Complaint Review: SANDS CHEVROLET - Glendale Arizona

I  was looking for a  car  for my  son and found the following advertisement from Sands Chevrolet in the Arizona Republic  (Febr., 14, 2010 - Page AC3):  2009  Chevy Cobalt $ 129 mo. ***,  MSRP $ 15,725  GM Rebate $ 3,000   Sands Disc $ 3,750   SANDS PRICE  $ 8,975.--

We  called several  times  to  confirm that  this was an automatic Cobalt with A/C  (many  times car  dealers advertise  cars for  a low price and then it is  "manual, no A/C"  and a  car without A/C  is  practically  worthless in Arizona)   Each time it  was  "Don"   on  the phone,  we called 2  or 3  times,  the last time to ask for directions.  When we  arrived  at  the dealership nobody  seemed to know  this  "Don"  and  nobody  made any  attempt  to find out who we had  talked to.

When we  tried  to  insist  to get  the  advertised price  it  was   "all the dealerships  advertise  cars  at  a  low price that you won't  get,  why  waste  your time,   we  will get you as close as possible to this price."

"As  close as  possible"  turned  out  about 30%   more  expensive  (almost $ 12,000)  with  monthly  payments  of  almost $ 240,-  When  I  asked  "how many payments ?"   the answer  was  "I  don't  know,  usually  the  contracts are for 72 months".   Later I  started to think   "how is it  possible  that he  does not  know, - how  was  the  exact  amount  calculated without knowing the  number of  payments"  the payments were even showing  the cents,  it  was  not  an  estimate.

Then the next  thing:  We  had  agreed that  Sands would install  power locks for a  certain price and  after they  charged a downpayment of  $ 2,000 to my  credit card  it  was  "you have to take the  car home tonight  and  bring it  back  in about 4  days when the financing is  approved"  (this seemed kind of  stupid to me  since this dealership is about 50 miles from our home.  we  suggested to pick it up after the completion of  the job  but  the salesperson insisted that it  was  absolutely  necessary  for us to take the car home the same evening of  the purchase.)

At  this  point in time I  started to get  a  bad  gut feeling....    what  was the problem  about leaving  the car until  the modification was completed ?   the sales guy  talked something about laws, regulations and insurance problems  but it  did not make sense  to me,  then I  started to put all these  things  together:   a  guy on the phone that nobody at the dealership knows  and who  made  false promises,  a  downpayment before  we  had  actually  seen the purchase agreement,   the necessity  to  drive the car  off the lot  immediately....   this  set  off  all  the  red  warning lights in my  brain and  we  decided to leave as  fast  as  possible.  when we were getting  into  our car   suddenly  there were about 4  guys,  one holding the open door  on  the passenger side and preventing me to  take off.   suddenly  there were all kind of  new  offers  but I  had  seen  and  heard  enough.