Great service department, sleazy sales team.
Our first experience with Millennium Honda came from a referral from a close friend of ours. She had been taking her car there for service for a number of years and was very satisfied. When our 2015 Fit LX got its first 2 recall notices, we needed a place to go, and after several awful experiences with Paragon Honda, we figured we'd take a chance on something new. We weren't disappointed.
Our service manager Sue was great. She was very friendly and kept us in the loop on what was going on with our car and when we could get it back. She even offered us a loaner car without me having to ask when it was determined that they would have to order additional parts for one of the recalls.
Our third recall was also handled promptly and professionally, but at this point, we were starting to become a little wary at the reliability of the car and the prospects for future issues, so we decided that we wanted to look at other cars.
The best place to start seemed to be with the email that we received from Millennium asking us to fill out a quick survey to see what our car might be worth for a trade-in. We got back an estimate of $13,000 - $14,000, which seemed a bit high for a car that we only paid about $15,500 for a year ago, but we figured it couldn't hurt to at least hear what they had to say.
We were contacted by a sales rep named Angelina who told me that based on the condition and mileage on our car, we should be able to get a high trade-in value for it. We made an appointment to come in and speak with her. Over the course of the next week, the appointment was confirmed by both Angelina and Mike the sales manager.
When we walked in on the day of our appointment, we were met at the door by a salesman named Jamal who told us that Angelina was out that day and that he would be able to help us. He was a very friendly, helpful guy, and things seemed to be going well, until we sat down and started to crunch numbers. He gave us a trade-in value for our car that was well below what we were offered in the email. When we mentioned that offer to him, he denied that anyone from Millennium would ever offer that high of a trade-in for our car. I pulled up the email and showed it to him, and he said he didn't know why we received it.
We eventually settled on a trade-in value that was less than what was listed, but that we still thought was fair. We were willing to accept that the inflated value was a marketing ploy to get us to come in, and it worked! The tide started to turn in the wrong direction when Jamal quoted us a price for the HRV-EX of $25,500. I asked him why the price was so high, because the sticker said $24,115 including destination, and asked if that price included taxes and fees. He said that it didn't, then went to look at the sticker.
Jamal came back with his manager whose name escapes me at the moment. The manager explained to us that because the car was so popular and their inventories of it were low, they had to charge a premium to make money, which I found to be ridiculous. I know that there are times when people pay over the sticker price, but I didn't understand why Jamal couldn't just explain that to us without running to get backup.
After going back and forth with Jamal and the manager, we were still about $4,500 apart on what they were offering and what we wanted to spend. Aggravated about being brought in under false pretenses and being given a sob story about why they needed to charge us extra for the car, we thanked them for their time and walked out.
As we were backing the car up to leave, Jamal appeared at the window and tried to make us another deal. We said that we had no interest in negotiating under this type of pressure and that we would think about it and get back to him, which we had no intention of doing.
We wound up buying our car from Honda of Manhattan, and got the EX-L for a couple of hundred less than Millennium wanted to charge us for the EX. I may continue to take my car to them for service, but I'll never walk into the showroom again.
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