Flow MINI

Lets cut to the heart of it: there's a good reason why Flow owns a dealership for every possible make of car you can imagine in Winston-Salem, it's because the franchise is built around overcharging customers. Every car on the lot is overpriced by about 15-20% compared to the fair market value...I'm talking dealership estimates too, not comparing vs. private sellers. Worse still, when you ask for some wiggle room on the sticker price they say that it is a 'no haggle' price. Whoever heard of such a pile of crap? Especially if you are trading in a vehicle you can be damn sure they will haggle you down on your trade-in value and nickle and dime you to death on every possible defect so why the double standard? Simple, it allows them to bend their customers over the barrel and maximize their profits. Be aware, do your own research on Kelly Blue Book or any of the good estimate sites so you know the real value of the car you are looking at. The best advice I can give you if you are in the market for a Mini is to take your business elsewhere but if you prefer to make up your own mind, be armed with the following information going into Flow Mini, here are their tactics (note: we were shopping for used cars only, I can't speak to new vehicles): 1)They'll show you a big list of all the repairs made to the vehicle in their shop since they acquired it. Pay special attention to the numbers. The first thing to note is that it's about 60/40 split between labor/parts...remember they have a full garage on site and a team of mechanics to maintain their vehicles, they aren't paying labor at anything approaching the $100/hr they are claiming on this sheet. Also they round everything up...an oil change takes 10 mins, not an hour but that's what they'll put down for the labor. They'll also list several made-up line items specifically to inflate the price, like 'detailing' for $100...but when you look at the car there are still scuffs and scratches in the paint and the interior/dash is grubby...so what exactly did they do for detailing? Nothing. Maybe a vaccuum and a wash but that's about it. There will be some valid repairs on there for sure, but the majority are grossly exagerated. 2)They charge a $600 'documentation fee' with every purchase. North Carolina has no law to cap how much dealers can charge for this fee and Flow Mini takes full advantage as that $600 is among the highest charged in the nation! What is a 'doc fee' exactly? If you've ever sold a car privately you know how simple it is, you sign the title on the back, give the buyer a bill of sale, take your tags and that's basically it. It's up to the buyer to comlete the requisite paperwork with the DMV to register the vehicle, etc. Flow Mini likes to pretend that they're doing you a huge favor by handling these simple tasks by tacking on $600 onto your bill. Sure, the DMV is not fun but is it worth $600 to you? It's a perfect example of a sleazy tactic to exploit the consumer. 3)Misrepresentation of features: we found numerous inconsistencies between what features they listed online and what the vehicle on the lot actually had. For example, they would list it as having the "sports package" when all it had was the stripes and maybe the special headlights but it wouldn't have anything else (e.g. 17 inch wheels, stability control, etc). Or it would list it as having heated seats or the premium sound or the panoramic roof and it would simply not have these features at all. One or even two mistakes I could write it off as basic human error, but we saw it with every single vehicle we looked at. That's intentionally deceptive and calculated, and not the kind of people I want to do business with. 4)My BS alarm started clanging like mad when their 'sales manager' started touting their 2 yr warranty and how it was absolutely necessary that the vehicle always be serviced at the dealsership because the engines were 'special' and had a 'special computer' that controls everything (he said that repeatedly), that they take 'special oil' that requires an expert to change or you'll ruin the engine. Really buddy? A quick search online shows that Minis take 5W30 synthetic, which is very common (second in popularity only to 10w30 in the country)...and computers? this isn't the 70s, all cars made in the last 25-30 years have custom computers, ask any mechanic. This is about the point where we got sick of having smoke blown up our butts and decided to leave before we found their hands going thru our pockets. Overall just a very unpleasant experience for us, we were treated like idiots and any points we made about the actual value of the vehicles were treated with contempt, as though we should trust their valuation over that of an impartial 3rd party (like KBB)...absolutely ridiculous.