Hudson Pre-Owned — Local services in Jersey City

I was traveling home yesterday on NJ turnpike to Massachusetts and my 2020 Ram Bighorn crew cab with 12,000 miles has a “blinking” check engine light which means, don’t continue to drive the vehicle and get it serviced immediately. It started shaking and losing power, not a good situation. So I get off turnpike in Jersey City (traveling with my 88 year old mom) and I reach out to Hudson Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram to bring my truck and they REFUSED to even let me take it there for service. I wasn’t asking them to drop everything and do the work that day, I planned on renting a car and continue home and then come back when it’s been serviced. I get that many dealerships are busy, but it’s a year old truck, and the code was a misfire in 5th cylinder, which could be something simple like a plug or coil pack. Ram says if I go to some random garage, then I’ll void my warranty, but this dealership wouldn’t help a new customer even bring the truck to the property. Insane to me. I called Ram corporate customer care to intervene, but the dealership wouldn’t budge. Customer care also called every other Dodge Ram dealer within 25 miles and same results. I had to rent a car, begged to leave my practically disabled new Ram at rental agency and now have to tow it 200 miles to the dealer back in Massachusetts where I bought the truck. I am seriously questioning why I should keep this Ram after this experience since there is no support for their customers. I am going to find out from Ram corporate how the dealership can ignore owners in warranty and at the same time tell them not to drive the truck so I don’t cause major damage AND for me to not get it foxed from someone who is not an authorized Ram service agent or I’ll lose my warranty. This is so wrong. Don’t buy a new Ram, Jeep, Dodge if you want to be able to expect service. Hudson let me down, put me and my mom in harms way yesterday as the storm was approaching. I’m very disappointed in this dealership and Ram brand as a whole.

Update: after 5 days, I’ve been sent a response from “the owner” a couple of hours ago. I appreciate any response, but I tried calling the General Manager, Tom Rivers, several times 4 days ago and left a message. No response from Mr. Rivers. I also had pushed Ram customer care to try to get the dealership to agree to help 4 days ago, but the best they could offer is for me to get roadside assistance to tow it to Hudson and then Ram corporate resources would get directly involved to basically force Hudson to repair my new Ram. Sounds swell, m sure the dealership will love being forced to help me and do a bang up job diagnosing and repairing my Ram (sarcasm). I’ll reach out to the Service Manager, Mr.Curtis Thomas, who was gracious enough to appear to be sincere, but how will he explain that his Boss ignored my calls (the receptionist hung up the first time after he went to get him to answer my call), then when I kept calling back asking for the GM Tom Rivers, I was given his voicemail to leave a message, which went unreturned. I drove back to Jersey yesterday from Cape Cod where I live and dropped off my rental and arranged a 200 mile tow to Massachusetts to a dealer that was willing to help. Apparently, this dealership is owned by one of the largest automotive companies, Penske Automotive Group, a public ally traded company, PAG. They don’t care about customers IMHO. If they did, they had a week to respond and do the right thing before I had to get the Ram 1500 Bighorn towed this morning. Ironically, I drove by the dealership last night to get to my hotel. I will not drop this complaint and it’s going to make it to Penske’s upper management, BBB, Linked In and wherever else I can spread this message. They say when a business wrongs a customer, they share it with 20 people, we’ll, I expect to multiple that by thousands. Sorry, is not good enough when they refused to help a stranded Ram owner with his 88 year mom as a storm was about to hit last Friday afternoon. The GM Tom Rivers can’t say, “I didn’t know anything about this situation”. ...

I would give zero stars to the service I received today if I could but unfortunately 1 was As low as I could go. As I was driving into work this morning like I do everyday I heard a terrifying loud noise that sounded like what could be a shot gun. The front portion of my panaromic sunroof had completely shattered all over me and the inside of the car before it was even 9am. After being completely upset and caught off guard and shaken and pulling over to the side of the road I called my husband and our first thought was let’s get in touch with the dealership where we purchased the vehicle 6 months ago.

