Matthews Kia of Schenectady — Local services in Town of Niskayuna

My experience at Matthew's Kia has been very eventful to say the least over the course of our few visits to this dealer (3 days). I had scheduled an appointment prior to my arrival (12PM) with another staff member which turned out not to be the real person I was meeting about my lease. Kinda defeats the purpose of an appointment especially since walk ins are treated the same as people with appointments I had got paired with one of the sales members Tim. The beginning of our interactions with Tim went as per the par when car shopping. I came to look primarily at the EV6 as they had a few available. I wanted to see what I may be able to afford. I ended up looking at a few variations of the EV6. We took one of the EV6 GT's out for a spin with Tim riding shotgun. I had already done a ton of research for specs, performance, and features on this car prior to checking it out *Tim attempted to show me some of the most basic features of this car that I feel both of us ended up experiencing for the first time as if he had never been in one himself. I had the car in GT mode already for a few miles before he mentioned anything about it being a feature. Some of my questions were not answered. We arrived back to the dealer. I confirmed if the car was AWD (as I plan to use it in the winter) he was unsure and had to walk back to the window sticker to see. One of the most basic facts about the most expensive car at the dealer is that all of the EV6 GT models are AWD (I only go in depth with this test drive experience as later on I end up being asked if he was knowledgeable about the car and answered all of my questions) was/did not. I ended up filling out the paperwork to process the application for approval. While filling out my paperwork Tim had made reservations over the phone for dinner that night with his girlfriend while I was waiting to ask him a question about something I was filling out. Most questions I asked just ended up being answered by one of the GM's. I finished my application and was told to I would receive a call on Monday. Monday rolls around I had reached out to Tim via text raising some concerns about a significant area where there was scratches all over the matte paint and other questions pertaining to the buyout on my car I had at that time. All I received back was "Business manager will call you". I waited about 4 hours and didn't not receive any calls, texts or emails about my car. I texted Tim a 2nd time asking about a follow up on the situation. No reply again I ended up receiving a call from the Financial department during this saying I was approved and to setup an appointment for the next day (Tuesday) for pickup. I reached out to Tim a 3rd time the next day (delivery day) about the status of my car being fixed, detailed and charged. The reply I got after 2 days of asking was "It will. I won't be there. James will be calling you shortly .He's an expert on EV". ( I wish I had got James to help me in the first place). Not knowing what to expect I showed up to the dealer to collect my 70k car. I was greeted by James as he would be helping me get into finance to sign my papers, teach me about the car, swap my plates, setup my registration and insurance, pay my first payment and just be an overall tremendous help. I had mentioned a few of these issues during my meeting with finance and was encouraged to submit my side/experience as well as talk to the GM that day. James hand buffed out all the scratches on the back of the car and even took care of a few spots inside the car that had glue residue behind. James really took care of my car like it was his own. I sat for about 2 hours total with James getting to know all the ins and outs, some meet and greets around the dealership and making sure I'm comfortable with the car before I leave. I planned to give this review a 1 star regardless if I had purchased a car or not but James really saved this deal and made it all come together and James has a stunning personality as well as being top teir employee for this company....

