At Kia of Mankato, our professional and friendly staff is ready to provide you with all the help you need. We are committed to you feeling that the vehicle you drive away in is the perfect one for you. Our service department will deliver quality and efficient vehicle care. At Kia of Mankato, our professional and friendly staff is ready to provide you with all the help you need. We are committed to you feeling that the vehicle you drive away in is the perfect one for you. Our service department will deliver quality and efficient vehicle care.
At Kia of Mankato, our professional and friendly staff is ready to provide you with all the help you need. We are committed to you feeling that the vehicle you drive away in is the perfect one for you. Our service department will deliver quality and efficient vehicle care. At Kia of Mankato, our professional and friendly staff is ready to provide you with all the help you need. We are committed to you feeling that the vehicle you drive away in is the perfect one for you. Our service department will deliver quality and efficient vehicle care.
At Kia of Mankato, our professional and friendly staff is ready to provide you with all the help you need. We are committed to you feeling that the vehicle you drive away in is the perfect one for you. Our service department will deliver quality and efficient vehicle care. At Kia of Mankato, our professional and friendly staff is ready to provide you with all the help you need. We are committed to you feeling that the vehicle you drive away in is the perfect one for you. Our service department will deliver quality and efficient vehicle care.
We drove 1.5 hrs specifically for a Kia Seltos that the dealership had in stock. After a test drive, we decided to purchase the vehicle. However, when reviewing the dealership’s offer for our trade in, it was significantly lower than expected. We asked if they could increase their offer, to which they answered no. We knew they wouldn’t adjust the price of the new vehicle, so we asked if they could throw in any extra incentives (i.e. add in the car protection plan they offered). They also said no, and our sales rep casually mentioned “I’m not sure our sales manager wants to make a deal with you at all at this point.” Because we asked a few questions to make sure we were getting the best deal, the sales manager would potentially refuse to work with us? That seems very sketchy/scam-like.
At this point, we asked to have a few minutes to discuss what we wanted to do about the trade in (whether we wanted to do the trade in or keep our current car and sell it later on our own). We did not express that we were not moving forward with purchasing the vehicle, for which we had already started paperwork on. During this time, another sales rep came over and took the keys for the vehicle – we thought they were letting someone drive it to see if they liked that particular model, not to potentially sell them the vehicle we were actively purchasing.
We decided to move forward with the trade in and agreed to everything the dealership put in front of us. We signed off on the deal, but were told us that we couldn’t move forward because the vehicle was on a test drive and the current driver would be given first priority on if she wanted to purchase it or not.
We were incredibly frustrated and asked to speak to the sales manager directly so he could explain how this could happen. Sales Manager Matt Strehlow said that he assumed we wouldn’t sign a deal since the trade in was lower than expected (that was never the case and was not something we ever mentioned) and that we had to wait until the current test driver made a decision. He never asked us if we would be not moving forward or let us know that if we don’t sign the deal quickly that the vehicle would be up for grabs. We were completely blindsided!
He continually asked for us to be understanding, but never apologized or took ownership of the fact that the whole situation was handled poorly and with a lack of transparency. Instead he made us wait 20 minutes for the other driver to return even though we had already agreed to their deal AND had already started filling out the necessary paperwork for financing.
This car was literally ripped out from under us because we took a few extra minutes to agree to the deal that was put in front of us and asked a few questions. It was absolutely ridiculous that this could even happen and I still do not understand how or why the second test driver was given priority when we had already started the process to purchase the vehicle and agreed to a deal before she did.
In reading some other reviews, it sounds like our situation at this dealership (particularly with the way Matt approaches customer service) is not entirely unique. So my 2 takeaways are:
1. If you ask questions or try to negotiate in any way, Matt will refuse to work with you (other reviewers have noted this as well)
2. The dealership (Matt in particular) does not take any responsibility for their actions or their poor customer experience. Instead, they just simply say “we’re not the dealership for you.” In this case, that’s probably true because we are looking to work with an ethical, honest and transparent dealer.
Matt’s lack of honesty and integrity throughout this situation has made sure that we will not be reaching out about any other available vehicles during our current search or any future searches.