Lithia Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram FIAT of Helena — Local services in Helena

7/9/2024: This dealership is the epitome of what people hate about dealerships. Their finance department are a bunch of snakes... at best. I'm still dealing with the "windshield policy" they sold me. It was supposed to cover all windshield replacements for 5 years and was $1770. I went to get my second windshield replaced and was denied because I had exceed my limit. When I called PermaPlate, they told me the dealer signed me up for their base package even though I paid for the premium. The plan cost more than the one replacement I got out of it. I've bought 20 cars for my business in the past year. I know the process, how these plans work, and how dealers work. My best friends work at other dealers...at best this dealer is unethical. I don't know how they sleep at night.

Original Review: I wasn't going to leave a review because I was just going to let it go and never buy anything from them again. But time and time again, I have to deal with something that this dealership has done wrong and they've earned this review. Let me start by saying that I buy 5-6 Jeeps per year so I'm pretty accustomed to how dealerships work. Let's start at the beginning. I live 2 hours away from this dealership. I initiated the purchase online for "x" price. I submitted all information needed for the deal and agreed upon "x" price so that we could make the purchase happen as quickly as possible to get back on the road to home. The plan was that I would drive Helena the next day to sign paperwork and pick the Jeep up. When I get to the dealer and go to sign the paperwork, there's a market adjustment for $5,000 above "x" price that was never discussed. After hours of "negotiating" and showing them the original conversation from the day before, I made it perfectly clear that I wasn't paying the $5,000 market adjustment and that I was leaving. As I got up to leave, they said they could make the deal at the original price. They could have saved us all time by honoring the original price right up front. Unfortunately, this was not the end of the horrible purchasing experience. During the sales process, they were hard pressed to sell me a $8,000 bumper to bumper warranty that I did not want. Most of the time, this warranty is in the $3,000 range but I guess they felt like they needed to get that extra $5,000 market adjustment that I said I wouldn't pay. After what felt like hours, I finally agreed to buy it just to get the hell out of there. I knew that I could cancel the contract within a certain time period to get my money back. I did however purchase the Perma Plate option to cover windshield and interior damage. The Perma Plate requires a coating to be put on the interior surfaces. After the deal was complete, the dealership told me they didn't have the time to apply this coating and that I would need to come back to the dealership (2 hour drive) when they had time to apply it. Not happy but at least I thought that was the end of this bad experience and got out of there. Fast forward to a couple weeks down the road. I emailed the finance department asking to cancel the extended warranty. To make a long story short, they did everything they could to make me change my mind including taking forever to respond to emails or not responding to emails and not returning phone calls. It took 3 months of emails and me getting extremely pissed off to finally get my money back in the form of reducing the amount I owed on the loan. Fast forward to now.... My windshield is cracked and I go to use the Perma Plate windshield protection that I purchased. My local dealership files the claim with Perma Plate to have the windshield replaced and Perma Plate says my protection plan doesn't exist because Lithia Jeep of Helena, the dealership I purchased the plan from never submitted the paperwork. Unbelievable. Some dealerships are better than others. This dealership is bottom of the barrel. I've never had a worse experience with a dealership than this place. I'd avoid this place at all cost to save yourself time,...

Buyer beware, what they verbally disclose to you and what they have you agree to sign are two very different things. The rumors of shady tactics are not rumors. For example they will upsell you an extended warranty and tell you it will fully cover your vehicle for 7 years or 100k miles. Then you’re met with hidden costs like undisclosed deductibles in the fine print, not to mention only putting in 6 years for the contract for you to sign when they clearly said 7. Then come to find out there’s a deductible, they try to upsell you for a non-deductible for hundreds more. I only said to give me a few days to think about it before I go along. A few days later they had me sign a contract with the upgrade already in place. I go along reluctantly only to finally realize they went back on their word and only made it 6 years instead of 7.

