Best New Car Dealership in Nanaimo

[humbug37]

We will be looking for a new car in the near future, and have been somewhat underwhelmed by the dealer situation in Nanaimo. My wife loves her present car, but has been very poorly treated by the dealer whenever she has taken it in for service. One of her friends purchased a new car (different dealer) and her friend was ignored while the people at the dealers fawned over her husband. There is a very limited number of dealers in Nanaimo (and even fewer dealership owners), so what do we do - look out of town?

Observation: In walking around our neighbourhood, many driveways have two cars in them, but they are seldom from the same manufacturer. To me, that suggests that dealers are not earning customer loyalty. Before moving to Nanaimo we had vehicles by the same manufacturer in our driveway for over 15 years, due to product quality and dealer service.

[Tenspot]

Nothing good to report on them from here. Although I wouldn't drive one, the VW dealer is the most reputable in my estimation. (Resident and former business owner in Nanaimo since 87's impression).

[GR74]

It depends on the make and model of car or truck that you are looking for. If you're interested in a GM product I would suggest going to Laird-Wheaton (Wheaton GM) here in town. If you go there, go and find the salesman by the name of Chris Tarala. He is one of the best around. Kristine Ross is one of the business managers there, again, one of the best. They will treat you well but it depends on the car you want.

[canadianwood]

It depends on the make and model of car or truck that you are looking for. If you're interested in a GM product I would suggest going to Laird-Wheaton (Wheaton GM) here in town. If you go there, go and find the salesman by the name of Chris Tarala. He is one of the best around. Kristine Ross is one of the business managers there, again, one of the best. They will treat you well but it depends on the car you want.

If you are looking for an import vehice the same owner of Laird-Wheaton also owns Newcastle Nissan. Talk to John the salesmanager. Great people work there too!

Regards,

Canadianwood

[Wyatt Earp]

Nothing good to report on them from here. Although I wouldn't drive one, the VW dealer is the most reputable in my estimation. (Resident and former business owner in Nanaimo since 87's impression).

I've owned a number of vw all diesle mind you and I have never bought and won't ever buy a unit at the nanaimo dealership. Just my opinion mind you.

[sreno7]

Ryan Saunders at Steve Marshall Ford has an excellent reputation as an honest car salesman

[islandgal]

I agree with Wyatt...unfortunately, I did buy one vehicle at the Nanaimo VW dealership and was never happy with the service. Love the VW product, but when we went looking for a new car last year, we didn't buy VW mainly due to the poor service we received at the repair department. We felt Newcastle Nissan gave us good service and we were happy with the salesgirl there named Sasha.

Carol

[canadianwood]

If you are looking for Sasha, she is now at the Hyundai Dealership in Nanaimo.

[Spence]

I haven't bought a lot of new cars in my life, but myself and my family's experiences in Nanaimo, have taught me one thing, RUN, don't walk away from Woodgrove Chrysler. We purchased a used Jeep privately in 2008, and took it to Woodgrove for a check and routine maintenance for a while, then I wished to buy a new Dodge PU. With a veteran salesman we test drove a three new vehicles one evening in the spring, returning the next night, the previous nights salesman was not working, and started to deal with a very nice, but young and possibly either new to the dealership, or to car sales period. I took my trade in and the sales manager drove it while we drove the vehicle to be my final choice. When my wife and I got together with the salesman and the sales manager, after about a 45 minute wait, we asked for some numbers, and were ready to pay for the new vehicle. The sales manager informed us that we would have to come back tomorrow, as he needed time to decide on a trade in price and to get the final difference. I objected that I would not be able to return for several days, and I didn't wish to delay until the weekend(this was a Tuesday as I recall). When you read between the lines of the excuses we were given, I got that it is now 7:15 and we close at 7. We walked out confused, over the fact that if our roles were reversed, and someone wanted to put 25 to 30 thousand dollars in my pocket, I think I would have an extra hour to transact same. I went to Joe Cunningham Ford about a week later, made an appointment with a salesperson, and eventually agreed to purchase a slightly experienced Ford PU. This was a Friday evening, and not only did the salesperson stay late, the sales manager was there until we concluded the deal. I recommend Cunningham Ford, for sales and service. Good people.

[RyanCoffey]

I've bought mine at Toyota not so much because of who works there but because personal experience, reputation plus consumer reports all support Toyota as a good choice for me. Especially since I like hybrids. Have had nothing but positive things to say about the car and the service.

I feel I should say something about the salespeople. I've met a lot of people who do or have worked as car salespeople. My understanding of it is that it is a purely on commission basis. (Maybe some dealerships do it differently, I don't know.) So, much like my line of work, it is about getting numbers of sales. Lots of people get into it with dollar signs in their eyes, but eventually come to realize that in order to make ends meet you need to have a lot of sales regularly which is easier to talk about than do. So, in order to pay the bills the salespeople have two main roads to take: Good service (which means repeat customers and referrals but also fewer sales for time invested in the short term) or the kind of service that basically gets someone through the sale quickly. (which means that they may not be getting what they want and may not be happy in the long run, but in the short term they get paid) These approaches are analogous to farming vs. hunting.

So, the experience you have will depend largely on the sort of salesperson you get. I think this is more important than the dealership per se, but less important than choosing the most suitable car for your price.

My personal experience when I bought a new car a couple of years ago is that I spent ages poring over online info on consumer reports and forums etc. and reduced it to a couple of options. I then went to the competing dealerships and test drove the various kinds. In the end, it didn't matter which salesperson I got because of how I did it.

However, there is the matter of service and warranties which is going to vary from dealer to dealer. Just remember that it is up to you to read the fine print and if they try to reneg something or not fullfil their end of the deal, you need to have that in writing to prove it. Verbal contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on.