417 Suzuki Ottawa Stay Away

[mannis]

I don't usually go to lengths to post bad shopping experiences but i thought i would share my experience with '417 Suzuki' located in Ottawa, On at 1396 Windmill Lane.

We went in there Friday morning at 9 am to look at a truck, a 2005 GMC Sierra. We took it for test drive and then spent about 2 hours discussing possible deals. We brokered two different deals, one based upon also purchasing an extended warranty and one without. Both deals had the same conditions that this or that had to be done and both deals were contingent on the vehicle being inspected by a mechanic, they were agreeable to all terms.

So we take the truck to our gm dealership, there are a couple minor issues and one big issue. The tires on the front are different then the tires on the back, same size but different make and tred pattern, about 50% tred remaining on the front and close to brand new on the back. The truck is a 4x4 so this means that the difference in wear between front and back is going to cause a lot of stress on the transfer case (different tire sizes causing tires to spin at different rates) and 4wd and eventually cause expensive repairs. The 2 new tires are from such an obscure brand that gm can't even track were to get another 2.

That said i get a call from 417 Suzuki as i am leaving the gm dealership asking how it is going. I said ok except for the tires which is going to be a big deal, they say we'll talk about it when i get back to 417 Suzuki.

We get back to 417 Suzuki and walk thru the door and are greeted right away and told not to worry about the tires they will take care of them and replace with new tires. We negotiate for about another hour and a half and decide to go with the package we had negotiated without the warranty with them throwing in new tires.

We go and put a $500 deposit on our credit card and they provide a receipt for it, we sign the ownership of our trade in off to them and they go off to write up the bill of sale. 5 minutes later 3 sales people come to us sit down and say that after talking with the 'owner' they cannot honor the agreement we just put a down payment on, got a receipt for and after signing over the ownership of our van! Sticking point being they cannot provide tires even though they are the ones that offered it in the beginning! The say they'll wait for someone else to buy it who does not know about the tires (read someone who does not notice and then ends up with a huge repair bill down the road, which they can gladly fix) Wifey goes nuts i start going nuts, this isn't a sales ploy they're serious! They want to refund the deposit, return the ownership with a sticker over the part signed off to them! I tell them to go get the 'owner', well he does not seem to exist. Steaming we get them to refunded the deposit and recover over the ownership of our trade in with a sticker. 5 minutes later a smug general manager shows up and proceeds to talk down to my wife. After a minute my wife has enough and storms out, and i follow close behind, into our vehicle and we're gone.

Now the worst part about this is not the service, the underhand backtracking on an agreed upon and paid for deal, the smug arrogant general manager or the close to $200 i paid to get it inspected by gm. We had our 2 kids with us and they had tickets to this afternoons world junior quarter finals at the Scotia bank place. The staff at 417 Suzuki understood all along that our kids had tickets to the game. We finished negotiating about 30 minutes after puck drop deciding that a deal was imminent and we would forgo the first period. After all the BS and nonsense that happened it was too late to make them game, so they ended up costing my kids a chance to see a world junior game which they may never have a chance to see again. Do you think 417 Suzuki cared? Do you think they apologized? The smug 'too bad' attitude of the general manager said it all.

Anyways long post, but thought i would share the worst car buying experience i have ever had. Buyer beware of 417 Suzuki in Ottawa, Ontario!

[zameluzza]

OMG that sucks! so sorry you had such bad experience with them.
a few years ago we where there to looking for an SUV, hubby liked one there but I was fixed with a RAV4 so no deal at suzuki

[Alixana]

Ooh that sucks! I just don't like any dealerships. The last experience I had, someone already test drove and bought the car we were trading before we even signed the papers for the new suv we were getting.

[TrixyRox]

Thanks for the heads up!

[sube]

While I don't doubt that the experience described above actually happened ,I have to post the exact opposite experience with this dealership. A couple of weeks ago I bought a 2002 Mazda Protege5 from 417 Suzuki, I got a copy of the list of things done to the car before the sale, which included new brakes all around, new snow tires, oil and filter change, complete tune up with new plugs, wires, and coil packs.

At the time of sale the milage on the car was 106,000 kilometers and according to Mazda the timing belt was due to be changed I negotiated the replacement of the timing belt as part of the sale, this is an average 600 dollar job at a mazda dealership.
I needed the car over the weekend and arranged to bring it back Tuesday for the timing belt. Over the weekend a check engine light showed and I noticed that part of the rear defroster was not working. I called the service dept. and was assured that all would be taken care of on Tuesday. Well I have previously bought a couple of used cars with wires not working in the rear window and it was repaired by finding the break and repairing it with a conductive paint, in contrast 417 replaced the glass with a new glass. The check engine light was fixed with a new o2 sensor the timing belt was replaced and while they were doing the timing belt they noticed an engine mount not up to scratch and replaced that with a new one.

Lastly i noticed some rumbling from the front suspension over some road surfaces, again I brought the car back and they went through the suspension front to back and replaced the front sway bar endlinks, Oh and each time I brought the car back they provided a free loner car. The moral here is all dealerships like any business will have negative experiences, that does not make them an overall bad dealership you owe it to yourself and the dealership to form your own opinion.

Pat.

[Gebraroest]

I never buy vehicles from big business, I like them second hand from good families

[axela]

What an ordeal you had to go through !!

Although it's very unfortunate that you had to spend $200 on the car inspection and wasted alot of time and effort, it sounds to me that it may have been in your best interest that the deal fell through...I would be weary of buying a 4x4 that had that much tire thread difference too, b/c from what I know, this could cause problems to the vehicle and could possibly lead to catastrophy on the road. You may have saved yourself alot of money and stress by not buying the vehicle...I hope something better will come your way soon.

[razr]

Although I did not get the opportunity to buy a car from 417 Suzuki, I was stung by their service department.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
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I ordered a spoiler, and a Hitch for my then NEW 2006 Suzuki Grand Vitara. The spoiler was glued on, and it flew off on the highway 2 weeks later, and the hitch had a receiver that was exactly under the spare tire, you had to remove the spare tire to connect a trailer !!!<o:p></o:p>
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I went back to them originally to complain about my flying spoiler, and they replaced it after about 3 days of arguing (and a threat of a court case)<o:p></o:p>
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As for the hitch, the service manager (arrogant idiot0 challenged me that he can connect a trailer without removing the tire.... claiming that I did not know what I was talking about.<o:p></o:p>
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So he backed up my truck into the trailer, punching a hole in my spare tire cover, and even with that he could not get the trailer connected.<o:p></o:p>
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They paid to replace the hitch and the tire cover..... 2 weeks later after Suzuki Canada got involved.<o:p></o:p>
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As far as I am concerned.... they are a bunch of blood sucking crooks...<o:p></o:p>
I drive all the way to Carleton Place (from Orleans) to have my car serviced..... it’s worth the drive. Rivington Suzuki are honest and straight forward.<o:p></o:p>
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But I ask myself is it worth going through all this hassle to drive a Suzuki ?<o:p></o:p>

[Beware417Suzuki]

Beware 417 Suzuki. I've been through the service department 3 times in less than 3 weeks for an intermittent problem (reverse doesn't work) on a 2010 vehicle that I purchased here (less than three weeks ago). Murray Malamud (General Manager) personally observed the problem, as did a technician, yet I still have no resolution. Don't get burned like I did, take your hard earned money elsewhere.

[NewMember101]

I know this really isn't the point of the complaint but in response to the OP, I think it's a stretch to blame the dealership for missing a hockey game. That's on your time management skills, not the dealership.

For the rest of the story the dealership seems like sleazeballs!