Silver Star Motors — Attraction in New York

backstory: i 1st came across a random private dealership in NJ, which showed me unbelievable prices for a car of interest. i scheduled a visit to test drive the car. they made me wait for an hour, before a sales rep finally started to assist me. the main car of interest was actually already sold.. but they scheduled the appointment as if i was going to test that specific car.. classic bait & switch. but i came across another car model that i was able to test drive, it was really nice & the mileage was decent. the sales rep definitely was testing whether i was serious about purchasing, & then he finally revealed their prices for purchase.. it was heavily inflated (compared to the advertised). they explained that the advertised price was a lease price.. also the final price they gave me didn't include their dealership fees or taxes. i left immediately, it was a total waste of time, untrustworthy.

from there i knew my best approach would be going to an authorized dealership. i knew the car year & model that i wanted. i started compiling an excel list with all the car details. i google searched all mercedes dealerships starting in NJ (figured used car conditions there would be better) & noted all the mileage, prices, interior/exterior colors. i went through all of them, & wasn't too impressed & seemed a bit out of my price range for good mileage. the very last dealership i came across was Silver Star Motors in Long Island City. i checked their Certified Pre-Owned List & they had 2 exact options that i would be extremely happy with. the mileage & price for both options was a total steal compared to all the other dealerships.. a steal deal by far! I sent in on Sunday (they were closed) the submission of interest to schedule a test drive.

I got a phone call from a rep at Silver Star Motors on Monday morning, who eventually connected me to Diana Sokolova. She called & texted me, first making sure that they actually still had both cars. She was very friendly, professional, direct, and prompt with all the replies. Quickly confirmed that both cars were indeed in store, & that i could come in to check them out.

once i got there, she immediately welcomed (i didn't have to wait an hour or so like the previous experience at the private dealership), & took me straight to the cars, which were side by side next to each other. i already had a preference between the 2 options, & was able to test drive the main preference in no time. they had to shift about some cars to bring it down, i was very surprised how fast it was done. Diana was very knowledgeable & answered all of my questions with assurance. She definitely also helped pace out the test drive longer so that i could feel extra confident that the car in test was the one. she never rushed to end the test drive, much appreciated!

After the test drive, i was certain to purchase. The price was exactly as advertised, no hidden fees, or anything. They advertised that as such, truly is the case.. again no hidden fees! I wasn't able to get the price down any, but the price was already so good. Great price, unbelievable mileage, perfect condition as used. The car was practically new!

After finalizing, Diana was amazing once again! i had to call to set up and purchase car insurance, she helped make that process extra easy and smooth. With that done, i had the chance to drive home with the car right away. I made a request on numbers that i like for a license plate, & by luck it all worked out with the timing because of Diana's handle! Got exactly what i wanted!

It was getting late, Diana & the whole Silver Star Motors team was indeed able to get everything in order at the end, & i was able to drive the car home on spot! (otherwise would've had to return the next day)

I'm a beyond happy customer at Silver Star Motors; & I'm still completely grateful for Diana's amazing help with the 1st time purchase! If I'm ever back in market, they have my complete loyalty - will go directly to them! Diana is the best! Can't thank her enough! Hope my review is helpful! Diana + Silver...

DO NOT GO HERE!!! I cant stress that enough. I don’t usually write reviews matter of fact this is my first one but these people do such bad business I had to post this so nobody else can get screwed over like I did. This is by far the worst car dealership I’ve ever done business with. When I say the staff was incompetent, that is just a understatement. I bought my car off with Jerry with a trade in. The price seemed right at first. We agreed that in would be $489 a month. The day I went to go pick up the car he said something was wrong and I asked him why? Mind you I just got the insurance on this car with ZERO help from him or his staff. They wouldn’t even let me test drive the car because I was told by him “Don’t worry the car drives fine”. He said he ran the prices with their financial team and they wanted $789 A MONTH!!!! I couldn’t believe it. After all that work trying to find the best price that made sense for insurance this is what I was told the day I was suppose to go pick the car up. I had a major argument with the financial advisor name Al there and told me if I don’t come up with $2,000 more on a down payment you will be paying that monthly. I wanted this car so bad so I ended up giving them the 2k and all of sudden they found a loan in the next 5 mins for $589 a month! Woohoo. They ran a hard inquiry on my credit 6 times with ZERO disclosure. Isn’t that amazing for somebody who is establishing their credit! When I went to go sign the papers I tried to ask questions about what I was signing and that they could explain more to me on it. They were trying to rush me through the door the entire time. I took my time and read everything before signing. They were not happy what so ever.

