IF There Were A Kentucky Derby For Brands With BAD Car Dealers, Who Would Be 2018's Champion?

Locally...

Horrid: Mitsubishi, Nissan, all FCA brands, Mazda

Hit and miss: Honda, VW, Infiniti, Kia, Hyundai

Stellar: Mercedes, Lexus, Ford, Lincioln, Chevy, GMC, Buick, Cadillac, Toyota, Audi, Porsche, Acura

But that's 100% reflective of the attitudes of the owners of the dealerships.

Good picks!

In the New York tri-state, Ford and VW have been completely awful to deal with. I feel like I need a shower when I leave.

So much comes down to the owners and their attitudes. The good local dealers are very customer centric.

All of our cars have pre-agreed-to bottom lines and if the customer meets or exceeds our bottom line, we accept the deal within minutes pending credit. We don't try to grind more out. If their offer is below what we will accept we do not counter offer. We simply say that we cannot honor that price point.

For us, running credit consumes some time, but if buyers pre-qualify, I've see the entire negotiation last 10 minutes.

I have said this before - I MUCH prefer the dealerships that are smaller and owned by an individual (Or partnership) - rather than those big company chains.

My Brother - who owned a Lincoln/Mercury Dealership before he was disabled - was his OWN service manager - had a long term group of mechanics - and were regularly sent cars that other dealers could not fix. He won a bunch of service awards in his ten years.

My local Mercedes Dealer was like that - too. (He died and it was sold to a conglomerate - and is not the same.) While I agree that these huge dealerships are often very well financed - and have the ability to build fabulous facilities - the constant turnover of personnel - especially anyone who turns out to be good - is the major minus.

I have said this before - I MUCH prefer the dealerships that are smaller and owned by an individual (Or partnership) - rather than those big company chains.

My Brother - who owned a Lincoln/Mercury Dealership before he was disabled - was his OWN service manager - had a long term group of mechanics - and were regularly sent cars that other dealers could not fix. He won a bunch of service awards in his ten years.

My local Mercedes Dealer was like that - too. (He died and it was sold to a conglomerate - and is not the same.) While I agree that these huge dealerships are often very well financed - and have the ability to build fabulous facilities - the constant turnover of personnel - especially anyone who turns out to be good - is the major minus.

I can't nail it to a brand. As Tom said, it's the locally owned dealerships that generally treat you better. My local Ford dealer was renown for the way they cared fro customers. Then the son took over (not a young kid, but should have known better), and now we all avoid it. My son-in-law just bought a Hyundai Ioniq and absolutely hated the experience. But he did great negotiating, so he was happy, and enjoys the car.

I've dealt with a VW (who also sells Subaru) dealer for the past 18 years because of the service they provide. I have to pass two other dealers to get to him, but it's worth it. The next door Toyota dealer bought them out late last year, but kept almost all of the staff. When I bought my Outback in November, I met the new owner and he seemed genuinely interested in his customers. Again, another local owner.

All the dealers I deal with. One wrote on my annual maintenance bill that three of my tires were bad and that I refused to replace them though none of it was true. Another gave me a loaner with a 75 mile daily restriction and wanted me to sign a form that had on it a starting point 100 miles less than the actual mileage on the loaner car. A third said I could bring my handicap wife in at a specified time to see a new model that might meet her needs but when we got to the dealership in the snow refused to show it to us because their mechanics were learning about how to service it. Dealers have a bad reputation because they earned it.

Again, dealers that do not get that customers must be valued give the entire industry a bad name.

Some companies--FCA and VW in particular--care not a wit about dealer reputation. Other companies are monitoring 24-7 and are bird-dogging customer complaints.