the features. I went back the next day and spent about an hour and a half with a genius; his knowledge of the car's systems and ability to explain them were superb. Finally, after a week's shakedown, I discovered a minor problem with the radio buttons. Took the car in, and it was fixed, and the car washed and vacuumed, in a little over an hour, at no charge.
So, this is basically a five star review, knocked down 1 star because I feel our salesman (a) should not have been texting, (b) should have been more attentive to us while we waited for over an hour on the paperwork, including managing the interface with the finance/title guy, and (c) the title guy should have checked with us about title before assuming my wife wouldn't want to be on the title. read more