I got my car with one key apparently they had to order my other one which took about 3 months to come LMAO. I already went through two tires in 3 months because the tires they gave me with the car had patches and were clearly used. I will kindly upload the photos for you all to see. I brought this all up to Jerry’s attention but he said “I need to speak to management” and never got back to me.

The last straw was when my transmission light came on. I brought it up to their attention and they told me to schedule an appointment to get it serviced so I did. Jerry is so busy apparently and he was the only person who knew how to “program the key” so I had to wait weeks to FIT HIS SCHEDULE! Imagine you pay all this money for a Mercedes Benz and the sales associate is the ONLY ONE who knows how to program the key and he doesn’t even work in the service department. They claimed it was “air in the gas tank” after making us wait for 4 hours!

I called Jerry with frustration on the way I was being treated after spending all this money and trading my car in. I also specified on all the promises he did not keep with me on the vehicles condition. When I first viewed the car from the interior side. I seen a little dirt on the leather seats. It looked like somebody was trying to hide something. Jerry assured me once again “I’m not worried about that dirt coming out” and promised me it would all be taken care of the day I get my car and pull it off the lot. It turned out to be a tear in the leather seat being covered and polished up. I explained to him that this was not right and that I wouldn’t be treated like this. He claimed I should have told him earlier when HE WAS WELL AWARE OF THIS ALL. They are all con artist in there and I suggest nobody does business with this dealership! There’s so many other professional Mercedes Benz dealerships in the tri state area! DO NOT GO...

Victor Babb is what I call, “The best salesman ever!!!” I was looking at a vehicle they had for sale for about a month. After they had just taken it in, I initially gave the dealer an offer and they refused (understandably so because my offer was much lower than their listing price). Half a month goes by, I give it another shot and still not enough wiggle room yet. After about a month of it being on their lot, I contacted my salesperson Victor once again to see if they’d accept my offer since it’d been on the lot for a little while now, and I was traveling 2+ hours out of state to pick up this car. The next day, Victor checked with the manager and they actually met my offer to the penny. Even with already having a low APR pre-approval from a credit union, their finance dept was able to beat that rate by a little bit so I used their in house financing. I made an appointment to come pick the car up the next business day following the phone call. This dealer has NO hidden fees whatsoever and everything was straight forward and to the point. They even went above and beyond in the service department to replace a suspension component and switch the battery after hearing a strange noise during a small drive while prepping for me to come get the car. Even being out of state, the dealer was able to take care of all the DMV paperwork for me which saves a major headache and I was able to drive out the same day with a temp tag. Altogether I was in the dealer for maybe 1 - 1.5 hours at most. The lady at the front desk was courteous and personable, Victor was wonderful and efficient, even the valets were kind and respectful. I’m only 20 years old and considering this is a Mercedes dealer this is probably one of the cheaper cars they could’ve sold, at least that day for sure lol. But nonetheless I wasn’t treated differently by anyone whatsoever just because of my age or what I was buying, which is surprisingly rare. Once everything with the DMV got taken care of, I was in and out of the finance manager’s office within 10 minutes. Most likely since I’m out of state, there were no possible products to offer me, but definitely NOT a complaint at all. I signed a bunch of documents that were straight forward for me to understand - as someone who did my research on the car buying process. All in all, Victor kept in contact with me since the first inquiry I made on the vehicle and worked tirelessly by keeping me updated during the weekend leading up to my appointment. He made sure I had everything I needed and reassured me every step of the way which made my first dealer-buying experience a 10/10. I’ve contacted MANY dealers over the last couple years, as I’ve been looking for this specific car for a very long time now and not one dealer showed the same up front honesty, and respect as this dealer did from the very beginning. Considering the few cosmetic defects of the car I feel I got a very fair deal for what I offered them especially in the market we’re currently in. If you’re looking for no hidden fees, honest, efficient, FAST service, from a dealer that seriously got their stuff together, SILVER STAR MOTORS IS THE WAY TO GO!!!! Victor and his team are more than worthy of this lengthy review lol and the managers/company better buy him lunch after...