Well, after having a car sold out from under us this past weekend, we looked around and called around to all the Subaru dealerships in the Atlanta area looking for a 05+ Legacy GT. We didn't really have any hopes of finding one of the limited editions in our price range. Most of the dealerships, to include SOG were quoting some pretty low trade in values for Deb's 07 Civic as well. Usually around $1000 less than book value. After not being all that happy with the selection and the prices around here, we expanded our search and saw an 05 Legacy GT Limited at Gerald Jones Subaru of Augusta for a REALLY good price compared to the Atlanta dealerships. Mostly the only deals we saw were a state away in like NC, SC, and some of the more rural dealerships. I called up and spoke to one of the sales managers, Buddy. I told Buddy what we had to trade, and the payment amount we were looking for. Buddy said he would call us back after crunching some numbers. About 5 minutes later he called us back and gave us the payment amount. It was almost exactly the price we had told him...no haggling, no nothing, just a good deal. He then informed us of any minor thing that had been done to the car. There were a couple of scratches that had been buffed out...you could not tell, but he told us anyway. He said that if we were going to come all the way to visit them, he wanted every little detail to be known before we made the drive...for me, that is GREAT. I was kind of unfamiliar with that kind of honesty and integrity by a salesman. So we took off on the 2.5 hour drive to Augusta. Upon arrival, they already had the car pulled ouround front for us and just waiting. First off I have to say, the car was BEAUTIFUL!. It was everything that Deb had hoped for. It is a regal blue color that looked very nice. What is better is the fact that it was the same price as what the dealerships around Atlanta were trying to sell the 2.5i for and this one was a GT Limited with just about every option except navigation!! Not only that but they had it certified pre-owned for us which gave it a 100k powertrain warranty and a prefered lending rate. The salesman we dealt with, J.D., was very polite and proffesional. He was also extremely friendly and served as a host of a dinner party might. We were treated like we were friends or family there. So on to the purchase. I have had salesmen try every trick in the book after I had sat down to buy a car. The finance manager gave us exactly what they promised and even gave us a bit more for Deb's trade in than we expected. A little over an hour after arriving, we had the keys and the paperwork done. Normally I would walk away with a headache, but I just walked away from this one with a smile on my face and Deborah had a nice new car (and a grin plastered on her face for the rest of the night as she drove us home!!). The only problem we experienced was the headlights were aimed a bit low for some reason. I called the next day (today) and the General sales manager, Jessie, worked hard to get an exact procedure for setting the aim on the headlights. He even gave me his personal number so that if it was after hours I could call him and he would make sure to take care of the problem. As it turned out, the tech he talked to must have mis-understood and I did have to call him after hours. He was just as friendly as if I were a personal friend, made a couple calls, called me right back with the solution. All in all I would recommend this dealership to anyone wanting to purchase a new Subaru (or volvo for that matter as they sell those too!) in the near future. Nice dealership, friendly honest people and great deals! I can't picture a better buying experience. I just wanted to recognize a great sales team and a dealership I would not hesitate to go back to. If you go just ask for Buddy or JD. Great group of guys.
Congrats on the new suby! Glad to hear you had a great experience and it was probably due to it being somewhat rural and not the big city dealers. I cant even count the number of times I simply got up and walked away from shady auto sales guys.