Sound Ford — Attraction in Renton

I don’t even know where to start with this place, but here it goes.

I bought a 2020 Ford F-150 XLT with around 55,000 miles from Sound Ford in May of last year. While doing the test drive, I was guided by a salesman around a city block and back to the dealership with the gas gauge reading empty. From what I could discern about the vehicle from the test drive, there were no mechanical issues that stood out to me as the truck seemed to be driving fine. The plastic covers for the tops of the side of the bed had some holes that had been drilled out by the previous owner for a toolbox, but the dealership gave me new ones to install myself since they had not got around to installing the ones they had ordered for it.

Upon driving the truck home from the dealership, I noticed that the brakes would shake the entire vehicle when I pressed them at speeds of over 50-60 miles per hour. The next morning I came out to start the truck and the check engine light was as on and it was idling rough. Upon calling Joe (Sales Manager) he told me he wasn’t aware of any issues the truck may have and asked if I would bring it in.

While servicing the truck, they discovered bad camshaft position sensors and replaced them. The brakes were not addressed. The check engine light remained on and the rough idling remained the same.

After speaking with Joe several times throughout the process, he stood by his claim that the vehicle shouldn’t have any issues and that I “just need to drive it” because it had been “sitting for awhile.” So I drove the truck until May 22nd, when I dropped it off to be looked at once again since the issue was still ongoing.

After dropping the vehicle off to the service department, the engine was pulled to address major timing issues (unknown to me at the time).

After a week or so go by I call the dealership to ask them about the progress that has been made to fix the issue, and they inform me that my warranty has not yet kicked in because I had bought the vehicle “too recently”.

After a month of my truck sitting at the shop, I call the service department to ask if I may drive the truck until they are approved to do the work through my warranty, since I had recently started my own business and needed it for work. They informed me that they would be unable to give it back since the engine was currently out of the vehicle (that they weren’t even approved to work on yet) so I was stuck without it which would later cripple my business.

During the two months it was at the shop to have the issue fixed, I dealt with nothing but poor communication, terrible customer service, and was manipulated to feel stupid or as if I was overstepping by asking them to fix the issues that the vehicle had when they sold it to me. I would be told that the truck would be ready on a certain day, just for the day to pass by with no phone call or update. I would wait days for them to call me after the date that they said they would call me (or have the vehicle ready) and nothing. I would eventually have to call them just to be told that my service representative is busy and they can call me back. If I was lucky enough to get a call back, I was treated as an annoyance as if I am putting them out for wanting to stay informed.

Eventually I got the truck back after two months in the shop. Upon picking it up I noticed that the truck still had the same issues that it did when I dropped it off, on top of a new noise from the engine. There is a rattle that comes from the engine sporadically when I hit my gas, and my air conditioning unit was now blowing hot air. After calling the dealership to tell them about this, I drop the truck off AGAIN the following day so that they can re mount the top of the AC because it was not done when they rushed to put the truck back together. The brakes were not addressed and remained the same.

Also, this is only about half of what I wrote going into detail about my experience because there is a character limit on reviews, so the rest of my review will be...

update Missed a call from one of their representatives the day I posted this review. Called back about an hour after I received the first call and left a voicemail. Called back again a second time a week after that and left another voicemail.

Purchased a 2014 Raptor from here about 10 years ago and went back yesterday to look at a 2024 Lightning Platinum that we were interested in. Unfortunately both visits have been by far the worst experiences i’ve had while purchasing vehicles, and we tend to cycle out cars yearly. I figured I’d share my experience from this last visit. Only giving 2 stars because the salesman we worked with was great. For the quick summary, only one of the three people were a pleasure to work with, they dont call you back when they say they will if the information wont lead to a sale, they price vehicles incorrectly and pretty much just say “too bad” after you’ve wasted your time looking at it, they list vehicles for sale that they dont have and wont receive for 6+ months(they show 16 2024 lightning platinums for sale but only have 1), the vehicles listed for sale that they don’t have yet can’t have deposits on them, and they try to pass off standard pricing on services as “discounted” to get you to purchase the truck.

