As many of you know I’ve closed my business and taken on new employment, hence the need for a “smaller” vehicle and no more need for the monster diesel I owned. I have been searching for the better part of 3-4 weeks for something that fit the bill. While I wasn’t too happy with my experience with the Ford product (with my diesel engine letting me down after 112,000 miles) I started to investigate some other brands. No offense to the bowtie guys but there was nothing Chevy offered that really caught my eye. I was really impressed with some of the more recent offerings from Dodge and heard good reviews about the performance of the Hemi engines. I drove quite a few Dodge’s (thanks to Thunderbunny for your help) and finally narrowed down my budget (since I hadn’t really worked since November of 2013) my options became more limited. I’ll try to get to the point here.
About two weeks ago a Dodge popped in my internet search at Basil South (what I believe used to be the old Jim Doyle Ford) on Abbott near Ridge Road. I emailed their staff but no one got back to me and I figured they were busy. Since they were on my way home from my new job, I decided to stop by. I met Mike (the salesman) and asked about the Dodge 1500 that I didn’t see anywhere and he informed me that unfortunately it was sold the day before. It was a nice truck so I wasn’t surprised.
We decided to sit down at the computer and go through the inventory to see what WAS available. There was an 09 Dodge that fir the profile, but it was at another Basil location and unfortunately it was also sold when we called them. He had one more and offered to have it transferred over the following day. The next morning he called me with some bad news. Someone made a deal on that one the night before and it was also sold. I did ask Mike to investigate another truck I saw on the internet that morning. It was an 06 Ford F150 FX4 listed at the Basil Transit location. I really wasn’t interested in Fords anymore but it looked clean, and again, fit the profile of my needs.
So that evening (sometime last week) I stopped out after work and we took it for a ride. First impressions was that it was a pretty clean truck and rode pretty well. After we went back inside I told Mike that I was interested in what I saw and we just needed to work out the details of my trade in value, as what I was being told from numerous other dealers was a very wide range. After the typical offers made back and forth, we agreed on a number and I had some simple requests as part of the deal. Since it was dark out, and it was a black truck, I wanted to be able to go over it again, and take it to my mechanic to put it up on the lift and have the mechanicals checked out. What I noticed that night was this. I brought this to Mike’s attention and it was to be taken care of, no big deal.
The bulb at the console shifter was out.
The window vent shade on the drivers side was cracked in half.
There was a deep scratch in the tailgate near the handle. It was through the clearcoat, and I think the paint. It looked like someone tried to buff it out and clouded the paint around it.
Mike was pleasant, helpful, and understanding (as was the owner of the dealership who I met that night) and I felt like I was finally at a place where the typical “car salesman / dealership” mentality and profile was not the norm. I set up an appointment to take the truck Friday afternoon to Saturday to bring to my mechanic. I was working the home show Saturday and Sunday and it was the only time available for me to get this done. Here is the email I sent to Mike on Thursday of last week.
I wanted to take a moment to thank you (and the owner, I forget him name I’m
sorry) for helping me out with this deal. I know you had little to work with as
far as my trade was concerned and I was pleased to work with you on this. I’ve
had a lot of visits to local dealerships and met with a lot of people over these
last few weeks but your group was by far the best to work with and I didn’t feel
like I had to be irritably on guard with our conversations. I’m generally a
pretty honest guy (when I’m not lying) and like to be straight with people and
appreciate it when they’re straight with me. I would be comfortable with
recommending your dealership to others and hope that the remainder of our
transaction goes smoothly and without incident.
I set up an appointment with my mechanic for Saturday late morning and I’ll plan
on dropping off my truck Friday evening and returning the other one Saturday mid
day. I will keep you posted on my efforts to get my truck ready to drop off to
you next week. Again, thanks for your help and keep up the good work.
PS-IF you could note on the work order not to put any dealership vinyl on the
paint, license plate frames are OK. Thanks.
This is the email I sent to him before he came back to work on Monday.
Hey Mike. I’m sure this email finds you passed out in your tuxedo in a bathtub
somewhere. Hope you had a good time at the wedding this weekend and you had
ample time to recover. I dropped the truck back of Saturday evening after my
mechanic gave it a thorough once over. Here’s where we’re at:
- Overall the truck is in good condition and no signs of serious problems. It
did have a snow plow on it at one time but I’m not overly concerned about that.
We think there was some touch up paintwork here and there but no issues. - There are some minor issues (mechanical, interior, and cosmetic), nothing
major, that I’ll list below.
Mechanical:
- The parking (emergency) brakes are non-functional.
- The rear rotors are shot. New pads were installed on all wheels but the inner
surface of the rear rotors are barely contacting the pad and it creates a shake
when braking down from higher speeds. I think they should’ve just been replaced
when the pads went on. - The right front wheel bearing is not in horrible condition but it is on it’s
way out. - The transmission cooler lines up near the radiator have been “repaired” but
it appears that the damaged portions were just cut and replaced with rubber hose
and clamps. Not the best solution and one of the clamps is leaking. Not a huge
deal but I think it should be done right.
