Marshall Goldman Motors?

My 2 cents for what it's worth and in the spirit of offering constructive feedback to the MG team. Bit long winded ...

I purchased my 2012 FF from MG last August. At the time they had 3 FF's available and all seemed to be well spec'd. The other grey FF sold quickly as it was priced lower than mine. The sales guy was friendly and sent me a video walk-around of the vehicle. However, in hindsight, it was too low a resolution to pick up any defects. They should offer a detailed video walk-around as this is super easy to do with modern camera phones.

They were clear that they had not serviced the car, nor had any service records and it only had one key and no car cover. So they were selling the car with no warranty ‘as-is’. Not ideal for this type of purchase. I asked about the PTU and lift pump and info on any other issues. They had no details nor seemed willing to call Ferrari and get any details. I am really surprised that they don’t have any servicing capabilities which could allow them to offer even a short warranty. I decided I could live with this if I got the right price and a PPI.

I made an offer contingent on a PPI and I specifically asked if the car had a new battery and tender - given all the advice here about battery issues. MG put me in touch with Earl from North Coast Exotics who indicated that the car was clean with no check lights. He pointed out that one wheel had one small paint chip. So, I had confidence that the vehicle was in good shape. Note: I was not able to visit Cleveland to see the car so was putting a lot of trust in the dealership and in Earl. I totally agree with the notion that it is unwise to trust a dealer this much but given their inventory I assumed that it would all be top notch. My bad.

After wiring the money and agreeing to a pick up date, I booked a hotel and then drove 10 hours to pick up the car. We agreed on a pick up time and I showed up with my family. The dealership appeared closed. No sign of anyone. I called … no answer. Waited around for 30 minutes. Called again and they eventually showed up and let us in. Now the fun starts! We did a quick tour to look at the other exotics and then were showed the FF. On close inspection it was in good shape except the wheels had many little stone chips! This was not stated by MG nor by Earl. Very frustrating as the chips were quite obvious. I am planning on getting the wheels refinished but I was not happy that it wasn’t disclosed. Other than that, the car seemed in great shape.

I was also quite surprised that it was not washed nor prepped for delivery. Dusty but not clean. Also it was parked in surrounded by other cars. So, they had to move a bunch of cars around to get it out. That took another 30 minutes. They knew I was coming but couldn’t be bothered to wash the car and move it so I could pick it up. That didn’t feel like a special experience at all.

The guy goes to start it and its just dead. Doesn’t fire up. Lots of lights on the dash. Uh oh. Turns out the battery is dead … and it’s about 3 years old. One of the specific issues I asked about. To their credit they rushed out and bought a new battery and a tender and installed it. Took about two hours. I could then test drive the car. All seemed fine except it had no fuel in it! They got a can and put a gallon of gas in. At the same time broke the plastic fuel funnel. You would think that for $140k the car would at least be filled with gas.

All in all it took over 4 hours to pick up a car that I had already paid for! I drove the car home and then about a week later a check engine light popped on. Clearly the car was not as clean as Earl nor MG made out. It’s taken me months to get everything sorted and fixed on the car.

Frankly I have had much much better customer service experiences at every other dealer I have ever worked with. Chevy, Buick, Cadillac, VW, Mercedes and BMW. The MG experience was awful. My wife has vowed never to purchase a car from there again. I do believe that they have great inventory and I am sure others have had better experiences. MG should really revamp their whole approach to customer service as this would build much stronger customer loyalty and repeat business.

 

Good advice, thanks Shark. Truth hurts!! A $2,000 PPI that would have revealed all the issues with my car would have been worth it 100%.

 

Hi Wazzer,

Sorry to hear about your experience.
1. Was your salesman Arthur?
2. Did MG reimburse you for any mechanical cost to fix the check engine light issues? (they refuse to for me)

 

I appreciate your willing to take advice attitude, so refreshing.

 

Let me throw this out for thought.

For those on the fence about MG and PPI quality/fraud, photographs, etc. mentioned here, there are a number of FChatters who have offered in the past to drop into MG and eyeball a car for a fellow member at an early stage. Probably worth posting a request in the Regional Forum for those still wanting to do business with MG.

 

My salesman was Richard. Nice guy but clearly reluctant to share important details on the condition of the vehicle and very disorganized on delivery day.

Given that I bought the car 'as-is' and the CEL came on a week later, I did not request reimbursement. Main reason was I didn't know what the exact problem was nor how much it would cost to fix. Ended up about $2k after months of waiting for parts from Italy.

 

In hindsight I really should have asked a fellow FChatter to eyeball the car for me! That would have been super helpful and would clearly have surfaced some of the obvious issues. Next time ...

