My experience at Burlington Mazda

This is my first post, but I’d like to tell you all a little story about my experience with Burlington Mazda. Take it for what it’s worth, but suffice it to say that no one I know will ever set foot in that dealership again.

DO YOURSELF A FAVOUR, BUY FROM Jeff The-Biz…

June 18, 2008 – Had an appointment to see a demo 2008 Mazda 3. Arrived to find car was gone for the day.

June 20, 2008 – Had another appointment but called ahead this time. Car had been given out as a loaner for the weekend. Made an appointment for Monday (June 23).

June 21, 2008 – Popped into dealership (they were having a sale). Told by my sales rep that he had sold the car that morning. WTF?

June 23, 2008 – Received a call from sales rep, his deal had fallen through, car was available again.

June 24, 2008 – Despite my better judgment, we agreed to purchase the car. The bill of sale was written up, and stupidly I signed assuming the figures we had agreed upon were there. Our baby was crying so I didn’t have enough time to look things over.

June 25, 2008 – Found the supposed “error” on our bill of sale and called the sales rep. He assured me that the discounts we agreed upon were there.

June 27, 2008 – Had my brother-in-law inquire about the car we had purchased. Several reps tried to sell him the car knowing full well I was picking it up the next day. From his discussions, it was clear that the aforementioned discount had not been included in my bill of sale. I made a trip into the dealership at this point, only to be given a portion of the agreed upon discount.

June 28, 2008 – Picked up the car… outside it was shiny and clean, but the inside was dirty, the dash and console had not even been dusted. At least we had the car though and hopefully wouldn’t have to deal with these guys again.

September 8, 2008 – Received a call from the dealership. They were requesting our marriage certificate, as we applied the Mazda Grad Rebate to our purchase. They were having trouble getting reimbursed from Mazda Canada because my wife’s college transcript is in her maiden name. I told them that when I find the marriage certificate I will fax it in.

September 13, 2008 – Dealership called my wife and were rude to her. Told her that if the marriage certificate wasn’t faxed that evening that there would be a $100 service fee. I let this one slide (at my wife’s request) and politely faxed in the certificate as requested.

September 29, 2008 – Received a another call from the dealership. They were still having trouble with Mazda Canada because they had put only my name on the ownership of the car. They were requesting that I bring in the ownership to be changed. I told them we are very busy and when we have time, we will bring it in.

October 3, 2008 – Dealership called my wife and were rude to her again. Told her that we had to bring in the ownership because “they are waiting”, and if we can’t bring it in we should just drop it in the mail. Give me a break… like I’m just going to throw my ownership in the mail. At this point I decided to seek a little advice. Turns out I don’t owe them a damn thing… and as of right now, that’s exactly what they’re getting.

Wow...that sounds like a huge hassle. While my initial sales experience wasn't that bad, I had a bit of trouble as well.

Initial signing and everything went ok. I gave them a bit of a hard time as I was at first going to do a trade-in but decided a day or so later to not do that as my sister was going to buy the car from me. My total price per month didn't change, just that I wasn't doing a trade-in.

My problem came the day of the pickup. I signed all the papers and got my deposit back. Adjusted everything in the car and all that to make it "mine" and left after getting the paperwork back. Later that night, I realized they didn't give me my credit card back. Call the next day and arrange pickup later that night. The person had put it in their suit pocket and that was left at home that day. After being told they would go home to get it for me to pick up that night, when I show up, they had done no such thing. They said they would call me later that night to drop it off, again, nope. Finally got it the next day.

Now I know it was partly my fault for not even remembering until after I was already home and they were closed. But it shouldn't have taken that long to get it back to me. But since then, no real problems with that dealership.

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Originally Posted by TheBigSnout

DO YOURSELF A FAVOUR, BUY FROM Jeff The-Biz…

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Thanks for the plug.

Sorry to hear you are getting the run around.

My sale experience was quite pleasant.. I dealt with Louie,, nice elderly guy.. talked him to giving me the warranty for free and even dropped the price to my liking.. I had a problem with getting the insurance money for my other vehicle which was a write off due to an accident on the highway.. anyways.. finally got the insurance money taken care of.. and I called them to tell them I would pick it up that night.. (5:30) they closed at 6 or something.. so they agreed to wait for me.. very nice of them since I didnt like the PT Cruiser I got for a rental!.. my experience was very positive!