Interior:
- Would like to have the internal light bulb that out replaced at the shifter
handle. - Wondering if you guys have floor mats that came with the truck. I just want
to be able to put something down until I order the weathertech molded mats.
Exterior:
- I know I mentioned the paint scratch on the tailgate. I’m not sure how the
body shop was planning on taking care of that but there’s a little “crease” near
the lower center left of the tailgate. Maybe the body shop can bondo and level
that while they’re doing the scratch. - There’s 2-3 dimples in the rear bumper but I don’t see any way to rectify
that and I won’t worry about them.
Misc.:
- Wondering if there’s an extra remote for the door locks and also wondering if
we can figure out the car starter on the remote. I’ve had no luck. - Would need the code for the driver’s door keypad so I can re-program it to my
liking. - The driver’s vent shade is broken but just leave it be. I’ll take care of it
in the Spring.
Again, not really too many issues. I have an appointment to have the plow wiring
/ mount removed Tuesday evening and it looks like I’ll be on track for Thursday
evening for the switch over. I have the original title with the letter from Ford
Credit (the original financier when I bought it) stating their interest in the
vehicle has been satisfied. As I mentioned previously, I’m planning on
transferring the current plates / registration to the new truck. Please let me
know what you need to take care of that. Please give me a call to let me know
you received this and that we’re on track for Thursday. I have to work the Home
Show all next weekend so Thursday is the best / only day to do this. Thanks
again.
I got a call from Mike (on Monday IIRC) basically stating that he had a good weekend at the wedding and he got my email about the truck. “There’s a little problem” I believe he said. We can’t put this kind of money into the truck. I talked to my service manager and we’re talking about $ 1,800 to take care of the things on your list. I told him “well, I understand that to a point, everyone’s got to make money and your business is no different. Tell you what. I’ll take care of the rear rotors and the front wheel bearing. You guys take care of the tranny cooler lines and the stuff mentioned on the list from the first night I looked at it (tailgate, light bulb) and I’ll worry about the vent shade on the driver’s door. That sounds like a reasonable compromise.” Mike told me he would talk to his service manager and he would get back to me. OK.
About 10-15 minutes later, the service manager calls me directly and tells me “look, I spoke to Mike and I’ll agree to your idea about the repairs. As far as the tailgate is concerned, you can’t fix the crease in the tailgate because it’s something that would need to be filled, leveled, and painted”. I told him “well how hard could it be when you’re going to be painting the scratch in the tailgate anyway.” His response was “wait a minute. I’m not painting the tailgate. It would cost me $300 to paint it and we simply don’t have the money to put into that with the great deal we gave you on your trade in. We’re just going to hit it with some touch up paint”. At this point, I really got a little pissed off. I told him “touch up paint! shit, I could do that myself! I made some reasonable concessions on issue with the vehicle and you’re telling me you’re going to put a bandaid on the problem and that’s it?” He told me “well we got this truck from another location and really didn’t have a chance to go through it. Are you going to come in tomorrow to sign all the paperwork?” I told him “No, I told Mike that the earliest I could come back was Thursday to complete the paperwork as I had commitments with getting my truck ready to turn in.” His response was “well I don’t want to go sinking all the money into this truck if you’re going to back out on the deal”. I told him "look, I want the truck and I’ve gone too far to go back now. Just do what we discussed and I’ll see you Thursday.
I decided to call David Basil since they are a site sponsor and I remember seeing numerous posts from him over the years. I got his cell number he posted on one of his original threads and left him a message detailing my issue. He told me that he would try to talk to the owner and see what he could do and he’d call me back today. That was the last I heard from him.
I’m sorry this is a long post (if you’ve bothered to read it this far) but I want to make sure I don’t leave anything out so this can be misconstrued at a later date. I picked up the truck tonight and as I suspected, the scratch was covered over in touch up paint. As a new employee in my company they make it clear that the customer and their satisfaction are key to what we do for them. While we need to set boundaries on how far we can go to please a customer, it’s the little details we pay attention to and take care of that make them pleased with the relationship they have with us.
I went to numerous dealerships, with mostly poor results and experiences. My mother purchased her Saturn a few years ago from Basil in Depew and she had a pleasant purchase, and service since. My feelings of satisfaction, relief, and security went immediately south once I spoke to them this week and went from a feeling of “I lucked out with a solid group of guys and feel good about this” to " I wonder where else they cut corners to get this truck sold".
Take from this what you want, tell me I’m being ridiculous, or agree with me. Others have posted their good experiences with Basil (this particular location as a matter of fact) and I think all reviews should be posted, not just the sparkly ones.