 

Exactly, one mistake or oversight is more expensive than any PPI.

 

The more eyeballs on the car (before the purchase), the better.

 

I'm in the trade for 30 years and what amazes me is that reading between the lines here is the accepted notion is that "dealers" often are perceived to be untrustworthy and one has to go into the negotiation both guns drawn.I fully understand this because perception is reality and bares out in Robs' case.
Have to wonder why any dealer would operate this way,just as a matter of course and especially with the power of social media they think they'll not suffer for it.
If not totally unethical, just amazes me that this stuff still exists especially on high end cars.

 

One interesting thing that I learned from the transporter:
1. The evening he delivered the car, as soon as the wheels hit the asphalt, the transporter said "my job is done".
2. After the back & forth over a couple of weeks, and he had to refund his shipping fee to me, he seemed to want to give me advice. His advice was when he delivered a LaFerrari and some other Koenig-egg the buyer told him to wait while they did a 90 minute test drive. Transporter called the seller and they were very concerned about that. The transporter proceeded to advise me that there was nothing he could do but wait for the buyer to finish their 90 minute test drive. In other words, I should have done the same instead of just signing and waving goodbye to them, when they said "my job is done".

-Sharks will be Sharks-

 

Yes,and buyer beware lives on!

 

Thanks! Ive been extremely fortunate with my purchases so far (knocks on wood), but thats a good bit to know.

 

I resemble that remark......

When I had my first exotic delivered, what should have been a from the heavens life changing moment turned into a total cluster F when the car wouldn’t start. I took the car a mile from the house because the driver was whining about coming into the neighborhood, and he wanted the leave me stranded with a dead battery he blamed on others (what I found later was the light switch was on, so he just didn’t turn it off after loading).

I didn’t let him leave and made him jump it using a power box.

 

This is excellent advice, I bought from a dealer near Cleveland, not MG, and Earl did my PPI. I have to say he was excellent. He did it on short notice and was very detailed.

I also did a search on here and found a member who bought several cars from this dealer. I pm'd him and he gave the owner a 5 star recommenation and offered to go look at the car for me. He did and at least confirmed that the car was cosmetically perfect, exactly as described and pictured.

The funny part was the member who helped me said the owner offered him the car when it came in but he said he already had too many!

 

Well played sir. I guess the common point all Fchatters have is lots of stories behind their cars. Fun to share.

I have had 2 transporters want me to meet them at the "local home depot" because it was the "only place they could park" and refused both times and instructed them to park on my street..

 

Well after a two week shakedown earlier this month, there was a very strong smell of gas in the car. Here is a photo of the culprit. A leaking (broken plastic) rollover gas valve. I decided to do the other 3 as well, as the plastics are all original and 20 years old. Not blaming MG or North Coast for missing this, just something that needs to be done. It was causing an EVAP CEL.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I felt bad laughing when I read your experience, but that is

I have had the exact same experience with logistics companies – I am definitely empathic to a situation where – for example – you're asking for someone to drive an 18-wheeler down a winding backroad to drop-off a vehicle on some narrow street with no turn-around, but a lot of the times, I feel like they call last minute to say "can you meet me here? because they just trying to stay as close to the highway/their route as possible. I now choose a location convenient to me with a large parking lot when I schedule the transport so we are square and there is no excuse for a change at the last minute.

 

I hired Earl to do a PPI on my 355 six years ago. I found him to be very honest about the car's condition since his shop did the belt change on the car and he personally preps a number of show cars. He does have a very close relationship with MG since he basically handles most of their complex service. I don't know of another person who has his knowledge and expertise in Ohio.

Earl's biggest gripe was that buyers would often not even show up to look at a car....then they would blame him for not noting the slightest imperfections. We spent an hour on the phone going over every detail prior to me flying out to inspect the car.

I also agree that MG does a crappy job of presenting the car to the new owner. They did pick me up (and dropped me off) at the airport. When we got to the dealership.....the car was landlocked by other cars which made an inspection more difficult to conduct. Since it was snowing outside.....a test drive was not practical. We worked out the final price and transport and that was it.

In the Buyer beware category......the battery change may actually mask a CEL set of issues since it resets the ECM. MG changed the battery in the car I purchased and it was only when I received it and started driving it threw cat codes.

Not a big deal but definitely a bit slimy since they would have known about the CEL codes prior to putting a new battery in. At $5k per cat....they certainly would want to avoid that hit.