Sorry to hear about your situation.

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Originally Posted by bluemazda3

My sale experience was quite pleasant.. I dealt with Louie,, nice elderly guy.. talked him to giving me the warranty for free and even dropped the price to my liking.. I had a problem with getting the insurance money for my other vehicle which was a write off due to an accident on the highway.. anyways.. finally got the insurance money taken care of.. and I called them to tell them I would pick it up that night.. (5:30) they closed at 6 or something.. so they agreed to wait for me.. very nice of them since I didnt like the PT Cruiser I got for a rental!.. my experience was very positive!

Sorry to hear about your situation.

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I'm glad your experience was positive. As I said, people can take my situation for what it's worth. Despite being jerked around, I was willing to cooperate until they started being rude to my wife. All they had to do was be patient and treat us with some respect, which seems like common sense to me given the nature of their business.

Louie, is a nice guy to deal with, didn't end up buying from Burlington Mazda but I did go there to look at my options and he was a great salesperson to deal with. It's really unfortunate that you had such a terrible time sorting things out.

Sounds like BURLINGTON MAZDA hasn't changed one bit. I have a number of reviews some place on this board having a similar exp to you. Sorry to hear you were treated like crap too. Crooks.

I actually went to Burlington Mazda while i was looking for my mazda 3. I spoke to a sales rep who at first glance seemed decent but as the negotiations went on he went to the typical salesmen. Then afterward he was very rude to myself and my father over the phone twice(the details i will not go over but i was not happy and i am usually very easy going). After that i decided that there was no way i was going to buy my car there no matter what. For one the guys price he kept on quoting me was $10 more per month then what mazda.ca was quoting me and a great deal more then what i ended up paying through another dealership.

i had a problem when i financed my car too, now that I look back i see i made a huge mistake buying an 08 Sport GS instead of a 08.5... many many features an 08 does not have that an 08.5 has, such as mp3 playback... power/heated mirros, cruise control, rear spoiler just to name some..... i went in and talked about the 08 and the dumb sales guy is like NONONON 08.5 with zero percent , no way thats ever gonna happen, anyways iam still not over it to this day....cause after i think a month or 2 the 08.5 came out with a host of features for no extra ammount with still 0% financing...i should have done my research... the problem was the day that i found out i was getting a 3 is when i was initially looking into getting a 08 civic si... amazing car by any means... but the insurance turned out to be around 800 for me / month which is a nono and the 3 came around 500.... the day i got it the next day the would be the new month and who knew what the finance rates would be ... now i have to buy the spoiler my self since it dident come with the car ... and other things.

I have had a similar problem with buying a car from Burlington Mazda. My husband and I went in to buy our very first car. We went in knowing exactly what we wanted to pay for our car (WITH compounded interest included). We knew how much the dealership paid for their car, and agreed to pay them 5% profit (generous I thought, considering many people will argue dealerships down to 2%). At any rate, we came to a fair understanding. We initialed our offer price, which the sales guy agreed on, and everything was set to go. When we went into the financing room to sign the final contract, and started doing the math, we found that the sales manager had CHANGED the number we had agreed on and hoped we wouldn’t notice! Not only that, he started saying he didn’t have ‘time for this’. (After we brought up he had changed the negotiated price). Then the sales guy came into the same room, convinced me I was looking at the contract wrong. Now, I’m not stupid or anything. I’m an engineer and I can do all the math. But it was late (closing time) and I was really tired. In addition, the contract has several boxes labeled the same way, and sometimes you aren’t sure where you should be looking. They pointed me to a box, which look right, and I signed the contract. They convinced me to think I had been looking at the contract wrong. Obviously, signing the contract when I was tired was a very stupid mistake on my part. But, at the same time, you don’t expect the salesman and sales manager to BOTH lie to your face. The following morning, with a fresh head, I looked at the contract, and found, that I had in fact been correct, and they had changed the car price we had agreed on.

I called the dealership manger the following morning (who was polite by the way…it was the sales manager that was a big prick), and managed to get our original price reinstated after some arguing. I guess we were lucky, since we had already signed the contract, so I guess, ‘legally’ they had us by the balls.

This was the worst buying experience I’ve EVER had. But I guess I learned my lesson. Always buy a car on a ‘fresh’ head, and always take the contract home before you sign it. That, and don’t shop at Burlington Mazda. I shoulda gone to Halton Honda, where the saleman we had talked to earlier seemed much more decent.

