Why does everyone bash The AUTO TOY STORE ?

Just curious -- what ever happened with "ECW guy" (Vince) on this chat board? Looks his last post was 01-22-2004, 02:42 PM. I wonder what ever happened up clearing things up?

 

About 1 year ago , I called Exotics for less and they pressured me right from the start to put a deposit on a car they didn't even have. They took it on trade and were selling it to me as pristene and never saw it. They called several times and finally I thought they were nuts and wouldn't take their calls. I felt it was all about the money and not the real deal on the car.

 

i would never buy from either the auto toy store or prestige.

too much bad press
plus
my phone call experiences with both of those places has been extremely negative

both these places are not reputable

simple as that

 

for me is this:

When the time comes for me to buy my first F-car, it will be from one of two sources. Either a fellow F-chatter I"ve come to know and trust, or I wll buy from Martin. Those are the only two choices for me.

I've never met Martin, and the closet we've come to a conversation is via a comment and reply on a thread some months back. However, I will tell you that it is because of Martin that I have found F-chat in the first place. I used to browse his inventory all the time (still do) and finally when and checked out his "Links", which brought me here.

Martin, keep up the good work. Your reputation speaks for itself.

Mark

 

Even Martin himself won't disclose any paint work or any mechanical issues with the car to you and will rather encourage you to get a PPI to find out any problems,atleast thats what he told me.
Yasir

 

That statement is somewhat incorrect and misleading!
I will disclose paint work if I know of it or if it is noticable. Like when we re-paint front bumpers you will always be told, since we did the work. If I know the car has had paint work because it was disclosed to me I will tell you. When it is obvious the car has had some paint work I will tell you.
As for mechanical condition and "hidden" paint work I always ask that a buyer does his PPI. I disclose what I know but that can not replace a professionals mechanical evaluation. Neither will a PPI mean the car runs forever. It will give you a state of fact of that present moment.

 

Varenne: Having both dealt with and purchased from Martin also, I can vouch for the fact that he is top notch and first class all the way...and will always be my first choice when looking to purchase the next Ferrari. His passion for the marque trascends over into his business, and his personal knowledge of the various models truly makes doing business with him a pleasure. Plus, he's just an all-around great guy!

Even though I had a good idea of the recent history of the car I purchased through Martin (as the car was a former F-Chatter's), he was still very upfront about all the items that he was aware of concerning the condition and history of the car -- which, in my opinion, was very forthright and commendable of him and his business dealings.

Plus, he'll even throw in a real nice stainless license frame for free!

Morning, Martin

 

Martin,
I am not accusing you of any thing but it beats me that a how come a customer is good enough to find out about the paintwork & say the oil leaks yet the dealer that has/d the car couldn't ? I mean when you guys ( dealers in general ) buy/trade cars don't you fellas go over the cars yourself looking for any evidence of accidents or any mechanical issues rather then taking the owners words for it ? Don't you all use the paintmeter to check the paint thickness ?
What i am trying to say is,i would rather not waste money/time on a PPI if i know in advance about any paintwork,oil leaks and stuff like that.The bottom line is the dealer got to know all these things or they could be buying junk for top $$$$.Now i haven't come across any dealer in my 10 years experience in buying used cars where the dealer had voluntarily mentioned the negative things about the car.Please don't take it personally but it's very hard for me to believe any dealer now esp what i went thru with my recent 1991 C2 Turbo purchase.
Yasir

 

Yasir,
it is customers that beat the price down before they look at the car, then look for more defects and beat on you more and then complain even more, even after us dealers do him some more favors like storing exhaust systems, that the customer then askes you to pay for the $100 UPS to ship the favor to him.

That said let me be clear, you have put my name next to your comment that I told you that as a fact. In fact I have not told you that and would never tell you that. If you feel that you do not want to spend the $300 for a PPI when buying a $100,000 car well.....what can I tell you. That is YOUR problem, not mine. I advise all my clients to do a PPI. I tell you what I know and what I see. No I do not use a paint gauge. It can be expected that a car has had paint work if it is 5-10 years old. If I know about something I tell you. If I don't I can not tell you.

What you are saying is that you want on top of everything else that you ask of the dealer, you also want him to pay for your PPI or make statements that will put him into liability, so when you find a light bulb not working you can beat him down some more.

Well Yasir, that is why I tell you to spend the $ 300 with whoever you want to have your PPI done with. I tell you what I know but if you want to be 100% spend the extra money.

 

Hey Eric,
thanks for the compliments. I am trying.

 

Martin,
I did get the PPI done but for some odd reason the dealership ( a different one ) didn't do it the way we had agreed verbally and yes i was charged in excess of $300 for it too.Having said that,had i not gotten the PPI done i would have been in a much better position to pursue the dealership (who sold me the car ) for false representation of the car but since the PPI was done and they messed it up that prevented me from doing so,none the less the car was not what it was told to me over the telephone ( this is the issue i am stressing here )
Martin,
Like i have said before you did not sell me the car and i don't hold you responsible for anything,no hard feelings,trust me,what i am trying to get across is,if the customer is told about any paintwork or any mechanical issues before hand that can save them lots of time and money.I personally know several people who took time off from their work,paid for the flight and the hotel only to find out the car was not what it was described to the them over the phone.O as far as the exhaust goes i was told at the time of purchase that it would be shipped to me and not once i was told that i was suppose to pay for it.I am not trying to drag anyone here,just mentioned my experience that dealerships in general would tend not to disclose any thing to the buyer if they don't have to.I find it very amusing to hear say a dealer,O i didn't know the car had a painted quarter panel,looks fine to me,i just don't buy that.
Yasir

 

Yasir,
you may not buy the paint story, thats fine. There have been cars that I did not know they had paint work because it was done excellent.
You better never buy any Ferrari because FNA repaints their cars if they get scratches on transport without telling you that. I guess they are all crooks, right?

