Starfire Auto

Reviews 3

AN

Anthony Campos

We flew all the way from Chicago to California after having only exchanged two phone calls and maybe three e-mails to meet with Abe and Kay. Keep in mind this was only going off of the 6 or so photos they had in the listing and the description for the vehicle we picked out. Due to our flight schedule, we were only able to land in on a day that they would actually not even be open. Their response to that? No problem, well be there. Just text us when youre here! Now where on this green earth do you find customer service like that? They even offered to pick us up from the airport depending where you fly in! When we finally arrive we are met with a very clean industrial type building with a beautiful big, well lit, freshly paved lot. As we walked in we saw the car parallel parked on the side of the building and to say it looked better than we anticipated would be a huge understatement. Despite being a 1988 Honda Civic, I would have felt more comfortable eating off the hood of the car than the Mercedes Uber we showed up in! Abe and Kays smiling faces immediately recognized us when we came in and without a word he threw the keys across the table. Come back whenever youre ready.. What? Thats it? He must have saw the look on my face and throws in Oh, and all the service records and Carfax report are in the folder on the passenger seat for you. I was at a loss for words. I almost forgot we were at a Dealership, because nowhere else do you go somewhere and they ask you to make sure its what you were looking for and nothing more. No pressure, no following us around, no better suggestions or upsells, no bait and switch, and no well it is a used car so.... What we saw was what we got, and nothing more or less. To top it off, they actually had a mechanic give everything a full once over and fix some small stuff at NO cost to us just the day before we came! Comes time to finish the transaction (after a wonderful unsupervised test drive I might add) and we are finishing up the paperwork to find they already filled out as much of the information as possible! He only needed to go over the local laws with us as out of state buyers and we were on our way only ten minutes later! Abe made the friendly suggestion to make sure we stop at least two times on our road trip back to Chicago to make sure the car was in appropriate shape to drive. Believe it or not, we did not stop once to check anything, in fact we only stopped 5 times and that was for lodging and fuel. Happier than ever to say we just left our favorite mechanic out here in Chicago who spent over 2 hours with the car and said he could not find ONE thing wrong or even remotely concerning! We could not be happier with this entire experience and plan on purchasing ALL of my vehicles from these guys from now on! One last thing about this place I must admit is that they are not like your typical dealership, and so if you show up and expect to have that kind of typical brand name franchise type kind of experience, you should shop elsewhere. What Starfire Auto does that separates them from the rest is they are strictly business, nothing more and nothing less. There is no massive lot crawling with hit or miss cars and all the pushy money hungry salesman that push them. There is no big flashy signs or hot coffee as a pitch. Only quality, hand selected, one of a kind cars, marked at prices that cant be compared! I am not affiliated with Starfire Auto in anyway, personally I actually hate car buying all together, but my experience was like no other and I would not feel right without giving someone else the chance to find out about this place.

RI

Ria Hall

LONG POST SUMMARY: Dont really recommend this place but if so have a mechanic check the car. There may be a broken or missing part. See last paragraph. I came here back in February because I needed to get a car right away for the new job Id gotten. Starfire is pretty far from where I lived but it was near where my roommate worked and had good reviews so I decided to give it a shot. They were nice enough (to me anywhere not to everyone that was there that day) but Abe doesnt really seem to care much about the customer. Though the one positive thing about that is he isnt harassing you while trying to make a sale. He gets an extra star for that I guess. When I looked at the car I was there to purchase I noticed that it had 2 small cracks in the windshield that I was a bit concerned about. I asked Abe how long theyd been there and if theyd gotten bigger and he said he had no idea when they got there and had actually never noticed them before then walked away. After talking with another couple who had had a similar crack Id decided it was no big deal and liked the car enough to purchase. Because I was not from the area I didnt know of any mechanics nearby and didnt really trust one recommended by them I decided not to have the car checked out before purchasing. I realize now that was my first mistake. After driving off the lot I needed to get gas because the car was almost empty (those of you with full tanks were either lucky or didnt have people test driving it). When I went to full the tank the gas stopped signifying it was done but when I checked the tank was only 3/4 full which I thought was weird but just went home. Abe said I had a 24hr warranty for the car and the following day I emailed him about a door that wouldnt lock with the rest of the doors to which he responded was just part of old age for the car. At this point I decided not to bring up the gas thing because it was probably an old age thing too. Mistake number 2. The gas thing would happen every now and then until yesterday. I turned off my car to get gas, "filled it up" and tried to start it back up which it refused to do. I had to leave my car at the gas station over night and tow it to a mechanic today to find out that one of the valves was broken since when I bought it and gasoline was flowing straight into my car and flooded it. So long story short have a mechanic look at the car before you buy it. I wouldnt recommend this place they dont seem to know whats going on with their cars.

ST

Steven Dorst

These people specialize in finding low mileage, cosmetically challenged vehicles - mostly trucks - and marketing them on the internet to people who value function over appearance. They dont haggle - they dont need too because they are meticulous in describing the flaws of the vehicles they sell. If you dont find that - for instance - a 2001 GMC 2500HD with only 70K miles and a few paint defects is worth the $9,000 theyre asking, then they will wait for someone who does. I took the train from Northern California (which is actually a bus from Bakersfield) when I went to examine and purchase my current work truck. They cheerfully picked me up at the local Metrolink station (where the Amtrak bus stops), took me to their office where they had the truck waiting. It was exactly as they described - although there were a couple of minor details I wanted to confirm before driving it - like all the lights worked! I was out of there in less than an hour driving North in my new (to me) work truck!