The good: The salesman (Sean) that the sales manager had work with us was actually pretty great. He was new, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from working with him. He was knowledgeable on the truck for the most part, and when he didn’t know an answer he would go find it. Pretty much exactly what you look for in a salesman. The truck itself was actually great too. We really enjoyed the vehicle and will definitely be purchasing that make/model/trim , just from a different dealership.

The bad: I worked with 3 people from start to finish (2 in person, 1 on the phone). 2 of the 3 were frustrating to work with. The guy on the phone said he would call me back in 5 minutes to let me know if the trucks I was calling about were actually there to look at or if they were in transit. He never called, so when i called back, where he said he got “busy” and said they dont have the truck there. I’m confident that if the trucks were in fact there I’d get a call back immediately with that information. The second person we worked with was the sales manager Mike. He had us check out a similar truck to the one we were asking about before hand that they had on the lot. He was fine at first, but just seemed annoyed after a bit. He handed us off as quickly as he could to a different salesman which ended up being a good thing. When we asked for Mike’s business card, he gave us someone else’s card and had the salesman we worked with hand write down his information instead. When we talked to Mike about what options the truck he showed us had, we found it didn’t have a bed liner and asked if they could throw that in as part of the deal. They said they couldn’t throw it in (understandable) but they could discount it from just under 1000 dollars to 650 through line-x. The funny thing is when i call Line-X as a consumer, they say their standard price is $650 for the full bed… When it came time to talk numbers, i said their site listed the price at just under $80,000, and he stopped me and said that is the best case scenario price, and that i’d have to qualify to get it. He said he would call me back with the rebate criteria and turns out they screwed up and put $13,000 dollars (not a typo) worth of rebates on the truck that dont apply to it. The truck was still in a range i was comfortable with, but at that point, i decided to just part ways. I figured 10 years would give them time to figure their stuff out but...

They can't return a call to save their life. I've never had such a frustrating dealership experience.

I buy new vehicles about every 1-2 years because both cars and bad financial decisions are hobbies of mine. in over 10 years and probably 8 new vehicles I've never struggled to get a dealership to sell me a car, normally i struggle to get them to back off.

I called roughly a week and a half ago because they have a very specific trim of Mach E that I want. I didn't want to haggle the price, theirs was very competitive. I literally said, "I'm ready to sign papers today." I'm moving to the Seattle area in May, about when the car arrives, so it works out perfect, but that means I can't come down there in person and have to do the deal by phone.

First day, they forward me to a new car sales manager, David Tran, who says he will call me back with numbers and that we can easily make the deal and get a deposit, then finalize things when the car comes in. He asks for photos of my trade-in, I email them to him. I never get a call back, I never get a response to multiple emails.

Then a salesman, Nathan, calls me. I tell him what I talked about with David, tell him I want the vehicle but that I don't live in Washington. He says he will talk with David and call me back. He never calls me back (you can start seeing a pattern here.)

I get annoyed and call Nathan a few days later. He says that they can't do anything since I don't live in state. I tell him what David told me, that it should be easy, he says that they can't do anything at all. No deposit, no talking numbers.

A few days later, another new car sales manager leaves me a voicemail saying that Nathan told him he should call me and set up. I'm confused, because Nathan specifically said we couldn't make a deal at all. He outright shut me down. I call the new car sales manager back, he sounds optimistic and says we can absolutely get a deal together. Again, he asks about my trade, but I tell him that if the trade is going to complicate things I can just sell it to CarMax or Carvana. He still wants the trade information, and says he will call me back with a final trade-in estimate and price on the vehicle.

He....never calls me back (note: this was yesterday, I haven't heard back today, they close in an hour, and I have no faith I actually will hear back.) Not one person who works at Sound Ford has returned a call or voicemail.

I literally called in with an exact stock number, didn't even attempt to haggle on price, and was even willing to forego the trade. This is one the of the easiest sells you can make, just give me the final price and forward the call to financing, that is all you have to do. And I can't even get them to do that. I've been told 5 times "I'll call you back" and once I've been told they would respond via email. I've gotten exactly 0 responses from them. Nothing.

Since two of these individuals were new car sales managers, not just salesmen, I imagine this is a culture issue at the dealership and not just a freak incident where they got busy. Its not like I got the new salesman who is disorganized or something, I was dealing with people who identified themselves as managers and likely have experience.

It is nice to know what dealership NOT to do business with before I even more...