PSA: Carvision Maple Shade is a Complete Clown Show

I bought a car today. The car is great! The experience was a nightmare of inefficiency, dishonesty, and insanity at the hands of Carvision Maple Shade.

Our story begins a couple of weeks ago. My 2011 Chrysler 200 convertible was falling apart. I loved that car, but it was time. The engine ran great and the convertible top never had a problem! It was fine! I swear! Unless you needed to do unimportant things like use the HVAC system without a random loud annoying clicking sound. Or you don't want your car covered in dents and scratches. Or you don't enjoy random lights coming on the dashboard. Or you want inner door handles that you can pull without them coming off in your hand.

I decided to get an electric car because they're better in every way. Obviously. Nobody makes an electric convertible with a real backseat, but the Tesla Model 3 has a sunroof that goes over the whole thing, which is almost as good, so I decided on that.

Thanks to Sleepy Joe, you can get a $4,000 tax credit for buying a used electric car. They really tried not to include Tesla in that, but their LIBERAL AGENDA was thwarted by some PATRIOTS. They did put in an income limit, and thanks to my wife and her stupid lucrative job, we were like $5,000 over the limit.

So I went to Carvision to see a high-mileage model on sale for $16K. Unfortunately, the advertised price included the tax credit, so I said I wasn't ready to pay that amount. BUT Brandon, the salesman, said I could use my income from either of the past 3 years to quality, which meant I would get the tax credit! Awesome! Thanks Brandon! The only problem was that I googled the tax credit earlier, and it definitely said you could only use your current or previous year's income. So Brandon called over the finance guy, and the finance guy confirmed that you could go back 3 years. But ChatGPT has taught me that even people who speak authoritatively sometimes hallucinate, so I did my best prompt engineering and kept asking variations of “are you sure???” until they both admitted they didn’t know what they were talking about and called somebody who confirmed that you could only use your previous year’s income. “Why do I know this and you guys don’t?” I inquired. I was met with silence. Anyway, I left, but not until some manager gave me the “what can I do to get your business today?” line, which I thought was cute.

New plan: My brother qualified for the tax credit, so I would get him to co-buy it with me. It’s totally legal! I looked it up! Initially he was like “fuck Elon Musk” but then he was like “fine.” So I emailed Brandon and asked him to send me the offer sheet to see if I could make the numbers work. He never did. Also if I was going to be shelling out that kind of money, I wasn’t going to get a BORING color. I wanted a red or blue one. So I set an alert on cars.com and waited until one came available.

Unfortunately, Carvision seems to be the only place around here that has any Teslas. I don’t know how much they bribed Elon, but apparently every used Tesla sold in the tri-state area ends up at Carvision. But whatever. It was fine, right? Just because they tried to con me into owing the IRS $4,000 doesn’t mean they can’t be trusted, right?? So when a red 2021 Model 3 came available, I emailed Brandon. He warned me that “we are moving these things fast so i can’t ensure you it will still be here by the end of the day.” I told him to send me the offer sheet. “I will work on this for you asap” he says. I hear nothing further. The next day I email again. No response. The next day I email asking if there’s someone else I can talk to, since Brandon didn’t seem very motivated.

That brings us to today. Someone (Jeff, not Brandon) emailed me at 8:30am this morning to ask why I wanted to see the offer sheet. Well Jeff, it’s because I’M TRYING TO BUY A CAR. Finally at 11am Brandon sent me the offer sheet. There’s a bullshit $1,000 fee for some kind of tire insurance or something, but they took it off when I was like “wtf mate?” I say I want the car. I can come in, but my brother will need to sign remotely. He says no problem. I tell him I need to be out by 2pm to pick up my daughter from preschool. He says it’s fine.

So I added the Tesla to my insurance, got a cashier’s check for the sale price, and went to the dealership. Everything seemed fine until Brandon went to get the paperwork made. Now, this comes to a big pet peeve of mine with car dealerships - they don’t do anything unless you’re standing there in front of them. Why on Earth wasn’t the paperwork already prepared? They had all morning! If it had, we would have avoided the next issue, which is that Brandon came out and said actually, my brother won’t be able to sign remotely. They need him to come physically sign the papers in person.

I start losing it at this point. My brother is doing me a big favor cosigning here. I’m trying to inconvenience him as little as possible, so I am NOT trying to ask him to leave work and come down to a dealership because these fools haven’t figured out that you can sign documents over the internet. Apparently you can buy a house with a remote signature, but not a Carvision Tesla! Unless, Brandon tells me, I use their financing. The balls on this guy! I heard that dealerships hate it when you pay cash and make half their money on finance charges, but seriously?

Brandon’s manager comes over and very soberly tells me that unfortunately, they can’t accept a remote signature. I tell them if they need an ink signature, I’ll take the documents to my brother and get him to sign. They say no, because how do they know he really signed it? I tell them I’ll get it notarized. They say NOT GOOD ENOUGH. You see, they need to have security cam footage proving he was here and signed in person. So I text my brother. Because he’s a freaking hero, he says he’ll leave work and he can be there in a half hour. At this point, it’s about 2pm, so I need to go pick up my daughter. I tell him to meet me at the dealership at 3:30pm and I tell Brandon I’ll be back.

Brandon’s dour manager comes back and tells me that, unfortunately, they have another buyer for the car, so if I leave, they’re going to sell it out from under me. At this point my brain explodes. I’m going to be back in literally 90 minutes, but apparently if I step foot off the property, my car is going to a different buyer, who is also at the dealership, who also got it insured already, and THAT buyer is using their financing. He keeps saying the car is “basically sold” and I keep saying that’s it’s basically sold to me! I’m literally holding the key card. I signed the Carfax report. I’ll sign whatever they want now. I just have to go get my daughter. They say no dice.

So seemingly what happened is they sold the car to two people? And now we’re both at the dealership fighting it out? Is this normal? Do all car salesmen do this, or just Brandon? Can we settle it in the Octagon? I’ve been paying attention at my daughter’s jiu jitsu lessons. I can probably take him.

So I call my wife. Because she’s a hero, she says she’ll leave work and go get our daughter so I can stay at the dealership, even though she has (chem lab!) work that she absolutely needs to finish today. Chat, she brought it (her chemistry lab work!) home with her and finished it on our dining room table. This woman is not only too good for me. She’s too good for this world.

So I call my brother again and he agrees to come down right away. He’ll be there in 30 minutes. I get the distinct impression that Brandon’s manager is disappointed, but he says fine, they’ll sell me the car. But he says it like they’re doing me a big favor or something. I ask them to please prepare all the paperwork so we don’t waste too much of my brother’s time. I’ll fill out everything I can without him, then he’ll just need to come in, sign his name, and get out.

I think you know what’s coming here. Obviously, they didn’t prepare the paperwork before my brother got there. True to his word, he showed up after thirty minutes, then we waited another 45 minutes before we were able to sign anything. For those keeping track, that takes us to 3:15pm, so I’m really glad I had to massively inconvenience my wife so we could sign the papers 15 minute sooner.

Anyway, we signed the papers and I am now the proud owner of a bright red Tesla Model 3! And Carvision Maple Shade can seriously get fucked.