As for the exhaust you have been told on day one and lets think this through, why would Mike spend more money to send it to you, just because you did not want to carry it in the car? You were supposed to send him your UPS account number but have not done that until he threatened to put your box curbside for you to pick it up, after you left some messages that I would not be able to print here with the profanity check Rob has built in.

As you write yourself, you are looking for a scape goat. You bought a car cheaper than anything else. You beat Mike up further when you got there and then tried to get him to pay for your convenience. After all that you wanted to make him responsible for your failed PPI.

Yasir, your winning on about a painted quarter panel that you have not discovered when you picked up the car either (thats how good it apparently was) makes me come to one conclusion: never sell you a car! You got a great car at a fantastic price, you got more after the fact and yet you are not happy and try to get more and more.

I can't help you. Nobody really can.

 

Besides, how often do you think that happens to me, I pay hundreds of Dollars for a PPI and the car does not check out? I have done recently 2 in the LA area. Flew out to see another 355 in LA in May and the car was a dud.

 

Martin,
There is no point in dragging this thing any further and no i wasn't suppose to send any UPS account # to MIKE either as i never had one,so thats not true.The reason i didn't pick up the imperfections were 'coz i didn't look for them as i really trusted him when he told me there's no paint work on the car,heck he even told me it was a one owner car and guess what it turned out to be 2 owner car,not an issue but i always wanted a one owner car.
I am not looking for any scape goat either,it's just the fact that the car was misrepresented to begin with and on top of that the PPI unfortuntely didn't help either.Mike is a nice charming guy and it is quite possible that he might not have picked up the paint work but still its very hard for me to believe that.O btw i didn't get any fantastic deal either i paid what ever the going market price for the car was.
Martin,lets just end this converstion here,i know we both feel bad about the whole thing and i am pretty sure Mike feels the same way and i guess it was a lesson learned for all of us esp for me as i have spent quite a bit of money not counting numerous frustrating hours, on a car that was suppose to be mint to begin with.The bottom line is had i known about the paint work,regardless of how good it is,i would have never considered the car.
Yasir

 

the first owner was a dealer who sold the car at 150 MIles. That is not an owner. In that case you have to say it is a 3 owner car. The first dealer, the guy that put 25K on it and then Mike. Wait 4-owner, Porsche used to own it too.

yep, you really got screwed there!

You got a great price and you know it. Otherwise you would not have flown accross the COuntry to buy that car. You could have walked to your Porsche dealer and bought it there. Mike even helped you with sales tax by doing a sh*tload of paperwork on your BMW. Of course that was free.

As I said Yasir: my lesson learned: I won't sell you a car. Don't bother calling!

 

After reading all this I am furthur reminded why I will never buy any "preowned" exotic without exercising the most "due dillegence" available to me. Its just not worth the stress and aggravation. I have only bought 1 exotic and it was from a private party who accomodated me in every way to make me confident that I was not being "hosed" in any way. I did everything possible to be sure that the car was "right" and my work paid off. I have a beautiful Lambo sitting in my garage that has proven to be exactly the car I new I was buying. I am now interested in obtaining a Murcielago but have decided to buy "new" therby avoiding the above mentioned "stress and aggravation" of dealing with the after market guys. This post is not meant to reflect on any particular dealership, it is just my personal opinion.

 

Martin,
I am just answering what ever questions you have so that it might help you in future as well,any way like wings mentioned some times it's just not worth the hassle of buying a used exotic/car but what if the car you want is not in production any more.The whole idea of me writing my reply was how cars could be misrepresented to the buyers and that the buyers should do their own homework as well rather then just relying on the honesty of the dealership.O regarding the ownership of my car,the first owner had the car for,i think 1-1/2 year and almost 8/9000 miles ( carfax verified ) so can't be a dealer or may be he was,i don't know.Regading the BMW paper work well that was a part of the deal of " If you buy this Porsche i'll help you with the tax on your BMW " thing or else i won't have bought the Porsche as i wanted to sell the BMW first.
Wings,i did my homework too and passed on several cars before i settled for the one i bought but unfortunately it was the only one where i let my guard off,o well i have pretty much sorted out all the bugs and i am infact quite happy with the car now.
Martin,
Regarding you not selling me a car well i have never ever considered buying a car out of FL for reasons even i don't know,but i have always been warned not to look to FL for used cars.
Yasir

 

Martin...quick question...what was the weblink to Mike's site (I lost it somehow) -- thanks.

 

Well Yasir,
if you say you have it on Carfax then why did you not pull a carfax when you bought the car? (besides that that statement is wrong!, Post your VIN and I will invest the $14.95 to show you you are wrong)
Reason: You were NOT doing your due dilligence!
As you said before you don't see why you should spend the money for a PPI. See Wings did. He did his DUE DILLIGENCE and that means spending money. You are trying to find a scape goat for everything.

Why would a dealer, after you beat him to death on price give you another $100 in shipping the muffler you did not want to carry in your car? Of course he told you he will ship it if YOU pay for it. You seam to think that everything is free in life. The PPI, the shipping, hey why not ask for your money back from the plane ride? How about the gas to drive it home.

If you don't consider cars from Florida why did you call me last year to ask for a Porsche? Mike made $ 400 on your car, I made $0. What do I get from you?

...a remark that I told you I do not disclose paint or mechanical problems, which is a flat out lie. Everybody that calls me knows that I disclose everything I know about the cars I sell.

Best part is though you don't even know why you are making a comment like "I never buy cars from Florida".

 

You have mail Eric.

 

Thanks Martin