The person on the phone wasn’t much help but told him I was more than welcome to bring the car in. I drive all the way from Cranford area (that’s where this happened) to Jersey City to get to Hudson Dodge Jeep RAM... about 35 mins in traffic to pull my car up to service where different employees begin looking at the car as if they have never seen anything like this before. After about a 10 min wait and being greeted by a very nice young man at the front desk I meet “service director” Aron Kastell. The first thing he begins to explain is that vehicle warranty had expired, goes on discussing how much miles are on the car (about 31,000). Purchased at about 14,000 miles in 2018 as a certified pre-owned Jeep Cherokee. This man showed no sympathy, no form of being human, no direct answers as to how long it will take. I was so frustrated I called my husband and allowed them to speak where Aron Kastell sounded like a manual that he had to read to simply say no to people. He kept repeating the same thing over and over. Told us to call our insurance company as they may cover it but that Jeep wouldn’t. Said he would email his “warranty” people but that it would take a long time to get a response. He had no loaner for us even if we were to leave it because he only has 10. Didn’t offer to call another dealership near by to see if any of them could offer one. I’ve never felt so brushed off in my life. No compassion and basically just left there to call insurance companies, car rental locations, etc. He was kind enough to offer a cup of coffee while I started my task of making 2 hours worth of calls all while standing in the Jeep service area.

My husband asked him to check if this was a defect. We quickly looked online to see how this could happen and quickly noticed this has happened with other Jeep Cherokees and what happened has happened to others. Aron Kastell suggested a rock kicked up and hit my sunroof. If this was that common wouldn’t different consumers have this occur more often. Maybe almost as often as a rock kicks up and breaks a windshield?? The worst part of all this is that I am thankful my step daughter wasn’t in the back seat this morning when this happened as she usually is. Could anyone imagine what that could be like for a 6 year old girl? Or how she could have been hurt. I am appalled and disgusted by the behavior of the service director today. My husband and I deal with people all day and work for two different institutions where we manage people and deal with customer service and there is one take away you should always remember. Empathize and put yourself in the clients shoes and Aron was far from that. He basically read from a manual and offered me coffee after... do you think coffee makes clients happy and keeps them loyal?

We also called there months ago saying we were sold the car with one key only and were promised several call backs all with no return.

This dealership had great service when it came to sales but their service is lacking when it comes to anything beyond that including servicing the car you purchased there. I will be going on different forms of social media to express my disappointment with the service today and I promise to warn people from doing business here going...

I was looking for a Dodge Charger and one of my friends recommended Hudson Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram. I went there after i set my appointment. I met the sales man Bernardo. Don't get deceived by the nice smile and sweet talk, talking is cheap. They give me a rate of 4.99% according to my credit through bank of America "which is my bank", and i was surprised why it is too high because i know the bank offer me 2.69 according to my credit score. I traded my old car for $1200 according to Bernardo. After waiting more than 8 hours, i was told to go to sign the paper work at the financial Manager office (Declan Ogoke) . I was chocked that they traded my care for $500. i asked what is going on he told me that your car was traded for just $500. I went out running to the Sales man Bernardo and i asked him where is the rest of the amount goes $700 . He started to mumble and he said we put $500 to your down payment and the other $700 we use it in the rebate which is not true he took me to his manager John Concalves who tried to convince me that he used this 700 to reduce my monthly payment. I don't have any experience with dealers so i believed him and i took my car 1:30 after midnight and left. Next day i started reviewing my paper and contract and i started to discover the disaster. I went to Bank of America to see how they gave me this high rate and i found that i am eligible to 2.69%, the second thing i realized that they traded my old car for just $500 not as they said $1200 (only 500 that mentioned in the paper and they added it to my down payment, and the other $700, there is no legal paper proofs Mr Concalves story.

I called Bernardo while i am in the bank to see what is the problem, he asked me to come and meet his manager John Concalves this was Friday 3rd of July 2020. I went there and i met Bernardo who told me that his manager was not there and the financial manager was not there too. i waited for more than 45 minutes waiting for anyone to solve my problem, but nothing happened.

They try to convince me that they gave me the loan through there bank account in bank of america and i didn't believe any of them. i left and decide to write my first and last experience with them.

I DON'T RECOMMEND THEM TO ANYONE. if you wanna deal with them it is better for you to have good experience with car dealers or bring someone who has experience. BE VERY CAREFUL

Update 1- I canceled all the insurance i signed with them on my car which lowered the price almost $3300

2- It was agreed to trade in my car for $1200 but I found in the paper work they trade it in for only 500 and the other 700 is gone with the wind.

3- The third point they purchased a loan from the bank I was dealing with, with interest rate 4.99 and they lied to me and told me this rate according to your credit score which is excellent. When I went to the bank next day I realized that they lied. If I get the loan straight from the bank I will get 2.69. And when I complained about it, nobody could solve this problem even the customer service and they ask me to refinance it with rate 3.69.

Ms Monica Lopez thank you for your effort but I just solved one problem out of 3 and case is closed. And now I will be paying the car loan with high interest rate until I can...