Classic Ford Lincoln of Columbia

by kei on 12/20/2018

I worked with two different salemens to complete a trade in on my car. The first guy was extremely nice and seemed as though he had my best interest in mind however with the second guy, it was clear that he just wanted to make a sale. I was given and promised a quote that was not accurate once I got in the back with the financial guy, even after I asked both salesmen that same specific questions. I then asked about being provided with options and the young man stated that was all the dealership for 2018 vehicles, like how is that possible? Once in the back with the financial guy, he was attempting to upsale the purchase and definitely did not match the price (monthly) or state date for 1st payment that both salesmen quoted me. I felt rushed and given adequate chance to find a vehicle I truly loved. I went through Ford because I had previously heard good things about them, but now I am definitely second guessing that decision. This was truly one of the worst experiences with car buying.

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by jcrowder81 on 04/25/2017

1 star because negative 5 stars wasn't an option. Where do I begin with this joke of a dealership? Called last week about a used Ford Fusion listed online for $14,999. Made an appointment with Hope to come to the dealership to discuss. Of course, the car wasn't available (to be fair, Hope mentioned that she thought they'd taken it somewhere). I wasn't allowed to speak with Hope as a young man, who's name I don't remember, insisted on "writing up my paperwork". My 6 year old daughter was with me at the time. The salesmen then attempted the famous car salesman technique of leaving me alone with my daughter for an hour and a half in the hopes that my child's behavior or need for dinner (it was 5:30-6:00) would coerce me into signing whatever was given to me so that I could get out of there. Little did they know that she had already been fed, is very well-behaved in public and I hadn't seen her in 4 days so I was excited to spend time with her. Also, I'm not a horrible parent and I don't get easily annoyed by her behavior in the first place. In fact, spending time with her was the only positive of the entire experience. Anyway, an hour and a half later, I was informed that they didn't have the right "incentives" to put me in the car I wanted and was offered a 7 year old car with 100k miles at THE SAME PRICE. The second option was a 5 year old hybrid with 80k miles and a bad battery that I would have to pay out of pocket to replace. I declined and began to leave. The young man asked me to wait a moment so that he could tell his manager "what we decided to do". I'm not an idiot and didn't have time for another sales tactic, so I headed out the door. The manager met me on the way out and seemed dismayed that I wouldn't take a damaged 5 year old car. I noticed that they pulled the car up to the front door as I was leaving, hoping that I'd look at it and take it. Came in for a Ford Fusion, offered a 2002 Toyota with a bad battery. The price of the Fusion has since increased online. Fast forward a week later and I see a car that's $4k less than the one I initially inquired about. Being a glutton for punishment, apparently, I called Hope again and inquired about this one. I told her about my experience, she apologized and told me that the gentleman in question had been let go. I told her that I was willing to give them another shot but that I was on the last day of my rental and fully intended to purchase a vehicle that day. She promised to forward my information along to her manager and "stay on him all day" to get me an answer. The manager called, asked me a question, and I never heard from him again. I called the dealership I dealt with previously, set up a deal, paid for a rental again and now I'll finally have the car I wanted still under factory warranty, with less miles and with a monthly payment I can easily afford a day from now. The interactions I had with Hope were friendly and professional. She seemed like she was genuinely trying to help, and I appreciate all she did. I feel that her talents are wasted at this car dealership.

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by Stonhead on 05/25/2016

First vehicle I purchased using the Internet. I was quoted the Internet price, went to the dealer to test drive and completed the purchase without the usual haggling. Completing the paperwork took way too long, but this was due to being the end of the day and only one finance person working.

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by NGLines on 01/27/2016

Worst car buying experience I've ever had. The process took the entire day, and we were rushed at the end, and pushed into buying expensive warranties and service plans we didn't need. We thought we were doing the right thing by buying a pre-owned vehicle; two years old with 50,000 miles, and no trade (so nothing negative brought into the loan). Turns out we were wrong. A year and a half later, we are still $10,000 upside-down in this vehicle. Just had another local dealership tell us that Classic "saw us coming, and buried us in this car". Even tried speaking with the finance manager a few months after we bought the vehicle and found out how bad we had been gotten, but he simply said "there's nothing we can do" after offering $11,500 on a vehicle we had just purchased from them for over $26,000 (with warranties). I wish we had done better research instead of being impulsive, but at the end of the day, we were taken advantage of. I have had several friends come to me for help in shopping for a car, and I have steered them well clear of Classic, and will continue doing so.

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by Elizabeth35sc on 02/06/2014

By the end of my experience with these people I was ready to pull my hair out. Felt totally jerked around

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by shay_c08 on 01/21/2014

When I started my lease I was mislead on how to bring my car in once my mileage had been reached. When I discovered that I had been lied to I called to talk with someone about my options and set an appointment with Hope in the leasing department. Hope never met with me, instead a sales person did who got their manager who informed me that my previous sales person and her manager no longer worked there and I would have to pay $4,000 to end my lease. I was not offered an apology or given any type of acknowledgement about the fact that I was lied to and that impacted my purchase. I will not return to Classic Ford.

