Fremont Ford — Attraction in Newark

I waited several months before posting this review. ...Trying to give the dealership time to "make it up to me"-- as 2 salesmen and a finance manager all agreed they should. Looking to trade my '13 - XLT for something else. I've never been a "Ford person"-- too many problems and recalls..Always Toyota ' no problems and very few recalls. But mines was gifted to me by my BF and I did fall in love with it- recalls and all....I spotted a beautiful...'17 or '18- on their lot. Low miles, beautiful interior and a stunning exterior. I was in love! I called the store to make sure it was still available and was invited to test drive. Made the near 2 hour commute in Friday evening traffic from Pinole to the dealership. The salesman who promised he'd wait for me had left for the day- so I saw another. After the test drive, valuing trade price for my truck and negotiating price of theirs, we did come to an agreement- but it was after 8, the dealership was closed and so were banks. I was not there to finance- but outright purchase, so we agreed I'd be back in the morning with my truck, pink slip and 9k cash. They said they open at 10. At 10:01, I called to confirm all that we agreed on the night before. "Great, It's supposed to stop raining at 11. So, I'll be there at 1". Salesman said he was "getting the keys and going to take it off the lot right now". I canceled Dr appointment and arranged child care for my daughter and at noon was on my way. I called around 1230 to let whoever know I was half way there and was told "the car was just sold"..... "how is that possible "??!! I was JUST told it was being removed from the lot!! No apologies, no "let me see what else we can do".... I actually had to mention that I did also notice a gray used one on their lot for a bit more money -- and had to ask if he'd ask his boss if he can offer me similar deal. He said it was in their shop for inspection and repairs - would be ready in about 2 weeks and I will be given first chance to buy it. Exactly 2 weeks later, I check their website and notice it's no longer there. I called and left several messages. 4th or 5th call, was told it was also sold. At some point, I ended up on the line with finance manager and his resolution was to email me a credit application to finance a 2024. I never responded......I recently started my car hunt again. Thinking this time, I'll go new and finance. I went to their website to view their inventory and stumbled across reviews instead. Im seeing a lot of dissatisfied people AFTER making purchases and way too many scripted apologies to suit me. It took me a long time to get over my disappointment with this dealership after not one but 2 cars being sold after being promised to me...but right now, I'm thinking perhaps it was the universe having mercy on me and helping me dodge bullets. Ps: the one star is for the fact that the finance manager said he'd lower the price of their car and offer me a little more for mines "to...

So to break those stars down;

3 out of 3 stars go to the staff. By that I mean Ms Raylene who fixed the day and came to the rescue. With her professional attitude, knowledge and assurance, she eliminated my earlier disappointment in Fremont Ford. Kudos to Ms Hawkins for her processing of the service & her management to make the service performed on time and following up.

1 out of 1 star goes to the staff behind the scene who did the service on time and same goes to

0 out of 1 star goes to management of the dealership. The staff won't be successful enough in their job to provide quality customer service if elements of their supporting system are missing. Both Ford dealerships that I checked before Fremont's do offer a system to have customer leave & come back smoothly; whether that by offering Lyft, a shuttle service or a rental car. Fremont Ford was only 5-9 minutes away from my work. Hence I picked them but unfortunately, this dealership don't have those services, if any, as default. I may blame Ford itself for not offering such a support to their dealership chain because I'd think it should be part of the service package. Other lack of support by management was the service schedule system. My schedule was for 8:30am and yet the line before me was not moving smoothly. At time of scheduling, only two staff were shown to schedule with. On a Monday morning that was not enough number. Ms Hawkins was a third staff member who was really helped the other two staff members in moving the line faster and her services was really indeed below the 15 minutes that was blocked for me. My point is, the system needs to be updated to show exact number of available staff and the scheduling window might needed to be increased from 15 minutes to 20 minutes to balance the process according to the staff number until you have enough staff members who can process within the 15 min block. Other observation that people were driving to two different lines of services not knowing which I'm entitled to. I do recommend for those fleet cars service to have a dedicated staff member and a dedicated line of service. Those fleet vehicles were interfering with regular service cars and were really disturbing in many ways including how some were left without drivers within the regular lines.

Kudos to the staff on site who tried their best against the odds.

If it wasn't for Ms Hawkins, the human-been who took care of my service on site, my review would go easily down to 1 if not zero.

My 2cents to Fremont Ford management: Invest in your staff because they are the bright side and only they can make a customer happy and satisfied with all glitches that may happen in a good Monday. But also invest in your system and provide the right tools to your staff so they can perform while glowing and making your...

For a couple weeks the S/O and i have been talking about replacing my blazer with something a tick larger, i'd looked at all kinds of stuff online and had narrowed it down to a Traverse or Explorer, aesthetically i've always been partial to Chevy's so we started there. Ben was great! Super friendly, seemed interested but got called off to do something else. The guy who stepped in (doubt he was even in sales) didn't seem any too interested in our business and when asked if any local dealers had other trim options he told us that we would have to make a deposit before he'd bring one in. uh. what?! I don't know why i was so shocked, when we purchased the 2021 blazer we had to drive down to Stevens Creek because the Fremont location wasn't looking to make sales then either.

Sooo, we left and went to Ford.

OF COURSE a sales guy saw us get out of the car and came at us like a fruit fly on a brown apple, and i was ready to fight him off, but there was no pressure, no pushing or steering, Behrooz asked what we wanted and how he could help. He wasn't deterred or annoyed by my resistance to share info, didn't even complain that i kept us yapping in the blazing sun far longer than i should have. S/O test drove the Explorer, had a couple words with the sales manager and we went home to discuss.

Went back the next morning and S/O asked about a truck he'd seen on another dealer's website (ironically the chevy dealer that doesn't want to sell cars) Abbas handed me the keys to the Explorer so i could test drive before signing anything and told S/O he'd have it on his lot by the time we returned. And he did gasp without a deposit! So we test drove that, argued amongst ourselves before telling Behrooz and Abbas we'd be buying both. It felt like Abbas was arguing FOR us instead of the classic haggling AT us. He presented reasonable numbers, great offers for our trade-ins, threw in some shiny incentives and i had no hesitation in elbowing S/O in the ribs to start signing stuff!

We were ushered into the Finance Director's office and i thought "ok, here's where the slime comes in" but nope, no greasy tactics, no surprise fine print! If anything, i was surprised that Mustafa, a man of numbers, had a sense of humor!

I apologize that i didn't get his name but the guy that was told to take me to my new car and show me how everything works, he was so great! so enthusiastic! I wanted to keep asking questions just because he seemed to be enjoying his job, but it was as hotter than Satan's bath water and i just had to get home.

Cars truly do not excite or impress me but, i was so blown away by the excellent service from everyone on the Ford Team, i was compelled to type out a lengthy review. (that will also be pasted to Chevy (but with...