AutoNation Toyota Gulf Freeway

This is an old-school shop. They even use some of the more obvious tricks that the Edmunds undercover guy talks about in his article, such as writing the numbers in big black marker on a piece of paper to make it look like they are immovable. They'll give you as little for your trade and charge as much as they possibly can for the new vehicle. Don't take any first offers for anything. The salesman I dealt with is now gone, but he wasn't very good, although pleasant enough. He quickly passed me to the sales manager, whom I found very argumentative and prone to insulting my intelligence. There was a substantial factory rebate on the vehicle I was interested in and the sales manager repeatedly tried to tell me the rebate was their discount on MSRP. Even though I told him repeatedly that I was smart enough to know the difference between a factory rebate and a dealer discount. I was told numerous times how many years he (and eventually his boss) had in the business, which was supposed to make me believe they knew more than I did (again, an old trick). Don't believe a word he or anyone else employed by the dealership tells you. If you choose to deal with these folks (and I don't know why you would), do your research carefully, take only your own counsel, and be prepared for an difficult afternoon. Whatever you do, be willing to walk away if you don't get the deal you want. The less likely you look to buy, the better they'll make the deal. They initially offered me $4000 less on my trade than trade-in blue book, then eventually raised the offer by $2000 when I wouldn't accept that (which was still $2000 less than book, if you're doing the math). I eventually got blue book trade-in from another dealer (although I refused the first offer, which was $1000 below book), which I think was OK for the condition of the car. After arguing for an hour and a half I had essentially got the difference between my trade and the new vehicle (by increasing the trade-in and the discount from MSRP) from about $20,000 to about $10,000. I didn't buy, though, because I still thought they were not offering me enough for the trade. Eventually I bought a Toyota from Ron Carter. I got further with Ron Carter over the phone in five minutes than in two hours with three people at Champions. I think at least one positive review placed here is a plant by someone from the Champion.