On 3/31/25, my husband John and I walked into Matthew Kia in Schenectady, NY and hoping to find a Kia SUV. We were approached by a salesman, Bryan, who was not pushy at all but showed us a couple of SUVs. I found what I thought was “the perfect one”. My husband and I inspected the whole car inside and out, just noticing a couple of dings and dents. We met with Bryan after and took car for test drive and knew it was for me. Bryan told me the dealership was waiting for the title and in a couple of days I can pick up the vehicle. On 4/3/25, Bryan called and said my car was ready. The next day we went to dealership to get it. So let’s make this clear, the car war in the possession of Matthew Kia from 3/31-4/4/25. On 4/4/25, we had to meet with the finance manager to sign paperwork. One thing that I have NEVER signed in any dealership that stuck out to us that should have been a definite flag was “we are responsible for any cosmetic damage!” But of course we didn’t think anything of it because we had already inspected the vehicle. As we were getting ready to take our car home, Bryan jumped in passenger seat to show me different gadgets to the car, and as I said I was very happy with my car at the time. Then the nightmare started!!!!!!! We got home, I walked around car and noticed scratch/key marks all over the hood of my car!!!!!!!!! I immediately called Bryan and asked what happened to my car!???? This damage occurred at the dealership. Bryan stated he “had no knowledge how that happened, and he spoke to his manager, and the paint guy comes in Tuesdays and could touch that up”. I heard NOTHING after that! On 4/5/2025 I reached out to Bryan asking if they had cameras on lot?? Heard nothing!!! On 4/8/2025, I showed up at dealership to meet with paint guy only to be turned away as I was told he had “a family emergency” which was a complete lie!!!!!! On 4/13/2025, I reached back out to Bryan asking about the status of the paint technician after I was placed on hold with Matthew Kia for almost a half hour and I finally hung up and received no call back!!!! I went to local body repair tech guy in my area, received a quote for work to be done on hood of my car, sent quote to Kia, next thing I know, I tried to call the guy that gave me the quote!!! And have received no call back from him either!!!!!!!!!!!! I then reached out to another body repair garage, very reputable who is the one that made me realize that no it’s most likely not key marks on my hood, but was done perhaps during washing/waxing!!!!!!! Now dealership is covering it up!!!!!! I will never recommend Matthew Kia to anyone ever!!!!! They don’t care about their customers!!!! They are crooks. They only care about sales!!!!! Friends and family I will recommend Garvey Kia any day. That’s where I was originally going to go in the first place. Those guys care about customers and when my husband bought his vehicle we were treated with the utmost respect!!!!! Don’t go to Matthew Kia!!!! They are crooks!!!!!

So it only gets worse!!!!! The service light continues to go on!!!! Remember we just purchased this vehicle!!!!!! It is unclear if or when the oil was last changed. Matter of fact the service light says it was 8000 miles over!!!!!!! Also, we learned that the BRAKES need to be replaced when John took it for oil change!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The pads on the front are down to 3mm and the back are at 4mm with just above. 16,000 miles. Don’t rely on the dealership telling you that the vehicle is pre-certified as a reliable measure of the...

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Well - as much as I do love my Telluride, I’m starting to think that my husband might have been right in his hesitation to buy a KIA. It’s been great for the 3+ years I’ve owned it and I have had no regrets, until now. This year I got a few letters about some recalls that it was affected by so I drove down to Matthews Kia of Schenectady (where we bought the car) on 8/2/24 to have the recalls fixed. While they were working on it the front radar stopped working and they lost software communication and were not able to finish all of the recall updates that needed to be done. The guy was super apologetic, explained that for some reason they lost communication during the upgrade and now the radar wasn’t working. They weren’t sure how to fix it so they had to “put a ticket” in and he said he would call me back the following week to let me know next steps, schedule an appointment to finish fixing it. No worries, that stuff happens, I can deal with not having cruise control for a little while. 🤷‍♀️ But the nobody called me back. 🤔 I called them on 8/19 and the woman who answered the phone did not seem to have any idea what I was talking about when I explained my story and didn’t seem interested in trying to figure it out, telling me I just needed to make an appointment and bring it back in. Since I didn’t want to have to take another day off to drive to Albany and back, I asked her to check and make sure they had figured out what the problem was and how to fix it before I brought it back. She said she would have someone call me back. Again, no one called me back. 😒 Finally, I called them again on 9/3 and spoke to a different woman who was helpful even though she didn’t know all the details, she looked into it and did call me back later that day to let me know that they spoke with the main KIA support and they told them to have it brought back in and hooked up and then call for support while it’s there. Okay, no problem, but by now it has gotten annoying that the cruise control isn’t working and I’d like to get it fixed sooner rather than later. I had 9/10 off from work (because it was my birthday!) so I scheduled an appointment for that day and figured I would go shopping or get my nails done or something while they worked on it. But then my son got sick, and was home sick from school on my birthday, and I didn’t want to bring a sick kid to hang out in Albany all day. I called them to find out my options and got the first woman I spoke with again, who was again not helpful. If i had to cancel then it wouldnt be until the end of October before they could reschedule me. Eventually I was able to find out that, yes, they do have a Dropbox and I could just drop it off ahead of time if I needed to. Okay, great, thank you. Very helpful. 🙄 So Monday night, after my husband and I finish work, and our daughter finished soccer practice, we loaded our kid kid up in the car and drove down to Albany with my husband following in his truck. I was able to find the Dropbox for key, put them in the envelope with all of my information and put them into the slot for the appointment the next day at 9:00...