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| - We stopped by Gaudin so hubby could test drive a Cayenne. Eric P. promptly greeted us and took us seriously with zero snobbery even though we were casually dressed. Hubby didn't buy it (went with a Mercedes) but told Eric to call in a couple of months because I had gone ga-ga over the zippy little Cayman sports cars on the lot.
Months later I was still talking about that Cayman. We never did hear from Eric so we contacted him to schedule a test drive. I love the Porsche design; they never fail to turn my head and I've ALWAYS wanted one of my very own. Hubby said that if that's my dream car, we should get one for me, and we decided to bite the bullet and buy a custom built Cayman.
Eric is a friendly, easygoing guy, a pleasure to deal with except for a couple of hiccups. First, he twice gave me erroneous information about the car I was considering (the cost of an extra package and info about the European delivery program). Second, I sent a follow-up e-mail with some pretty important questions and an appointment request but I never got a response. Apparently Eric "didn't get the e-mail," but he responded immediately to my husband when he sent a message 5 days later asking why he didn't respond to me. In the meantime, I had begun to shop my car build code to other dealers in CA and UT, and they promptly responded to all of my inquiries!
I prefer to buy my cars locally, but buying out of state isn't new to me. Armed with two stellar quotes from competing dealers and my final custom build, we went to Gaudin to work a purchase deal and sign the final papers. Eric wasn't available so he had Jeff S. take care of us. This is where everything totally fell apart.
Jeff rubbed me the wrong way from the start. He knew we were coming in to order my car, yet he hadn't even bothered to pull up my build code. It quickly became clear that this dealership isn't used to dealing with people who negotiate as he expected us to sign on the dotted line at the MSRP. I won't apologize for wanting to save money and I will never, ever agree to paying the MSRP on a new vehicle. That's just crazy talk!
We told Jeff that we had competing price offers from SLC and L.A., and he sat back with a smirk. We own a vacation property in UT and spend lots of time in the SLC area (he started LAUGHING when we said that, like he didn't believe us), and my husband's firm has an office in L.A. so we spend a lot of time there too. Buying a car at either of these places wouldn't be much of a hassle. With that, he actually said "what's it worth to you to buy your car from the place that will be servicing it and taking care of you?"
I replied, "no, what's it worth to YOU to get MY business?" I mean, really! Now Gaudin can be sure I will not take my car in for service there because of what Jeff said. He made me think that they'd either purposely mess up my car or treat me like crap because I didn't buy from them! I hope that's not what he meant, but it's certainly what was heavily implied. (I hate the MINI dealership in town so I always take my car to Murray, Utah for maintenance).
At this point we gave Jeff the numbers from the other dealerships and he left with a huff. He came back with Gaudin's final offer and it was nearly $4k more than the best offer we had from the dealer in L.A.! We asked if that was really the best he could do and he said yes, stuck out his hand, and said "thanks for stopping by."
I understand there's a cost to doing business but the deal we worked with the CA dealer wasn't exactly outrageously cheap because it's still a pricey luxury sports car. I get the feeling the folks at Gaudin didn't think we could afford the car because they were more than happy to let us walk away. This isn't a case of sour grapes because they wouldn't match the better price, but this felt far from the red carpet service they like to brag about. I'd be doubly embarrassed that I lost a sale from someone who literally lives less than five miles from their dealership.
Soon after we left, hubby got a call from Eric who said he could get their price within $2,300 of the best offer we had, reminding us that if we buy from Vegas I'd get "free car washes on Saturday." Yeah, that would have to be a heck of a lot of car washes to be worth $2k+! I'm not in the business of carelessly flushing thousands of dollars down the toilet for no reason, so we took the best deal and remotely signed the paperwork with the CA dealer's internet manager.
If you're in the market for a Porsche and want to get your car for several percentage points off the sticker price, you need to shop your build to out of state dealers because Gaudin prefers to sell to customers at MSRP, period.
My new Cayman is being built at the factory in Germany as we speak and it will be delivered in early January. I'm already so excited about it that I have trouble sleeping; this car will be a literal dream come true for me. Too bad my local Porsche dealership can't share in that excitement.
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