Don McGill Toyota

My husband and I made an appointment to test drive a white Toyota Hybrid Highlander with Sami Faraj at Don McGill Toyota of Katy on May 22, 2020. I had discovered the car online and wanted to take it for a test drive. We met Sami in front of the dealership and he discussed a few things we were looking for in a new car. Once it was time to bring the car around he drove up in a more expensive model, saying the white one had just sold. (The white highlander and the car I ended up buying were still listed on their website as available for sale two weeks later). We drove the car and liked it. My husband had bought a car at this dealership 2 ½ years prior and really liked the experience he had at that time. The dealership would not come off the price of the car, and didn’t offer to pay off his current Toyota that they said was in excellent condition. After going back and forth several times they finally agreed to pay off the Camry minus $655. We were in agreement with the payoff and the monthly payment. Once we made it back to the finance manager there was confusion as to the rebate and our payments went up by $100. Our finance manager, Felipe Rodriguez, gave us an explanation that the sales rep doesn’t have all the details to ensure the payments are correct. He went on to discuss warranties and I mentioned we did not want any of the warranties that were offered. My husband and I have bought a total of 11 new cars and been down this road enough to know most warranties don’t get used within the time we own the car. He explained that if we are planning on keeping the car long term (which we plan to this time around) that we needed to invest in an extended warranty and GAP insurance. We agreed to both of those warranties. He quickly pulled up the paperwork on his fancy desk monitor and asked my husband to sign where it was “green.” With all the cars we have bought we have never been so rushed to sign and we’ve never been taken for a ride like this before; therefore, we really didn’t feel the need to go over every little detail with the salesman. SHAME ON US!!!!! Felipe gave us our USB port and said thank you. A couple of days later I plugged the USB into to our computer and looked over all the paperwork. I don’t even know where to begin on how deceptive the practices are at this dealership. 1) The bottom price of the car was $50, 593.95 after the dealership extras that were added. The purchase price on our purchase agreement was $250.00 more. I emailed my Sales Rep, Sami and asked if he would give me Felipe’s contact information or have him call me because I had questions regarding the agreement and needed an explanation. Felipe did not give us a business card, and now I understand why. Sami responded and said he asked Felipe to call me. Felipe never called me. I had to go back to the dealership to get a few spots looked at on my car. When I arrived I asked Sami if I could speak to Felipe to get my questions answered. Felipe was not in the office that day so, I spoke to a different Finance Manager we will refer to him as Mr. Z. Mr. Z did not go over the paperwork with me either. He seemed a tad bit nervous, and when I mentioned the most obvious mistake regarding the purchase price he mostly focused on that detail. The Desk Manager, Sigmund came in and explained they would be cutting a check to Toyota Financial for the $250, because they cannot cut a check in our name. Sigmund said it will show up on our Toyota Statement. He also promised that someone would call when the check had been cut and a coy would be sent to our email for our records. He didn’t offer his business card and quickly distracted me to other topics. It’s been 5 weeks and we have not heard from him. I have sent three emails to Sami (our Sales Rep) asking for the status with no response back. - UPDATE – Sami finally responded to my third email, and he said the check was ready for me to pick up. I responded with “the agreement with Sigmund was that someone was going to call me when the check was cut and email a copy.” I asked who the check was made out to and he said it was in my husband’s name. He had no other response as to why it wasn’t made out to Toyota the lien holder as agreed. This is another examply of the deceptive behavior that goes on at this dealership. How was is possible to get the check in my husband’s name when I was originally told they couldn’t do that. (I never requested the check to be cut in my husband’s name by the way). Sami and Mr. Z were both in the room when this agreement was made. 2) The second issue was the $899 in dealer options. I asked Mr. Z why we were charged for those because they were built into the additional options in the purchase price of the car. He said we weren’t charged for them. I’m not a mathematician, however, if you add up the cost of the car it comes out to the $56065.71 which means we were charged for the $899 in dealer options. The dealer options that were charged were for the additional APEX coverage. Felipe and Sami both mentioned that our car came with APEX already. Felipe never mentioned that he was upgrading us to a 5 year contract. The $899 is for the additional coverage which again not sure why we paid another $899 if we had already paid $595 in the bottom price of the car. 3) I also questioned the $837 charge for Blue, and Mr. Z never gave me a clear answer, because he was focusing on getting me an answer on the $250 over charge. As you can see by the paper work we were charged an additional $199 for Blue Steel (Foresight), which again both Sami and Felip mentioned our car already came with this option and was included in our dealer installed sticker. As you can see we were charged for the Tire and Wheel coverage for $638. That total comes out to $837. AGAIN, we were not asked if we wanted additional Blue Steel coverage and Felipe said he was giving us the Tire and Wheel protection for FREE as explained in point 4 below. 4) Felipe also said because “we were good people” he was going to throw in the tire and wheel warranty for free. We of course were appreciative and thanked him for his generosity. I saw on the paper work that we were actually charged $638 for that protection. Mr. Z said that Felipe came down on the price of the extended warranty to cover the tire and wheels. Felipe did not explain that to us at the time he was giving us our deal. In fact, Felipe said our warranty was cheaper in price because he lowered the miles to 75K. We were also not given the pricing details of the warranty or options in years or miles for price comparison. So we really don’t know what the warranty cost originally. When I googled the warranty I see that people have posted they have gotten the extended Toyota warranty for $1200 for 100K miles. We paid $2595. 5) After looking over the sticker and the paperwork we also noticed on the original sticker the manufacturer has additional costs added called “Distributor Installed Options.” One of the items includes the Vehicle Protection Package: • Paint Renewer Cleaner • Paint Sealant • Fabric Guard • Rental Car Assistance This package cost $349 and was included in the sticker price. However, the dealer added options also had listed Paint and Fabric Protection for 1 year at the cost of $299. Now this sticker was placed on top of the manufacturer’s sticker, so we couldn’t tell that the paint protection was already included.