I've heard about Louie. By dad's leased three cars from Burlington Mazda, and he hasn't had too many complaints, mostly because he dealed with a polite older gentleman. I was hoping to have the same experience. But I got a different sales guy, and as you can tell from my previous post, my experience was quite different.

Unfortunately, some business owners focus on the profit "here and now", rather than to look at the long-term approach and focusing on integrity and service. I can tell you that sometimes it's very hard to approve "Policy Adjustments". Occasionally it's a big money losing proposition, but ultimately the way I look at things is: "If I was the customer, what would I expect?". That usually dictates a far different answer than: "How much money are we going to make/lose?"

Anyway, congratulations on your purchase, and if you're in the west end, we'd love the opportunity to demonstrate why we have such great feedback. (It's because we have such great customers ;) )

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Originally Posted by OakvilleMazdaDP

Unfortunately, some business owners focus on the profit "here and now", rather than to look at the long-term approach and focusing on integrity and service. I can tell you that sometimes it's very hard to approve "Policy Adjustments". Occasionally it's a big money losing proposition, but ultimately the way I look at things is: "If I was the customer, what would I expect?". That usually dictates a far different answer than: "How much money are we going to make/lose?"

Anyway, congratulations on your purchase, and if you're in the west end, we'd love the opportunity to demonstrate why we have such great feedback. (It's because we have such great customers ;) )

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Thanks, I'll look into Oakville Mazda next time, particularly for servicing our new car. Although, I have to say Burlington Mazda did agree to give us our money back. Which is rare, because legally they didn't have too. They should just get rid of their salesmanager. I'm not the first one who has had problems with the guy.

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Originally Posted by OakvilleMazdaDP

Occasionally it's a big money losing proposition, but ultimately the way I look at things is: "If I was the customer, what would I expect?". That usually dictates a far different answer than: "How much money are we going to make/lose?"

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Slightly OT, but a book related to this subject that I highly recommended:

http://www.howsmatter.com/book/

Should be required reading for anyone running a business who wants long-term success.

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Originally Posted by disgruntled

That, and don’t shop at Burlington Mazda. I shoulda gone to Halton Honda, where the saleman we had talked to earlier seemed much more decent.

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Who did you have @ Halton Honda? My very close friend sells cars there and always gets sales awards. Wonder if it was him?

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Originally Posted by disgruntled

Thanks, I'll look into Oakville Mazda next time, particularly for servicing our new car. Although, I have to say Burlington Mazda did agree to give us our money back. Which is rare, because legally they didn't have too. They should just get rid of their salesmanager. I'm not the first one who has had problems with the guy.

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Go to see Jason @ Oakville Mazda for service. Jason has been going out of his way to make sure everyone has a good exp @ his dealership.

At Burlington Mazda it isn't just the sales manager. Just wait until you get in for service there. You'll hate it just as much.

I just about to say the same thing. The service & staff at Oakville Mazda is just amazing.

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Originally Posted by b

Who did you have @ Halton Honda? My very close friend sells cars there and always gets sales awards. Wonder if it was him?



Go to see Jason @ Oakville Mazda for service. Jason has been going out of his way to make sure everyone has a good exp @ his dealership.

At Burlington Mazda it isn't just the sales manager. Just wait until you get in for service there. You'll hate it just as much.

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At Honda, it was Marc P. The guy seemed decent. Although, we just talked to him when we were shopping around, so its hard to get the full picture. You usually don't know what the sales guy is going to be like until you start to negotiate.

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Originally Posted by disgruntled

At Honda, it was Marc P. The guy seemed decent. Although, we just talked to him when we were shopping around, so its hard to get the full picture. You usually don't know what the sales guy is going to be like until you start to negotiate.

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Ya that isn't my close friend but I do play poker with Marc P every few weeks. Tall guy, short dark hair.

Oakville Mazda is top notch, dealership is outdated but there moving into new dealership this summer I think, service is great though, once the dealership gets changed and updated it probebly will be the best Mazda Dealership in Ontario if not Canada. I got my oil changed and spoiler bought and installed there, everything went smoooooooooth.

I'm sorry to hear about all the issue with the sales department but the service department is alot better and that 5 out of 6 tech are Mazda Master Tech, I know this because I'm one of them, I'm not saying that where the best but we sure are not the worst...