 

For the most part, MG and Earl has positive reviews. That's why I trusted them. I knew I was buying a "driver's car" and not a concours car. Earl touted how his Leonardo diagnostic tool would catch any major issues. If we needed to inspect deeper and do a compression test that would be fine. I opted for the $400 standard inspection fee. If needed I could also pay for the tow fee back/forth to his shop for further inspection. Nothing like a oil leaks were detected so he didn't recommend it as necessary. His test drive around the huge MG parking lot was "perfect" he said. However, the car did go back to Earl's shop to fit 4 new tires because the existing tires were 10 years old (I paid for the new tires).

The catchphrase for Earl was "I don't care if you buy the car! (with a new york accent)" to let me know he was totally impartial. He must have said that 5 times on our first consultation phone call.

For the volume MG and Earl do, there are bound to be some mistakes. DENY DENY DENY is their policy when exposed. Nothing I can personally do about it now, but we can talk about it.

Where is the nearest Ferrari Franchise dealer in proximity to Cleveland Ohio?

 

JD, you may have hit the nail on the head!

In the past two weeks, there have been 3-5 posts on FChat (especially 355s, 360s, and other brands) in various places about a new owner unexpectedly encountering a CEL shortly into receiving a car. There has been much speculation into the cause, but the battery charge issue just might be a common denominator.

Well worth putting on one's mental checklist when evaluating a car, and hopefully "findable" on a CEL search here.

 

I was digging through my text messages with Marshall Goldman and found this empty promise I totally forgot about.

Arthur promised to send me the converitible top part "drivers side hinge casting" you can clearly see in the text messages he said that Earl would order it and ship it to me. First he said oops the inspection was probably done with the top down. Coincidence?? Don't worry. Just like the missing silver key. "Don't worry. It's in the mail."

Cliffhanger here....I know most of you are not surprised...he never sent either the key or the convertible top hinge!!! $2,500 in parts.

I was initially comforted, then pushed aside, then finally ghosted.

Their final response in writing, to me was that I did not report the check engine light issue to them until one week later, which would have been February 4, 2021. You can see the date-stamp of Jan 28, 2021 and Jan 29, 2021 on several of the texts. **sigh** The wild wild west of used Ferrari sales...

-vivere e imparare-
Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

That's not a empty promise that's an unfulfilled contract. You need him to honor his contract with you. Small claims court will settle it for you. Don't let it go, file a claim.

 

Well its worse- what did you pay for that? Apparently there is a campaign and I had mine just done for free with the added fuel pumps while they were in there.

Rob

I admire your attitude and honesty. I saw your videos and wondered if that had happened to me if I would have continued down the path I did in Ferrari Ownership. Rob I am glad you're here and hope your experience serves as an example for others.

I think that many have forgotten that when an agent ( SALES person) describes an item for sale, those representations have legal implications. Undisclosed or unknown defects are another issue - but photographs, words, and records as to the condition, service and working nature of an item are required by law to be accurate. When they are not accurate, or are inaccurate, the basis of the contract is flawed and may be void, or may be subject to remedy. There are degrees and gradations, but remedy is possible. I really disagree with the advocates for BUYER beware and go see the car or its your fault. The foundation of the transaction is accurate and truthful descriptions and answers to queries. The words excellent condition. without blemish, or mint have standards and values based on these standards- so therefore the sales agent and the dealer can be held accountable.

For me, as a multicar buyer and multi-Ferrari owner, I never got a good feeling from MGM and never pursued any car because they didn't seem to care about my customer experience from several phone calls and emails. Their responses were curt, dismissive and when asked about the condition to justify their statistically higher than market prices, they seemed above answering. My wife said- if you like THAT CAR, call them back and pursue it. I turned to her and said it feels like the kind of place that when you show up, your new car wouldn't even be washed and detailed. Turns out I was right- thanks for the vindication Wasser.

To Boke and Shark- what about the CNC debacle? Would your suggestions have prevented those buyers from being ensnared by Alleged Fraud? I do not think so.

With or without a PPI, the buyer assumes risk. Most, if not nearly all dealers stand by their descriptions, conditions, and word. That's not buyer beware, that's good business. Accepting risk is part of the transaction which is not preventable, just decreased. I bought my Euro 360 spider off ebay after talking to the guy - who was a car guy. knew his stuff, and answered my questions. I bought the seller and then the car. Amazing bargain, as described and fun AF fifteen hundred miles later.

I agree with 32 Ford- file a claim/lawsuit and watch their attitude change.


my 0.02

ScottS

 

Hi 32 Ford,

My BBB Claim with MG didn't resolve anything so now I am pursuing the PPI company through BBB. If nothing comes of that then we go the legal route.

What kind of attorney would I need to hire? There are so many specialties. I really appreciate your insights as well as everyone else on the thread.