Passport Mazda

I'll start off with I own a business that services car dealers. We service just over 300 new & used car dealers. I rarely buy a new car. Most of my cars are bought used, usually 2 to 4 yrs old and under 30,000 miles. Because I deal with so many car dealers I typically buy from 1 of my customers and the transactions take probably only 10-15 minutes. We currently own 9 cars this Miata RF will be our 10th. Recently my wife decided she'd like to get a Miata RF and it had to be either Red or Metallic Grey, Automatic and under 10,000 miles. Searched around for a few months through my sources and came up empty. I could have had 1 of my dealers look for 1 at the auction but decided to not go that route, at least for now. Instead I searched around on line. Eventually I expanded my search to a 1000 mile radius. I would be willing to fly to get the car and drive it back or have it shipped. I've done this a few times with cars bought as far away as Ca. & Fl. I searched Edmunds, Autotrader, Cargurus, Carfax, Individual Dealer Sites, and CL. I found a few cars that fit our criteria & responded on their respective sites. I received responses with in minutes. Before they started their speech I gave them mine. I'm a cash buyer, no financing. If we agree on a price I can wire payment or bring certified check. I'll be titling car in my state therefore I'd be paying sales tax and title fees at time of registration. So, now give me your best out the door final price. I'm not going to waste our time going back and forth, If I like your price I can put a deposit on a CC or wire the $. All of them except Passport said, I'll get back to you. I'd say 90% of them never got back to me. The few that did, came back with ridiculous jacked up prices well above their low ball come on internet prices. But, Mohamed at Passport Mazda (I think he responded to my inquiry within 30 seconds of making it) listened to my pitch and immediately responded with his price. I said, OK-Deal. I'm 200 miles and a 3.5 drive from Passport Mazda. I tell him I probably can't get to him for about a week. Can I put the deposit on a CC or wire the funds to hold the car. He says, not necessary-he'll hold it for me. I then ask how he'd like the payment when I pick the car up. I offer to wire the $ or a certified check. He says, personal check is OK. Now I do this all the time with the dealers I know. But Passport is in Md I'm in NJ and they don't know me from a hole in the wall. I tell him one more time it's no problem for me to pay by wire transfer or certified check and he says again, personal check is OK. A few days later I text him and let him know I can get there on Mon, which happens to be MLK Day and banks are closed. I say again, I can pay with wire or certified check because on MLK Day banks are closed and they won't be able to verify my funds. He says again, personal check is OK. My wife I I arrive at Passport, see our RF sitting out front all shiny. And by the way my wife and I were fully prepared to walk out the door if they did not hold to the price agreed to on the phone. Even if they jacked by only a few $. We walk in & ask for Mohamed. He greets us we talk for a few minutes and he turns us over to a sales person who asks if we want to go over the car and drive it-I respond no don't really need to, he repeats maybe we should, so eventually my wife agrees to walk out take a look at the car and do a little drive around the property. We're ready to finalize things but we need to wait for Paula in finance. The dealer was actually very busy and Paula was working with a customer. They asked us to wait. We waited close to 90 minutes. Normally I would have been pissed off and left. But, I could see they were busy and Paula was still busy. Periodically some of the staff would come over to us and ask if we wanted any refreshments or snacks while we waited. It seemed that they actually respected our time and were appreciative that we were there. We sat down with Paula and wrapped everything up in under 30 minutes. All I can say from start to finish that everyone we encountered (and I forgot everyone's names) was friendly, personable and professional. In the end did I get the cheapest best price out there, maybe I did-maybe I did not. But, did I get the fairest deal and best buying experience from start to finish-ABSOLUTELY-YES I DID. All I can say is other dealers should study Passports business model and emulate it-it will only improve their customer's experience and their business. I would recommend Passport to anyone and it would be worth a 3 hour drive.