Russell Subaru may have had a low dealer processing fee, but in the end with bad and puchy customer service and some questionable practices like having customers sign blank loan applications I found there were far better deals to be had elsewhere!
Recently I was looking for a new Subaru Legacy all wheel drive car. I wanted a brand new white one and apparently Russell Subaru on the Baltimore National Pike here in Baltimore Maryland had it in stock. Also, I am from Calfornia where car dealers charge as much as $700 or more for processing fees, so when my friends told me that Russell Subaru only had a $100 processing fee I was ecstatic.
Then I got to the car dealer and the sales person I met, Bob Rickelman, was definitely more interested in making a quick sale than anything I had to say. It also appeared that the salesperson had a hangover and might have been suffering from a previous long night out on the town. He wasn’t the most courteous person I ever met and was extremely pushy.
Then it came time to meet with the finance manager, a guy named Bong Lee. This guy was nice but kept trying to get me to sign a blank loan application saying that it was the end of the night and they were closing and that he would fill in the information for me. How is he going to do this if he wasn’t me? The loan application is for me to fill out not for him to fill out. Isn’t that fraud?
Out in California car dealers and finance managers that require their customers to sign blank application forms get arrested and fined big time. The reason they do this with blank loan application forms is that they can then make your income and other important items whatever they want to make sure you get approved. And I don’t know if that was his intentions here, but it pretty much seemed like it was.
Why else would you have someone sign a blank loan application form and not have them fill it in? I don’t think there’s any other reason why. If he was worried that they were closing that night I was not a disagreeable customer and could have easily come back next day with a properly filled out loan application.
This equipmed with the fact that he was trying way too hard to sell me things I did not want like an extended warranty and other things that actually nothing to do with the car I wanted to purchase, and the fact that I had probably had the pushiest car sales person I’ve ever had in my life, when the moment was right and the finance manager left the office for a second, I took off and left the car dealership.
They called and called trying to get me to come back and wondering why I left, but I would not return their calls. I ended up going to MileOne Heritage Honda on Hartford road in nearby Parkville Maryland where I got better treatment and I ended up buying a brand new loaded V6 Honda Accord at dealer cost. I got a sweet deal, better and honest treatment and a really nice car – far better then the Subaru Legacy I was originally looking at.
The sales manager at MileOne Heritage Honda felt for me and the bad experience I had at Russell Subaru so he even threw in a brand new set of upgraded factory chrome wheels after the deal was already made at no charge! Where else are you going to get that? My recommendation is that you stay away from Russell Subaru and definitely give MileOne Heritage Honda a look before you buy your next car.
Warning!! – This is most likely a response from an employee of Russell Subaru – Warning!!
This sounds like a total fabrication of events. Russel Subaru is a very easy place to do business and is not pushy at all. This sounds like something written by an advertising person for Heritage. I suggest not believing everything you read on the internet as factual but instead check things out for yourself.
I was apart of fraud at Russell Automotive group, the dealership was crappy, they are in fact a bunch of crooks and very well known for malicious acts.
In March of 2007 I was trying to trade in my car for another car, and they had me sign all the necessary paper work, EXCEPT for a Sales Contract which I thought was funny to me, so after I took the car off the lot, not even 2 weeks later the dealership called me telling me to bring back the car due to my lack of financing in essence the loan was declined with Chevy Chase Bank/Capital One!
But later in 2009 I was contacted my a third party company by the name of TIDEWATER CREDIT SERVICE’S in regards to a car I never purchased, but got a fraudulent deal from Chevy Chase/Capital One & Russell Automotive Group from March of 2007; and claims I owe them money, they have sent investigators to my home threating to harm me and assault me over a car; that I had no idea what happen to.
This dealership won’t be around much longer by the time I finish with them, they will be liquidfing their assets to pay me my money! I hope to goodness this don’t happen to anyone else!
John