Russell & Smith Mazda

I don’t understand how Mr. S. has such positive reviews. I certainly do not think he deserves these positive reviews. On June 10, 2013 I bought a new Mazda CX-5. I have owned this car (a Mazda CX-5 SUV) for over 6 months now and I love this car. However, the salesman who sold it to me- Sutoyo S.- is someone I would prefer never to hear from or deal with ever again. I had done my research online and looked at and compared cars online. I also emailed several dealerships and spoke to them by email. I was sent a few offers and Mr. S. seemed the best possibility. I emailed him back and forth and then arranged to come in on June 10, 2013. When I walked in on a Monday, I was not expecting to buy the car that day but it was always a possibility. We took the car out for a test drive and the car seemed fine. I had already tried it out at another dealership and in hindsight, maybe should have gone there. After taking the car for the test drive, Mr. S. and I sat down and began negotiating. I had an Edmunds quote of about $23K and some change. As this was my very first car purchase in my entire life I was understandably nervous and a little apprehensive. After all, you can get your credit ruined by not making the payments on time. So I was understandably concerned. Also this was the biggest purchase of my life and it was also my very first car purchase in my life. Mr. S. was not really interested in my concerns. We haggled over the prices and one thing that I was not happy with was an $80 charge for tires on Edmunds.com v. $150 that the dealership was charging. Mr. S. made a big show of basically saying he could not give me the same deal Edmunds.com was giving me which I found to be absolutely ridiculous- a difference of $70? Anyway we kept negotiating and I was getting nervous and decided to call my dad. My dad is a very special person to me and even at the ripe old age of 35, I still call him at least once a week sometimes more and talk to him. I decided to call my dad and speak to him and see what he thought about the deal I was making. I am Indian and Mr. S. is Indonesian so in our cultures there is a mutual and healthy respect for our elders. I expected Mr. S. to understand this and be like, yeah no problem. However I was shocked when he laughed at me and requested I sit down and we could keep talking. Basically he made it seem as though I was a foolish child. I was very angry but decided that I was quite frustrated and fed up and wanted to finish the deal and go home. We continued to negotiate for another half and hour and then we sent over my paperwork to see if I qualified for the financing. Then he made his worst mistake ever: He openly made fun of my Indian heritage for no apparent reason. I still have no idea why or how this ridiculous and extremely offensive story came up but he starts out like this: “I had this customer who was Indian (he had earlier asked me if I was Indian (again not sure why he asked me) and he would never take his car in for repairs or check ups. One day his car stopped working completely” shaking his head, Mr. S. continued his story while I became even more shocked and offended. “He come from very rich family, owned a lot of motels” Mr. S. informed me helpfully and perhaps a little condescendingly. I was mostly just gap-mouthed by now. What on earth was the point of telling me such an obviously culturally offensive and personally offensive story? Mostly I was shocked by his culturally inappropriate and boorish behavior. So what am I supposed to get from this story? That one of me (culture/race/ethnicity) is the same as all the others? Isn’t this an extremely biased and prejudiced way to look at life? I don’t appreciate how he treated me at all. I almost got out and walked out of the dealership by this point but on the other hand I had been negotiating for almost 3 hours and I was also fed up with dealing with this guy. I went ahead and signed the deal with him. Even after I had signed the deal with the dealership they tried to pressure me to part with an additional $1500 for a five-year warranty maintenance service! I absolutely did NOT fork over an additional $1500- I mean- seriously, how greedy are you people? The funny thing was that the guy actually asked me why I did not want to spend another $1500. Really? I just spent 6 months salary on a car, almost $28,000 and you would like me to spend another $1500? Gee, yeah I don't see any problem with that at all. Especially when I'm being asked by someone wearing a very expensive Rolex watch. I have an idea- next time you want to ask a customer to spend more money at a Mazda dealership how about you take off your Rolex and wear a Timex instead. The only consolation prize I got at the end was that I got 0% APR financing for 3 years. Even though it wasn’t much (it saved me about $287 in 3 years so not a whole lot of money) but it did feel good to get ahead of a rip-off dealership that hires such biased and prejudiced people such as Mr. S. Oh yeah, almost forgot- I was fooled into paying twice for the same set of tires so I ended up paying $70 over so (287-$70-$80= $137 savings= great!). Additionally later on I figured out that I had paid twice for my rear bumper guard so I ended paying another $80. So I ended up paying $150 extra which is a good little chunk of money. So again, thank you Mr. S. (why exactly do you sign your name in BOLD letters?- do you not know that this is considering yelling in internet etiquette?)/ Thank you again for giving me such a horrible customer experience, being made fun of my Indian heritage and culture and treating me with disrespect. I hope the commission you made fills your soulless existence. Eventually you’ll be ripped off and then you’ll know what its like. What goes around does come around eventually. Thanks for making my first car buying experience so much fun. Every time I drive my car I get a little less satisfaction and a lot more angry. Anyone interested in buying a barely used Mazda CX-5? You can rest assured I won't be ripping you off or making any type of inappropriate jokes or comments. I have too much dignity for that. By the way, if you don't believe me and think I made this whole thing up, several months later I finally decided to confront Mr. S. by email and asked him why he told me that story and how biased and culturally prejudicial that story was- I never thought he would admit telling me but he did admit telling me that story and I have the emails. If Mr. S. is reading this review, he should be aware that emails are not protected by the First Amendment and I can publish them on my personal website which I may still do someday.