Power Kia

I am only writing this review because I think I can pass along some wisdom to people who want to buy a Kia in the Salem area. There are 4 dealerships within an hour of Salem, including Power Kia. Power Kia consistently has the lowest advertised prices on most of the Kia lineup. We did exhaustive research into the new car we wanted to purchase. In total, we went to the dealership three times and got passed along to a second salesman (no big, people can’t be everywhere at the same time). We did all of our own research, so the salespeople didn’t need to answer any questions and typically babbled along during the test drive about things we couldn’t care less about. They did give us some information, and they were both nice and fairly professional. I would say in total we spent an hour with salespeople before we went in to buy the car. The dealership put the make and model of car we wanted up for sale with a great price. We went in to the lot and met the salesperson who got the keys and we made an offer on the car and went back to his “office”, which is a cubicle. While we were filling out the paperwork for the financing, the salesman we initially had came in, picked up the keys, and said “I was wondering where these went, I just sold this car to someone else.” We just sat there gaping. The second salesperson came back to his cubicle, and we told him what had happened. We expected him to say, “Obviously, he can’t sell the car I’ve already sold to you.” “Or, wow, I’m so embarrassed, I can’t believe that happened. We’re certainly going to make this right.” What he actually said was, “I hope you understand that I can’t get you that sales price on another car.” Then he attempted to get us a similar price (around $3k more) on “the exact same car” from another lot (which is amusing because when he showed us the paper he was using to find “the exact same car” he had the color for the first car wrong, so who knows what the car would have been). He came in with a piece of paper that said “black” on it (seriously, you can’t make this stuff up) and felt it would be perfectly appropriate for us to sign up to buy a car without seeing it or knowing anything more about it than “black”. I’m the one who has been pigheaded about getting a new car. Bless him, my husband wants me to have a new car because he worries about me breaking down in my old one and he wants me to have nice things. Thus, he was willing to go along with nearly any deal until I got him alone and explained to him that there is no way I was going to work with this crazy concept of buying a car we know nothing about from a guy who refused to keep his word in the beginning (and, by the way, my old car works just fine, thank you). We are pretty firm believers in using your cash to register your complaints. This dealer still has the lowest advertised prices, so the only reason I write this is to give people a couple of pieces of advice: have only one salesperson so they have a reason to fight for your commission; be sure you do your own research (these guys didn’t know as much as I do about the car I wanted to buy); and be sure and read the things they give you to sign. Though we didn’t get all the way to that part, you’ll not convince me a guy who asks you to make a $30k deal based on a piece of paper that says “black” is reading the stuff he’s giving you to sign.