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by bentley14 on 08/10/2012

We bought a truck last year & were treated very nice. We didn't feel we were an inconvince to them like some places made us feel. If we ever get another vehicle it will be from Classic Ford! I hope Larry is still there if we get another car. We did not correspond via e-mail.

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by lost216 on 07/29/2012

I have purchased two vehicles from this dealership, and both times were excellent. The first one went smoothly, the second they bent over backwards to get me the car I wanted for the price I needed.

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by slr0619 on 07/27/2011

In February 2011 we bought a used 2006 For Explorer XLT. We came to Classic Ford looking for an SUV big enough to suit our fairly large family, but not so big that we wouldn't be able to afford gas. The salesman showed us the 2006 Explorer, and while I wasn't expecting much, I fell in love with the vehicle. It was everything I wanted, down to being the right color. The salesman would not tell us the asking price, but instead insisted on running our credit, etc to see what we could get financed for. Financing or no financing, it's a bit important to know how much you're paying for a vehicle, no? Anyway after hours of going back and forth with the bank, we were finally given a price. Now, the finance company didn't do too bad in that department, however I did not like feeling 'out of the loop' on the pricing at all. When my husband test-drove the vehicle he said it felt like the transmission was slipping when he got on the highway. He made them look at it, and they told us it was the coil packs and they fixed it... Put that in our agreement and everything. They also had to fix a seat in the middle row that wouldn't fold down. Everything seemed to turn out fine. We bought the vehicle and went on our merry way. Not even 7 days later, we were headed to Colorado for our military move, and my 'new truck' broke down in the middle of the tollway in Chicago. When we called Classic Ford we were told that we had gone over the initial 30 warranty because it only covered 1000 miles. It is only 800 miles to Chicago, and our days in Columbia were spent at home preparing for our move. There was no way we had gone over 1000 miles in one week. We found the nearest Ford dealer to where we had broken down, and manged to get the truck to putter it's way down the road to the dealership. There we found out that the problem was 2 bad coil packs!!! The exact issue that Classic Ford was supposed to have fixed in the first place! When we tried to contact Classic Ford again, we were completely ignored. Either the manager 'wasn't in the office,' 'was in a meeting,' or just plain 'wasn't available'. We would be put on hold forever and/or our calls were never returned. The dealership in Chicago managed to pull some strings themselves and went above and beyond to get us back on the road the next day. Our truck was fixed free of charge, but absolutely no thanks to Classic Ford. Even the manager at the Ford dealership in Chicago was livid at the way we were treated and no one at Classic Ford would speak with him either. I haven't had any problems with my truck since, but to this day I am appalled at the lack of service given by Classic Ford of Columbia. I have since read other reviews by other consumers, and they all have it exactly right; Classic Ford of Columbia does not care about their customers after the sale. I would never recommend Classic Ford to anyone in the Columbia area. They were horrible.

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by carguy128 on 12/28/2010

On 12/21/2010, I traded my 2004 truck in for a 2008 truck. The salesman was nice enough and trying very hard to earn my business. However, the sales manager is another story. First off, it would behoove him (Sales Manager) to take a certified course in customer service and professionalism. This man thinks he is very slick but in fact he is not so savvy. He treats customers like they are very meager and not on an intelligent level whatsoever. This man tried to con me into buying a vehicle that was not even on the lot. How could a person be exptected to buy a vehicle they can't inspect so on and so forth? He claims he does this all the time. I am so sorry for the people he has swindled because there is no doubt he has swindled people through his own words (not so smart to air such business Mr. Sales Manager). People, beware of their very deceptive practices. They were trying to sell me a 2010 F150 XLT however again, the truck was not on the lot. But get this, they showed me a 2010 F150 Lariat (all the bells and whistles). Anyone who knows Fords knows that a Lariat is very different than an XLT. The salesmans words to me were "it won't look exactly like this but it will be close." My wife was so offended at the deception she refused to even look at the truck. Again, let's treat people like they are not very smart and try to con them into buying something they are definitely not getting (not good business practices Classic Ford). Anyhow, after all of this my wife was frustrated and walked out to the sales lot. Low and behold she found a beautiful 2008 F150 Lariat with all of the bells and whistles. We never said we were opposed to a used vehicle rather the sales manager insisted the salesman push new. I fell in love with the used truck my wife found on the lot and we bought it. The trick with these people is you must come up with the terms that work for you and not BUDGE no matter what! I told them exactly what I would pay and I did not come off of that number. I was prepared to leave the dealership with my old truck. The Sales Manager was defeated and I bought my truck for $3000 less than the market retail value. The difference here is I was very firm and after 2 hours Mr. Sales Manager realized it was on my terms or no terms whatsoever. The biggest struggle for me now is they owe me a pretty big chunk of cash for my trade and a 2nd key for my new truck. Once I receive those I will never associate with this dealership again. Trying to get them to speak to you on the phone or return calls after the sale is a nightmare. It's like they sell you a vehicle and all of a sudden you are like the plague...never to be spoken to again. It's absolutely ridiculous again, no customer service professionalism whatsoever! However, I have no doubt I will get my issues settled with them. This deal, minus the headached after the sale, worked for me however, it should not be this hard or unpleasant to purchase a vehicle. There are many dealerships out there folks, do yourself a favor stay away from this one and have a pleasant experience at one of the others that care about their customers.

