Seattle Leaf Dealers review

[Anonymous]

Well, seems clear that Eastside isn't getting my service business. I don't get why they wouldn't want to do warranty work. They get paid and their customer gets a free repair... My first experience with a used car under warranty was amazing. Took it into the Acura dealership to have them check it out and came back with all sorts of new stuff that I didn't even realize was an issue. Anyway, will be picking my leaf up in the next few days and hopefully will not need service for while but I look forward to hearing more about Younker and Stadium.

Actually, Nissan dealers trying to avoid warranty work is a country-wide problem. If you check on other Nissan forums, you'll see a common thread about this. Apparently Nissan North America (corporate) will "ding" or in some way hinder (possibly by not offering the best deals) to dealerships that they fell have too many warranty claims. Because of this, certain dealerships will try to avoid doing warranty work so that they don't look back to corporate. Granted, not all dealers are this way, there are some good ones out there that DO care about their customers, but many are like Eastside in that they seem to not give a crap about customers at all.

I should note that I don't know the specifics first-hand, but rather going off of what I've heard from various people on several different Nissan owner forums. Because you know that everything you read on the internet is 100% accurate...

 

[KeithFrechette]

Although I haven't completed the purchase yet (my LEAF is due in September), overall I've had a favorable experience with Nissan of the Eastside to date. I suspect that it does matter whom you work with, though. Here's been my Seattle-area NISSAN experience so far, spanning several dealerships in my quest to get a LEAF.

1. First, I used Nissan's LEAF web site to track down a local LEAF dealer: Nissan of the Eastside. The web site initiated a request to the dealership's "Internet sales" rep. He never got back to me, even though the automated response said he'd get back to me within several hours. After several days I called the dealership and explained the situation. The woman who answered didn't offer much compassion for no one getting back to me, but she was at least able to confirm that they didn't have any LEAFs available for a test drive.

2. I then tried Stadium Nissan of Seattle. Over the phone they were very friendly, and they had me make an appointment to test drive a LEAF with their LEAF specialist. Due to my own scheduling issues, it would be several days before my appointment. On the night before the appointment, I got a strange call from the dealership. The woman (who had originally set up my test drive appointment) said there was a LEAF available for $39,000, and wanted to see if I was interested. When I inquired what options caused the $5000 difference in price from what I had expected for LEAFs, she said she didn't have that information but that I'd be able to find out when I came in for the test drive. As I got out of my vehicle at the dealership, I was greeted by a friendly face. When I mentioned that I had an appointment to test drive a LEAF, he immediately took me over to the car. As we were walking to the car, I mentioned the phone call I had received and asked what options made the price of that particular LEAF so high. I nearly laughed when he told me that the sticker price for the car was $34,000 and that there were simply asking for $5000 over sticker. I smiled as I told him that I wasn't going to let a dealership screw me into paying $5000 over sticker for any car. :shock: It was amusing to see him try to convince me that charging more than sticker wasn't screwing his customers. :lol: Well, the test drive went fine, but it was clear that several of the folks that tried to explain LEAF features to me really didn't know what they were talking about. So, I decided that they wouldn't be getting my business. I want to help save the planet, but I'm not desperate. Several days later I got a call from the dealership, wondering why I never showed up for my test drive appointment. Interesting. It seems that the rep who greeted me decided to hijack the appointment from the rep who was supposed to meet with me (I didn't know I was supposed to meet with someone specific) and didn't even bother to tell her. Nice teamwork!

3. A few days later I was in traffic behind a LEAF that had a Campbell-Nelson NISSAN license plate, so I decided to look them up on the web. Interestingly, their web site showed that they had 5-7 LEAFs in stock, so I used their web site to request a quote for one of them. Of course, that appears to have been more of a ploy to sucker people into getting onto their $2,499 waiting list:

Hello,

Thank you for your request on the Nissan Leaf.

All of the Nissan Leaf's have been pre-ordered by our customers and
although they are showing on our website most are pre-sold and not available.
However.....

Some people who have ordered have had complications that will
prevent them from taking delivery so we will have limited orphan
cars available to those of you that are not on the waiting list.

These cars will be first come, first serve and will have a price of $2,499 over
MSRP price. We will not negotiate on this price! Every orphan Leaf so far
has sold in under 10 minutes from the time that we learned the customer
was not going to take delivery to people who had expressed interest in the
Leaf at any cost.

Interesting. Well, I guess that it's nice that they're willing to screw people for only about half that of Stadium Nissan.

4. So, when Nissan finally opened the reservation system again and I was able to order, I decided to go with Nissan of the Eastside, since I was only mildly annoyed with them. Fortunately, this time I was hooked up with Tony Talton, who has been very responsive in getting my questions answered and occasionally getting me some play time in a LEAF. Having read through all of the online manuals for the LEAF, I naturally had questions abouthow things worked "in reality", including the navigation system, audio system, etc, and Tony has arranged to let me get some private time to do some hands-on learning. Specifically, as a Microsoftie working in Windows Phone, I was interested in how compatible the LEAF was with Windows Phone 7, given that NISSAN keeps touting "iPhone" support. So it was great to be able to run through various end-user scenarios and take that info back to my team to see what we can do to improve the LEAF / Windows Phone experience.

