Dealer Review: Isringhausen Imports (Springfield, Illinois)

[silverstone_ttlz4]

As a courtesy to other members who may be considering buying/leasing a vehicle from Isringhausen Imports in Illinois, I am posting the review below. It's long, but the short of it is this: stay clear of this dealership at all costs. Negotiate your car elsewhere.



Summary::: Out-of-state buyers beware; Cars may appear in 'Like New' condition and be CPO-status, but Isringhausen's certification process misses things as obvious as side blinker lights that are loosely held on with double-sided tape; your salesman may take you for granted and not keep in touch with you at all; registration paperwork may be filed incorrectly in order to proceed with sale asap and may also take up to five weeks to be processed but neither your sales person nor the finance guy will keep you informed about what's going on…and you will pay the dealer an additional $150+ on top of it's own documentation and the actual title/registration fees for that speedy service. Verdict: Take your business elsewhere and save yourself the headache of dealing with Isringhausen.

Long version: I purchased a $50k CPO BMW Z4 in early February 2012. I had been talking to several out-of-state dealers about similar CPO vehicles, so before talking to Geoff Isringhausen Jr., I had an idea for the type of attention and the level of service I could expect being from out-of-state. Where the other dealers kept in touch with me regularly in a respectful manner, Geoff Jr. was hands-off to the point where I wondered how serious he was about selling the car. I'm not kidding when I say that at two points in the sale process he just didn't contact me for two or three days even though he said he would and/or it was understood that he would be contacting me. He is the least proactive salesman (lazy you could say) I have ever come across. Customer service is definitely not a priority for him.

Later when I did finally agree to one price, Geoff Jr. used cheesy, used car salesman lines like "we're going to lower the price some more because you are such a good negotiator" even though we both knew that no negotiating had taken place. I may be asking too much with this next one, but when I asked him to throw in $50 floor mats for free, Geoff said that there was just no money left in the deal for the dealer to possibly do that….Yea. He would sell them to me at cost though but never actually told me what that price would be (see point above about not being proactive).

When I got back to Boston with the car, I went to get the tires replaced because the ride with the stock run-flat tires was too harsh. At that point I was told that one of the rear wheels had a crack in it. Later, when I took the car to a BMW dealer in NY to get a loose side blinker checked and new wheel installed, they showed me that the vehicle had had bodywork done (that's fine) and that the side blinker on the fender was loose because it was being held on with double sides tape. When I checked the CPO paperwork, the tech marked off that the side fenders were in 'Good' condition. True? Sort of: the fender is there...and the paint looks good...but they clearly didn't check it very closely because if they had they would have seen that the blinker was loose. They would have also noticed the hairline crack.

When I contacted Geoff Jr. about the blinker light and wheel, he repeatedly said things along the lines of What do
You want me to do? in a sort of exasperated and frustrated tone of voice. Again, he doesn't seem to have much experience with customer service. Or it's just not a priority. He then asked for me to text him a picture of the fender blinker, because I apparently have nothing better to do with my time than make up stories about $30 broken trim pieces?? As for the wheel, he told me that he'd speak with a manager and then a few hours later text me asking for the mileage on my car. 24+ hours later he had still not gotten back to Me, and it was again necessary for me to contact him. When I did finally call, he said I was being unreasonable for saying that the wheel had in all likelihood begun cracking in the first 11500 miles the original owner had out on the car and not suddenly developed in the 1000 that I had driven in the car . How could he be so sure of that? Because the car was inspected as part of the CPO process! Yes, the same CPO process which failed to notice a broken exterior trim piece held on with double sided tape.


In my case, it seems that Isringhausen Imports knew they had a vehicle I really wanted and so they didn't see the need to work hard to make me a satisfied customer. Isringhausen clearly has a lot of customers and so they can afford to ignore some of us, especially out-of-state buyers who aren't likely to be repeat customers. Their treatment of customers such as myself, though, speaks volumes about how they view them: as something to take advantage of to the fullest extent possible and to then move on to the next sucker.

[maglito]

Thanks for the review! I've been there myself, and really wasn't too impressed. But, I try to avoid car dealers whenever possible.

[towski1]

If in the STL area. Autohaus BMW is the only choice for this brand. The other options...Isrginhausen, Plaza and Suntrup don't come close.