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by lhaupfear on 07/31/2010

We ahve been to this dealship 3 xs now and each time we are met with extremely pushy sales men. This last time 07/30/2010 we actually went through the entire process of getting numbers on paper for a f150 super cab truck. The sales men we first met on the lot while we were looking at what they had was very nice. Then out of no where comes over a sales mgr and just basicly pushed the first guy out the process of working with us. This new pushy sales mgr just kept pushing to get our info on the truck we wrere driving and was just way to pushy to sell the truck we test drove. We sat around forever waiting for them to come back with numbers we wanted and instead they just gave us the run around going back inforth on the numbers. We finally got up and left. We will never go to that dealership again!!! I will make sure I tell everyone I know to never go there. This dealship needs more traning in customer service and listening to your customers needs. Stop tring to push people into cars just for their bottom line. We have ford car buyers for 18 yrs and this is worst ford dealership I have ever been to!!!!!!!!!!

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by tjcatte on 05/26/2010

I should have learned from my repair experience and never given them a chance to try and sell me a car. Our repair was quoted by phone, then increased to near double as the repairs progressed because of "things" they kept finding. We said yes because the car was in parts and we needed it back by the promised evening pick up. We later learned that we were gouged for the parts prices by $100s. We were offered a discounted oil change. YEAH RIGHT. Fast forward half a year when we are now looking for a used vehicle. I stopped in because I love our Ford Freestyle and wanted to see if there was another one to replace our Chevy Van. I shopped there Tuesday night. I got a nice call on Wednesday morning checking on whether I searched their website the night before (I didn't get the chance). I got a call Wednesday afternoon and was told about the "perfect vehicle" that just came in. It was a WONDERFUL Honda that was the right age, mileage and just a little higher than my maximum price ("a little more than $10k"). I'm not a car person, so I consulted with a friend at work who told me to call the dealer for the VIN number so he could run a report. I called and inquired more about the car and the first hint of a problem came up. I was now told that the car doesn't appear to have 60k miles, but about 100k miles. Ooops. BUT hey, it's a Honda he said, so I can't go wrong. I hesitated, but was assured that this was a great vehicle for my family, just come take a look. Okay - but my friend decided to come with me. THANK GOODNESS! Going was a BIG MISTAKE, though. I failed to read the other Edmunds.com comments about this dealer. That would have saved me a lot of time! Classic Ford lied about everything except for the make of the vehicle. The mileage wasn't 60k or 100k, but over 110k. They lied about the age. It was a year older (which makes a difference because my financing rates at the bank go up with the older vehicle, so I can afford less). Because they lied about the year and the mileage, I asked for the price. They refused to give me a 'true' price on the vehicle until they appraised my van, but I already had a great price commitment from another local dealer whether I bought a car from them or not. All I wanted was the price of the Honda. We did the test drive thing, they did the appraisal thing. All the while, the two salesman stressed how they aren't typical sales guys, they look out for the reputation of Classic Ford so we will recommend them and be repeat customers. They took my key to evaluate the Van because they could probably do better than the other dealer. Classic Ford has you sign partially completed Ford credit forms, and get more info than they should need. When questioned, they said it was to prove to the Manager that I am serious, and to prove that they got the info from me instead of a Google search. Give me a break. In the end, nearly 90 minutes later, I learned that they lied about the price, too (nearly $13k instead of a little more than $10k.). I was SO angry. I demanded my van key back. THEY WOULD NOT GIVE IT TO ME! They kept trying to sell me the vehicle. I could NOT believe it. They then wrote on the back of a piece of paper, "I will buy this vehicle for $10,000". They drew a line and asked me to sign it to again prove that I was serious, and said they would take it to their manager, agreeing to give up their commissions. I humored them. The manager said no. Again, its ALL deception at this place called Classic Ford in Columbia, SC. Now I feel that they have info about me that can be used to steal my identity, and I trust them so little, I actually am worried about that. Just know this - I have learned now that you can't trust what I am told by their repair department or their sales floor. Two strikes are more than enough for me.

