Franklin Sussex Auto Mall — Local services in Wantage

I’d like to preface with our salesman (Nathan) was nothing but helpful and friendly and I have only good things to say regarding him. Once we were turned over to the sales manager to help build a Jeep, the entire experience was shifted.

The sales manager never came over to greet us and we spent the first few minutes of the buying process explaining to our sales person what we wanted while he ran back and forth to the sales manager at the front desk while they built it. Eventually we were told “why don’t you come over”; however when we got to the service desk, there was no introduction or “thank you for shopping with us”. He ran down the list of options and told us to say “yes or no” to each (rather than any explanation or time spent discussing features). While this wasn’t the most desirable way to purchase a car, we obliged. When the car was fully built, the price was coming up about $2500 more than when we built the same car at Jeep.com. We identified what the issue was (the engine was showing $2500 compared to $1500), however despite this another gentleman working behind the desk continued to explain to us you can’t trust the website and “prices change”. Rather than suggesting to try to rebuild or see if a mistake was made, he continued to argue with my wife and belittle us. Even the sales manager at one point said “you’re not listening to them”. They were incredibly unprofessional and honestly came across to us like they could care less we were there.

Our family has purchased three cars and leased four cars within the last 12 years from Franklin Sussex. I’ve always had great service when buying and sub-par service after purchase when it came to bringing the vehicles back in for maintenance. I keep telling myself I won’t go back after each bad experience but this time is different - I’m done with them. They obviously could care less about repeat business and it shows. After leaving, I spoke to Jeep directly and they told me this was not the case and a mistake was probably made while they were building the car. Regardless, I understand pricing can be different, but there was zero interest in finding out the real reason other than “prices change”.

Additionally, I was pre-approved through Chrysler financial which offered cash incentives if you finance through them ($1000). At the dealership I was repeatedly told by the sales manager that there were zero incentives right now. They also wanted to run our credit again to “find a better interest rate for us”, despite not even looking at what our financing offers were. I came to the realization that they probably make more through their other financing companies (Ally) who do not offer any rebates to the consumer. This is most likely why they wanted us to finance through Ally rather than Jeep directly.

In the grand scheme, while this is only over $2000 on a close to $50k vehicle (both the base price plus the incentive) the way we were treated even before pricing came up is completely unacceptable.

I’m not one to write negative reviews unless I really had a exceptionally bad experience. As a business owner myself, if I treated any of my customers the way I was treated today, I would no longer be in business. If I could give this review a...

See UPDATE BELOW:

One of the worst experiences ever. This place is just wretched. What started off as a positive has just been a cluster-f&$@ since. Three weeks in after making a deal, my truck is ruined (water damage) by some contracted installers they hired. You take the vehicle back to repair again and a week later it still leaks. Now their answer is to go the the installers directly so they are not the middle man. There is still no registration from sales so I can’t drive it “legally.” Any follow up from sales? Nope. Not even when you ping, call, or email them. They ask you 2 weeks later for a paperwork to do the transfer and you give it to them. Then they wait a week until i contact them to say oh we don’t have it because it was in the sales rep’s junk folder. Then a week later, they lost the paperwork again and had to resend it. It’s been over a week since the tags and registration expired. No calls from the general manager when you leave messages to call, email, or voicemails.

DO NOT BUY OR SPEND ONE PENNY HERE!!! They don’t care about the customer no matter what bull they try to tell you. Find another dealer, ANY DEALER. Even if there is something on this lot that you like, go to another dealer and have it transferred there. This entire place is the stereotypical used car sales guy your parents warn you about....except they are doing it on new vehicles.

UPDATE - So it has been just shy of 6 weeks since this first experience happened and I must provide an update. After I had made countless reviews and contacts with dealer service and Chrysler/RAM corporate, I heard from Rich the General Sales Manager. After he and my sales rep, Dylan, learned everything that was occurring with my sunroof they made the decision to find me a replacement. Problem was that I am very picky on the color and features that I wanted. After a week, we could not find a Rebel that suited me, or when we did the other dealerships preferred to hold their inventory while being rude (FYI - that inventory is still on their lots unsold).

So, I opened up my preferences a bit to go back into a RAM Sport. However, I was only open to one limited edition color, factory installed sunroof, RAMBOX, black wheels, etc. It took a few more days, but they found one. I lost a couple creature features like back-up assist, off road tires, but in all I got a new vehicle that I can love and this dealership kept pricing the same, put in some extra oil changes, and really stepped up. I am extremely grateful to Rich, Dylan, and the rest...

It was time to upgrade our Jeep Grand Cherokee, and I had been looking and looking and found FSAM had one in the color and model I was looking for. We stopped up on a Saturday and the nicest salesman, Anthony, got the keys so we could take a look and for a test drive. We fell in love with it and Anthony got to work having our trade-in looked over and giving us the bottom line. The deal was made along with replacing a few items that were missing from the vehicle. That feeling when we went to pick it up and it was ours was something we needed after a stressful year. Everyone we met at the dealership was friendly and helpful. Anthony even spent time pairing my phone and helping with how things worked! It's been the best buying experience for a vehicle ever, I have to say...and I can't say thanks enough to Anthony who went above and beyond to get me items to make this the best Grand Cherokee we have ever owned and we have every item to use it to its full potential. What a great experience it was buying from Franklin Sussex Auto Mall! Thank You!!! UPDATE 12/27/24: Took the GC back for the "first is free" oil change and I haven't even hit 7K miles since purchase and after mentioning a noise from the rear when I brake coming down a hill, the woman in service comes and tells me I need both front and rear brakes! Huh? I just bought it in the summer and the "certified" checklist that was in the glove compartment says for front and rear brakes checked off that "50% or more of lining remaining"! So obviously that was not true!!! She didn't want to hear it, salesman says he was sorry, so I declined (almost 700.00) and I guess I shouldn't have trusted what the sheet said and had it inspected by someone when I first got it. Very disappointed and today I take it to my regular mechanic. Will be making a video to warn others don't take their word, have it checked over during your 3000/3 month window! Very...