Sesi Volvo Cars Car Dealership Ann Arbor Michigan

sales Rating

Don't they want to sell me a car?

by GClefVolvoGuy on 05/21/2015

I have now had three negative experiences with Sesi salespersons. In 2008, on my first attempt to do some looking, I wanted to try driving a Mazda 3 at their Mazda dealership in Ypsilanti. The discourse with the salesman was normal enough, exchanging the usual pleasantries, until I asked for the test drive. The sales person asked me if I was going to buy "today", and I truthfully told him that I was seriously researching cars for a purchase within 6 months. As soon as I said 6 months, he said, "No", followed by a dismissive, "when you're ready to buy today, I'll let you drive a Mazda 3." My second encounter with a Sesi salesman happened with one of their Volvo salesmen a year later. My wife and I were looking into Volvo's overseas delivery program. I managed to get a test drive and liked the car, a C30 model. I asked the salesman to give me the final delivered overseas delivery price. He came back with a price , which seemed in line with what I saw on the Volvo website, volvousa. But a peculiar thing happened the next day. I received a call from the salesman who then told me that Volvo had sent them a notice overnight of a sales price increase for overseas delivery. The price was now over $1000 more. I said I would have to think about it. It seemed kind of odd to me that midstream in a car deal, I would get notified of a price increase. So, I called the Volvo US headquarters and asked them about it. They informed me that the price had not increased and there was no notice sent to dealers to that effect. This made me rather angry and I called the salesman to tell him about my call to Volvo USA. I said I no longer wanted to work with him. I bought my overseas delivery Volvo C30 at Byers Volvo in Columbus, OH instead, where my sister-in-law lives with her family. I had my car serviced at Sesi, however, as they are the only dealer in the Ann Arbor area where we live. (That is the subject of another review, by the way.) My latest encounter with their "friendly" sales staff was in November 2014. It seems they haven't changed their tune with their sales pitch. I informed the salesman that I wanted to test drive the new V60 wagon, as well as a Volvo XC70. My wife and I were again looking into overseas delivery, I told the salesman. As when I asked to drive the Mazda 3 back in 2008, this guy asked me if I wanted to buy a car from Sesi right away. It being the beginning of Winter, I told him we were anticipating the summer of 2015. His response, while friendlier than my previous encounters, was, "There's no point to you taking a test drive now. Volvo is going to change their engine line-up by next summer, so you won't be driving the same car you'd be ordering. Come back in 6 months". Imagine that! This is sales? Don't they want to sell me a car? What about expounding on the virtues of the car's interior controls and layout, the plush leather upholstery, the myriad safety features? Are there no features you want to tell me about, that might make me thirst for this car sooner than later? I'm not a salesman, but I can think of at least two or three different approaches that might bring that guy back to the showroom to buy a car from me! Is the management of Sesi Motors setting the wrong tone for its sales staff, such that on three occasions now, I have been rebuffed? I'm not a crude, loud unkempt person that puts people off. I'm a sincere middle income University of Michigan faculty member in good standing with a desire to purchase a Volvo. I'm the very profile of a Volvo buyer, and yet they don't seem prepared to take advantage of this. Needless to say, I won't be parking my car-buying person in their sales rooms ever again. I'm heading back to Byers Volvo in Columbus this coming Memorial Day to look at purchasing that XC70 I've been thinking of for the past 9 months!