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by cody3764 on 03/03/2010

I recently had a very bad experience with Classic Ford of Columbia. My main complaint is with their General Sales Manager (GSM), who is what we term, a manager at a car dealership who harkens back to the days of the old car lot that tries to pad the bottom line as much as possible in trying to sneak costs into the deal by deception. On my particular deal, he tried to have me finance thousands more by quoting a higher monthly payment than it should have been by around $60 more dollars a month than the financing should have cost me per month payment based on the dollars the car would cost me out the door. Then when I called him on it, he became very arrogant and aggressive in his actions and told me I must have in my calculations that I put the interest rate at zero percent (0%) in factoring my monthly payment which of course is ridiculous. He told me that my fairly new (2008) , low miles, clean car fax, one owner vehicle, that I was trading that I was lucky to get what they offered me in trade because they didn't want my trade nor did five other people he called, and of course saying all this to lowball my trade value. Bottom line, all I can say is, if you happen to do business with this dealership ask for someone else to manage your deal since the GSM will make sure his pocket is full and you will come out of your deal thousands over what you should have paid and he will also be very abrasive towards you as a customer if you question his tactics. Also, be aware that the dealer tacks on $499 for what they term the "Millennium Package" Yes, it's the old paint and fabric protector song and dance. This is not disclosed next to the MSRP Sticker on their vehicles as an added dealer price sticker or is the customer notified anywhere else in the dealership, but it is an additional thing I caught him pulling into my deal, but not listed out on the paperwork without my knowledge. Basically when it was all said and done and I had him remove what we will call the "unnecessary items" and after all this he still had padded the deal well over a thousand dollars. Yes, he even amazingly came down 2.0% on his finance rate after I balked at his actions so he was trying to nail me a few grand on the financing contract too in his original offer. This guy gives car dealers a bad name. If you get the GSM to work your deal and you get burned, you only have yourself to blame. Needless to say he left a very bad taste in my mouth for this Dealership. I, of course left the dealership, without purchasing their vehicle after basically having no luck at removing any other items he wanted to add to the deal. Unfortunately, in any organization, it is always the actions of a few who spoil it for the many. They have a new General Manager who has been there for about 60 days and yes I met with him about all this and I do not envy his position in trying to work his staff problems out. When you read the other reviews you will see that I may not be the only one with problems as it seems to be a couple of the midlevel managers causing the customer relation problems and I wonder why the past General Manager was recently replaced. It may be that I and other customers who have experienced some of this dealership's management team may already know the reason(s). The dealer principal of this dealership will not return my call so I do not know where he stands as far as his staff and customer service. I certainly know there are some good staff at this dealership and I can only hope that the new GM will take notice of the bad apples and will make sure that good people that have some customer service skills will in the future lead the helm at Classic Ford of Columbia for the dealer principal's sake at losing business due to unprofessional non-friendly behavior of some of his management team at this dealership.

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by mustang1985 on 12/14/2009

Bought a new F-150. The salesperson was courteous and professional and the Sales Manager helped me get the deal I needed. Overall the experience above the average car sales experience.

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by ford27 on 11/19/2009

I recently bought a used edge here and it was the WORST experience I have EVER had buying a car! It has been 2 weeks since I have had my car and they still have not paid off my trade-in and have already sold it! It took them almost the 2 weeks that I have had it to get my financed and they lied to me about it. I wanted to use my bank but since it was late when I bought it,couldn't. They told me I was already financed so that I couldn't use my bank. EVERYTIME I call and ask to speak with anyone, theyu never come to the phone and never return my calls. Even the receptionsit is RUDE. They lied on my buyers order about the mileage and have also lost the tag to my trade-in and now will not return my call. The finance manager was very rude and wouldn't even sign my buyers order for days and then made jokes about it to my husband infront of me. This is just a little bit of how awful my experince was. I do not recommend anyone to go there, and I will never set foot in there again!

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by ford20 on 03/18/2009

You can expect to find a true adventure when purchasing from Classic Ford of Columbia. Think of all the combined stereotypes of a used car dealer. I do not even know where to begin relaying my nightmare. If I listed everything, it would not sound believable. The sales agent was new and not familiar with the process. She was not present when we came to purchase (no longer with company). We had an appointment but no one was ready and we were invited to wait ("Just a few minutes."). Truck was not ready, paper work not ready. Vehicle was delivered with a battery that was dead after three days ("I can answer that- no, we will not replace it."). Spare keys and remote control disappeared with former sales rep. The sales manager, Wayne DuBois, explained that the reason we received such poor service was because of our lack of good attitude. I am sure there are worse run dealerships offering more unpleasant experiences but Classic Ford is my nomination for the top ten.

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