Great, so you you have no sympathy for the at or below invoice customers . So if the price of milk in my area is $1.50, and is $3.00 in yours, will you begudge me for going to my local grocery store and giving the cashier $1.50? Or will you call me a whiner because I decide that I have no obligation to pay $3.00? You seem to have something against people who want to pay market price for a good - that's how capitalism works, so if you have that much scorn for it, vote for Nader. The fact is, I paid more than what most people on this board are buying their 8s for in this area because I wanted a relatively uncommon one, and accepted that I would have to pay a premium for that.

I fully intended to go to the dealership and tell them I was going to take my business elsewhere, until I realized the real problem for me was with Mazda, not the dealership, so the dealership is now the lesser of the problems for me.

 

BBS: One of the things I think you're missing is that the process of getting the car off the boat and through the process at Port Hueneme (which is a long way from LA, btw) is sort of a black hole for credible information.

I faced some of the same problems and frustrations as you back in December with my car. Luckily, my wait was only about two weeks. Here's what I found out back then:

Mazda allocates the cars to the dealers about the time they go on the boat. The particular VIN numbers show up on Mazda's searchable website right about then. The dealers have a rough estimate of when the car should arrive, but as other posters have pointed out, LOTS of things can come into play to change the actual arrival date, sometimes radically.

The situation at port is simply not set up to accurately track a particular VIN's progress through the process. It's very difficult to get any information at all until the car is done and released for pickup.

Once the car is actually on a transporter, it's REALLY in information Never-Never Land. Only the trucker knows where it is and when it'll be dropped off. He's kind of like the UPS man, btw, making deliveries at a number of different stops.

Sucks for you, but it doesn't surprise me all that much that no one can give you accurate information about where your car is. In my experience, the system just isn't set up for it .

Dealers vary. Some are great and some are horrible. I frankly would be hesitant to do business again at the SoCal dealer where I got my car. But recognize that they're not some special breed who know cars and care about them and all that stuff. 'Cause they're not. They might as well be selling toasters for all they know about the cars or the process or whatever.

Speed-ER Doc's point is well taken when he talks about expectations. The dealership's attitude could easily be, "this guy beat the crap out us on price. And now he wants all this extra attention? Forget him". Not the right attitude, mind you, but a possible one. Mazda's basic position, although badly stated and handled is probably something like, ".. we're not set up to access this kind of information, it's part of the dealer-customer interface which we won't get in the middle of, and ultimately, you can't satisfy everyone".

Believe me, BBS, I have nothing but sympathy for your situation and I remember all too well the frustration of waiting two weeks with little or no information about my car's whereabouts. I hope the whole situation hasn't soured you on the car, but you may want to examine whether it has. If so, it's time to turn the page. "BBS, we hardly knew ye", but there are lots of good cars out there. And owning one over the other just isn't worth this kind of angst.

Best of luck with whatever you decide...

 

Apples and oranges. When I buy a gallon of milk, I don't have to bring it in for warranty repairs, oil changes, tire rotation, etc. Likewise, I don't haggle with the clerk for a gallon of milk. If I don't like the price, I go somewhere else, or I'll do without. There's no customer service involved in buying a gallon of milk.

And as for your problem with Mazda...what exactly do you want them to do? They sell vehicles to dealerships at invoice, generating a profit. Then you come along and buy from the dealership below invoice, which is a loss for the dealership. Then you expect Mazda to sympathize with you? One individual vs thousands of dealerships? Besides, you dealt with one customer representative, and her supervisor. They basically told you "tough ****, go somewhere else". Why don't you simply take their advice? I'm sure if you work hard enough, you'll get an apology from someone higher up, but that's about it. Does an apology mean that much to you? When you get the apology, however insincere it may be, are you going to forgive the representative and her supervisor? If not, why not just take your business elsewhere?

 

Ugh, please understand something.

I was not asking Mazda to tell the dealership what price to sell me the car at. Why must I keep explaining myself on this. Somehow people are getting the impression that I signed on to a price with the dealer and then decided it wasn't fair so I complained to Mazda and ask them to get the dealer to meet my price. I DID NO SUCH THING! I never ever asked Mazda to get involved in the sales price decision, or even brought up with the sales price with them.

edit: In fact, I don't even know how this thread turned to a discussion of the price I agreed on - that is totally irrelevant to this issue, and some people tried to make it an issue with the argument that because I agreed to pay invoice, I shouldn't expect good service and respect from Mazda. That's a load of crap as far as I'm concerned.

 

So BB Saturn...

Did you buy the car or are you looking for something else?

Tinkerer

 

Yup, I can happily say I'm the owner of a new RX-8:

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...threadid=24204

My last post in that thread also sheds some further light on the subject of this thread.