After many wonderful years driving her 1994 Audi 90S, my girlfriend and I decided to part with the car and get into something sportier. My girlfriend set her sights on a Eclipse GT with the Sun and Sound package. Built one on the Internet and decided this is what we wanted, Great choice, but we chose the wrong dealer to do business with.Wednesday, April 4, 2001. The test drive.
We travel on Rt. 15/501 to Triangle Mitsubishi. A “on the surface” nice little dealership on Durham. We hunt around and see a Silver Eclipse GT with the Sun & Sound package. Our salesperson comes up, Steve, and introduces us to the car. She test drives and know this is the car to get.

So we head back to the dealer and start working the numbers. We didn’t have the Audi on hand because this trip was spur-of-the-moment. After about 30 minutes or so he comes up with $308/mo with ‘A Tier’ credit. We are like cool, cheaper that what we are paying on the Audi. So we head home, wax the car and in a couple days head back to the dealer.

Saturday, April 7, 2001. The Audi gets appraised.
We come back Saturday with the Audi all waxed up, looking all nice. We knew that the Kelly Blue Book high-value of the car is $4600. We also know that the dealers “Black Book” value is somewhere in the range of $3000. The salesperson comes back after the test drive and plunks new numbers down on us. $425/mo with $1000 down and $1500 on the trade in. Um, these weren’t the numbers we were quoted originally. And why so low on the trade in? Well they claimed that the car stalled on them in the test drive (a mystery to us because the only time that car ever stalled was when it ran out of gas once) and it would need $2000+ in repairs. Furiously we began to walk out when they started to convince us on a lease. They rework the numbers and come out with $389.99/mo (12k miles/yr) + $1000 pending on ‘A Tier’ credit. Not too terrible. So we come home, and call back Triangle Mitsubishi to go ahead with the deal.

Monday, April 9, 2001. We get the Silver Eclipse.
Monday at around 5:30pm, we head over to pick up the Eclipse. We get there, wait around about 1½ hours and finally get to the paperwork. During that time I ask at least a dozen times that all the numbers were final, which I was assured they were. We signed what seemed to be n unimpressive amount of paperwork (the lease, odometer reading and the $1000 check down payment. We drive off in a new Sterling Silver Eclipse GT.

Tuesday, April 10, 2001. Bait and Switch APR begins.
We get a call from Steve the salesperson that we were not approved for ‘A Tier’ credit and that the payments would go up. We get very distraught about this because we thought that the paperwork was all finalized. We would have never left the dealership with the Eclipse if the numbers wern’t final. Our salesguy says call him tomorrow when the other financial person comes in, and “he’ll see what he can do”. Needless to say we don’t even sleep Tuesday night, contemplainting what we can do.

Wednesday, April 11, 2001. It’s final. Or is it???
Both me and my girlfriend take the day off, due to stress and lack of sleep and worrying about the car. We get a call from Steve reassuring us that it is taken care of.

Thrusday, April 12, 2001. Salespeople quit, numbers change.
I call Steve in the afternoon asking if the paperwork is all final and he says not quite yet, that the FedEx truck hasn’t made it to the dealership yet and that he will call later that night. At 7:30pm I call back only to find out Steve quit!

We end up talking to the owner and he says again that we were not approved for ‘A Tier’ credit and that the payments will rise. We start contemplainting again what we can do. It felt like a wicked rollercoaster that we couldn’t get off. We decide we will head to Leith Mitsubishi in Raleigh and see if we can get a better deal. Reguardless we will be taking the Silver Eclipse back to Triangle Mitsubishi and reclaim the Audi.

“Good” Friday, April 13, 2001. Finally, a deal!!!
We head to Leith Mitsubishi in the morning and tell them the whole situation. They say that we probably wont get ‘A Tier’ credit, but they can come up with better numbers. And they sure did. $413/mo (15k miles/yr) with ‘B Tier’ credit. We say cool, head over to Triangle Mitsubishi and give them back the Silver Eclipse, and bring the Audi to Leith. They give us $4000 for the trade in and end up giving us a fully equiped Huntington Blue Eclipse GT, worth $2000 more.

When we sign the paperwork, it’s a whole different situation. The typical cornocopia of paper expected in a car deal is in front of us. Much different than Triangle.

Beware shady dealers.
Well we have certinaly become the wiser when it comes to car deals. Turns out that Triangle Mitsubishi used to be Durham Mitsubishi with a slew of BBB complaints, so do extensive research!!! Make sure before you head out the door that you have fully signed documents from the dealer and that they are not taking you on a trip like we did.

The bad guys:
Triangle Mitsubishi
3601 Chapel Hill Rd.
Durham, NC 27707
919.489.2408
(go ahead, call and complain to them)

The good guys:
Leith Mitsubishi
5401 Capital Boulevard
Raleigh, North Carolina
919.872.1011
800.635.3433