So, I'm sticking with Nissan of the Eastside for the time being, and I'll update this discussion thread if things change or if I feel compelled to add more positive stuff.

-- Keith

 

[derekjsmith]

Not sure how anyone would consider a dealer markup as screwing the customer. Nissan made sure all that pre ordered had dealer options and most dealers discounted for our business. Now that a few orphans show up and the dealers have open waiting lists they are going to mark up for those that are willing to pay for that privilege. If they don’t want to pay a premium then pre order and get in line like the rest of us did.

 

[davewill]

Not sure how anyone would consider a dealer markup as screwing the customer...

Oh, that's simple. The car's not worth it. The fact that some idiots are stupid enough to pay the markup doesn't mean it isn't a ripoff.

Besides, we lobbied for all these incentives to jumpstart the technology. Having those incentives go to enriching the dealers doesn't achieve any public purpose.

 

[KeithFrechette]

Exactly. The LEAF pricing and tax incentives are intended (as I understand) to spur the EV revolution. What the dealers appear to be doing is taking advantage of customers' desires to follow their hearts / save the planet / give the middle finger to the oil companies, etc. Instead of helping to make the LEAFs affordable to those who might otherwise not be able to justify the expense, the dealers appear to be convincing people to help them line their dealership's pockets with the tax incentive, making NISSAN look bad in the process.

-- Keith

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

I'd like to put in a good word for Dino at Campbell-Nelson, they get a lot of Leaf's and Dino knows his stuff. I found him to be personally enthusiastic about the Leaf and quite up to date about it. The purchase process and delivery introduction were quite smooth.

george

 

[QueenBee]

Exactly. The LEAF pricing and tax incentives are intended (as I understand) to spur the EV revolution. What the dealers appear to be doing is taking advantage of customers' desires to follow their hearts / save the planet / give the middle finger to the oil companies, etc. Instead of helping to make the LEAFs affordable to those who might otherwise not be able to justify the expense, the dealers appear to be convincing people to help them line their dealership's pockets with the tax incentive, making NISSAN look bad in the process.

-- Keith

I really disagree with your take. I'm not very familiar with how other high demand cars have been sold but I think Nissan as a company looks very good by setting up a process that allows the customer to agree on a price a head of time and encourages dealerships to compete and not have an additional high markup. The orphaned cars is just the free market responding to the shortage. If there is a demand from people willing to pay $5000 more than MSRP than it will either be met by the orphaned cars or by people who buy and resell them. It would definitely be very good PR if dealerships were selling the orphaned cars at MSRP but IMO I see no reason why they should, if people want to pay more to not have to wait 4 months then that is fine with me. As far as the incentives, are you really riled up that the buyer isn't paying the $50 in sales tax on the marked up amount? The only thing these dealerships are taking advantage of is peoples desire to not have to wait for something they want.

 

[Anonymous]

Exactly. The LEAF pricing and tax incentives are intended (as I understand) to spur the EV revolution. What the dealers appear to be doing is taking advantage of customers' desires to follow their hearts / save the planet / give the middle finger to the oil companies, etc. Instead of helping to make the LEAFs affordable to those who might otherwise not be able to justify the expense, the dealers appear to be convincing people to help them line their dealership's pockets with the tax incentive, making NISSAN look bad in the process.

-- Keith

I really disagree with your take. I'm not very familiar with how other high demand cars have been sold but I think Nissan as a company looks very good by setting up a process that allows the customer to agree on a price a head of time and encourages dealerships to compete and not have an additional high markup. The orphaned cars is just the free market responding to the shortage. If there is a demand from people willing to pay $5000 more than MSRP than it will either be met by the orphaned cars or by people who buy and resell them. It would definitely be very good PR if dealerships were selling the orphaned cars at MSRP but IMO I see no reason why they should, if people want to pay more to not have to wait 4 months then that is fine with me. As far as the incentives, are you really riled up that the buyer isn't paying the $50 in sales tax on the marked up amount? The only thing these dealerships are taking advantage of is peoples desire to not have to wait for something they want.

I second this. The dealers are kind of locked into Nissan's policy, and they're having to complete pretty harshly for the pre-ordered Leafs, so when one is orphaned and they can turn around and sell it to anyone, I don't see why they should have to put up with only accepting a pre-set amount like MSRP. Any hot car in short supply and high demand goes for a significant premium over MSRP, why should the Leaf be different? We're just lucky that the whole process for normal orders is between Nissan and Us, rather than them just giving dealers an allotment to auction off as they see fit, like the Volt dealers.