The sales and financing manager Sam King is nothing but a crook and an unprofessional and rude excuse of a shady pressure dealer. First off, when we’re talking about upselling of product in the thousands of dollars going wrongfully complicated, you don’t have any right to hang up on me and block my phone contact when I try to reach out to you about questions regarding my contract just because you simply have “a bunch of paperwork and other clients” to deal with. Mind you all, we haven’t met in person yet, only spoke on the phone. As if that’s ridiculous enough, I end up having to put everything I got going on hold and personally drive almost an hour to the dealership to try to get this all sorted out. When I finally get in to see him, his first greeting and I quote, “I don’t have time to argue with you right now”. We go into his office and he’s already got a nasty attitude saying it’s my fault for not reading the contract carefully when him and his salesmen were clearly at fault for disclosing incorrect details verbally before having us sign off to something not discussed. Tried to justify the shadiness by using the excuse of “well, you were already given discounts with the dealer incentives” and told me “I overheard the sale those guys made with you the other day, and they never said any of that. We had made verbally clear to you about the deductible and the 6 year period” Then he tried to upsell my mother again for hundreds more to make the service contract for 7 years instead of 6. My mom was about to go along with it, but I immediately stopped her in her tracks, no way was I gonna allow this to go any further. Then Sam proceeds to make an unbelievably unprofessional remark and I quote “or you can get it done better by being stubborn like the way you are”. At this point I was about damn near ready to flip his desk into his face. As if that wasn’t enough, he tells us he’s not gonna go back on the contract, calling me stubborn and dumb decision making a few more times, then he proceeds to say and I quote “if you’re not satisfied, get yourself a good lawyer and take us to court. All the documents are there and you signed it. Now if you’re done here, the door’s right behind you. After dealing with your mess, I only have ten minutes left of my shift. I still have all this paperwork on my desk and countless clientele to deal with before this place closes.” Yeah, like that’s any of my problem pal.

Guys like this running the place as managers are exactly why our nations car dealers are being referred to as stealerships. Shady excuses like Sam should be mortified and brought to light. Don’t ever do business with this guy or this dealership. Don’t even trust the service department. Always read your contracts down to the last letter before you make any purchases. Do not let them press you for your signature. The second they try, hang up the phone or walk...

Honest reviews are hard to come by but this is one. I found a truck for $8,995 on facebook marketplace that this dealership had. I reached out to them and asked about financing it. I’m trying to rebuild my credit and explained that I was willing to buy my way into a loan with as high of a down payment as $5,000 cash. I was passed along to a gentleman by the name of Zack who had only been with the company for a few weeks. I don’t hold this against him but the pressuring for all kinds of things before I could see the contract they wanted me to sign didn’t sit well with me. Once I finally received the contract and was able to review it I decided to pass on the deal. The overall loan was for almost $21,000 with me putting $5,000 down on it. Something seemed fishy when they said my payments would be around $321 a month for 48 months. I couldn’t understand why the terms would be so long when I was putting $5,000 down on a truck they had listed for $8,995. I was told they were adding a warranty yet the papers they emailed me stated “as is no warranty”. When I would ask the terms of the warranty I would get told that was a question Zack couldn’t answer but was quickly redirected with “we’re adding a service plan that covers 4 oil changes a year”. Well I can change my own oil so no need in adding that to my bill. What really turned me away from the deal was that Zack told me the loan company was mandating that I don’t use the truck for work purposes. I’m literally buying a truck for my company so that info had all but killed the deal for me. The final nail in the coffin for this purchase was being told that I had to sign the papers by midnight or there was no deal. Well if that’s the game you want to play then there’s no deal. I will sign a contract when I feel comfortable with it not because some car salesman is pressuring me so he can make a sale. Flash forward to today and the lady I originally spoke to called me to try to save the deal. I explained to her that I wasn’t going to do the deal. It’s a bad deal that has me paying way too much wasted money. I then was trying to explain to her that I didn’t like that they both were trying to pressure me into the truck when she decided to try to cut me off by telling me “I’m going to speak now”. It was at this moment I politely said “I’m hanging up now, have a nice day”. Contrary to what others are saying this dealerships customer service is rather lacking. I’m sure there some people there that aren’t this way but based off of my experience I won’t be conducting any business with this or any other Lithia dealership. Don’t get me started on their Chevy dealership and trying to get my suburbans airbag recall completed. For 2 years now they tell us everything we call that the airbags are on back order. I find this hard to believe. Meanwhile my insurance company is threatening me to raise my insurance if the recall isn’t completed. In closing, don’t let my experience stop you from doing business with them. Just know what you’re getting yourself into and be cautious because of my experience. If they did it to me, they’re doing...