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Old 10-06-2011, 05:21 PM   #2
5wheeldrive
Scooby Newbie
Member Sales Rating: (0)
 
Member#: 296981
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Michigan
Vehicle:
2011 WRX
dgm

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Bought my 2011 WRX from these guys just a few weeks ago. My salesman was Mike W. (there are two Mikes there), and he was very pleasant to deal with, aside from what I hope was a glitch with the voice mail system at the dealer that made it hard to get in contact with the guy. When I went to pick the car up, everyone I talked to was pretty cool, and when I left I was pretty happy that I had bought the car from them.

As so often happens with dealers, things have gone downhill since. I took the car to show my parents, and I noticed there was some damage to the ground effects, just under the driver door. There's a fairly large gouge out of the plastic, it seemed likely to me that the car had high-centered while being put on or off a transport trailer.

So I took the car back to show the damage to the folks at the dealer, bracing myself for the inevitable accusation that I had done it somehow. To my surprise, the manager they sent out to look at the car readily admitted it was transport damage, and he even offered to have their body department put some bondo on it and repaint it. He went on to say that this happens "all the time", and that they usually catch it and get it fixed before sale (with bondo ). I don't know if this is common dealer practice or not, but it seems shady at best to me, and fraudulent at worst. Yeah, here's your new car. Don't touch that spot over there, the bondo isn't fully cured yet.

I did request a new part instead of one that's been puttied and repainted, the guy said it would cost me $200 if I wanted it fixed that way. Right after I put nearly 8k down on the car two days earlier. Needless to say, they won't be seeing this car again. I'll gladly order a part and have it painted by someone else, and put it on myself.

So yeah, 'buyer beware' is in full force at Thelen.
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