Michigan City Ford — Attraction in Michigan City

I ended up purchasing a “new” f150 with the some promotional rebates from ford credit. I found out a day or so later that one of the pieces of the promotion I used with ford credit was $500 in accessories. I was not specifically informed about this and when I asked about it a few days later with the intention of buying a bed cover after seeing an ad, I was told that because I did not include the accessories purchase in the initial deal the rebate for $500 may or may not go through. The interesting part of this is that the truck had a recall on it for which they did not have the parts for when I took it home. The dealer signed it out to me as a loaner until the part came in and instructed me to come back to have the part put in when they received it. This was incredibly inconvenient but something i was willing to deal with. A few days later I was called and informed the part was in and I could make an appointment for that day to have the work done. During this visit I purchased the bed cover. When trying to purchase the bed cover, the parts department employee argued with me whether or not the promotion existed and claimed he couldn’t find any thing about it despite me showing him the ford ad which clearly stated “$500 in accessories cash”. I was there for 3 hours for them to install a wind shield wiper motor. This isn’t a big deal but was a missed opportunity for the dealership to do something above and beyond if I had been offered a courtesy vehicle for the inconvenience of my “new” truck needing a repair so I could at least go grab lunch while I waited. Anyway, if the vehicle was technically a loaner for the time period between me taking it home and then bringing it back to put in the recall part and I purchased the cover the day they installed the part, It shouldn’t have been an issue to include that I purchased the cover with the truck. I’ve called and asked about it but as of now I have no idea whether or not I will get the promotional $500.

Another interesting part of my experience was that when test driving the vehicle I noticed that it had 3000 miles on it yet, it was being presented to me and sold to me as “new”. My concern was that the vehicle was already almost 10% of the miles into its warranty period so I asked if I could have an extension of the warranty or possibly some money taken off the purchase price for it. My sales person walked away when I asked this and immediately went to get someone else to talk to me. I was told “no, this vehicle has never been titled so it’s technically new”. However, when doing the paperwork with finance, the finance guy said he would be able to extend the bumper to bumper warranty from 36000 miles to, I believe, 45000 miles. I’m not 100% sure on that now because I don’t see it anywhere in my paperwork. Maybe I misunderstood. I asked about this as well when I called about the $500 and was told, “I don’t know, you will have to talk to “so and so”. A short time later my sales person called me and ensured me that I wasn’t forgotten about and that they were looking into my concerns.

Overall, my opinion is that this was an average car buying experience. While my sales person was absolutely friendly and not pushy, the dealership didn’t do me any favors on pricing, warranties, or help me to take full advantage of the promotion I used to purchase the vehicle. The only money that was discounted from the price on the truck was from ford credit’s promotional financing, and I was not offered a courtesy vehicle while my “new” truck was in the shop. It wasn’t necessarily a bad experience but it also wasn’t a great one. Average or typical car buying experience pretty...

I thought I’d give Castle Ford a second chance.

To start, our first experience with Castle Ford was less than ideal. Our car needed a Front Axle alignment, 2 New Tires for the front and a new vacuum hose part ordered as I could install that myself. The first quote from Castles service team was wrong because they neglected to listen to me when I said I wanted to install the vacuum hose myself. Not a deal breaker just miscommunication. The Next day Castle called to inform me that the car was ready for pickup. Upon arrival I saw my car pulled up front and I noticed our old tires still remained on the front. I was not too happy about this since now its an inconvenience and I know they completed a front alignment with our old tires and not new tires. I remained calm and spoke to the service manager who argued with me that the new tires were put on. When I asked her to come out and see for herself did she still disagreed with me. The arguing was not necessary and her attitude was not professional. She called the service tech over and he said no, they did not change the tires. So now I/m left to believe that a “Professional service manager“ does not know what a new tires looks like. SMH They put the new tires on quickly and of course did not do another alignment ,when I asked as it was “not necessary“ according to them. P.S this was late afternoon so we know what that means, They want to go home and not make it right. A year had passed and we decided to give them another chance since they were the closest diesel repair shop. Regret city here we come.

My 2004 Ford E350 6.0 Diesel engine wouldn’t start. Ford service center told me over the phone that the diagnostic will cost 139 bucks. Deal! The Service appointment was on a Thursday morning, My wife called Thursday evening to ask what they found, again she spoke with the woman in service and again there was a bit of attitude when my wife asked why she was on hold for 25 mins. No word on our vehicle but she explained what our appt was for on Thursday. A Service appt. is for service and basically just there for her to talk to us. Umm ok. Tuesday of next week I get a call asking for more time. Ok. The next day (Wednesday) they called me again to tell me that one Alternator has to be replaced and they could fix it for 1380 dollars to replace an Alternator and a Fuel filter. I called it off. That seemed steep to me. I politely declined and that’s when I was told I owed them 320 bucks.

The young CS guy recognized that he made a mistake and pulled it down to 270 bucks 270 bucks is still more than the agreed upon price of 139 like they told us on the phone. After I picked it up and drove it home I called ford to ask where my serpentine belt was. They said it was cut off because it was burned (Nothing said to me about that during any phone call or when I picked it up) and that wasn’t included in the 1380 proposal. Unprofessional, unreliable, untrustworthy, there’s more “Un words“ I can think of but I’ll leave it at that. Do not go here...

Buyer beware! This dealership is the worst of the worst. They are guilty of false advertising, double standards, not keeping their word, deceptive practices and more. I’m limited by the length of this review. Be wise and learn from my mistakes. Don't go to Castle Ford in Michigan City IN. False advertising: on the internet, they advertise dealer discounts which brings the price $3000 below MSRP. It's just simply not true, they did not offer any dealer discount. The only discounts they offered were from the Ford Motor Company not the dealership. Furthermore, the only way you could get discounts was if you qualified. That was not stipulated. I saw no asterisks on the price for the vehicle on their website. When I pointed this out to the salesman that there were no qualifiers for the discounts on the website. He pulled it up and on the very last page it has a tiny little asterisk. I'm sure by design. And guess what? I missed it of course. So, we're now back to MSRP with no discounts. When I saw that they were not going to honor the Internet price I was preparing to leave. And the salesman said. I don't want a bad review so work with me on this. I said OK, I'll split the difference with you. So, he was going to take $1500 off the MSRP. He even wrote the price out on a piece of paper and had me sign it. He wanted me to commit to this price and I did. We had an agreement. Go to the next guy and he says, “Oh no we can't do that. I've got to keep the lights turned on.” (This guy was a fast talker.) He continued, “You're not going to lose the deal over $500, are you?” Stands up with a big smile on his face and shakes my hand to close the deal. I'm sure this is tactic they use repeatedly on people. They work in concert with each other and I'm sure they think they're so clever. The salesman broke his word. We had a deal and then they want to keep dealing. I asked the salesman about this. He said, “I just wanted to make sure that you were serious about the deal.” He wanted me to commit to the deal, but he wouldn't. That's a double standard. We had a deal, but he did not keep his word. He knew what the next step of the process was. If he didn't have authority to make the deal, he should not have had me commit to it. That's a deceptive practice. In big bold letters, they advertise that if you don't like the deal, you can return the vehicle within 72 hours. Read the fine print on that, they're going to charge you a 5% restocking fee. On a $60,000 deal, that's $3000 they are going to charge you to return a vehicle. One star review is too much for this dealership. They tarnish Ford's good name. Buyer beware! The salesman called after I posted a bad review. He said that they would send me $500. (That they cheated me out of) whether I took down the bad review or not. I said I would amend my review after I received my $500. It never came. Once again they...