King Volkswagen

Reviews 3

A

A Private User

Whenever I go to a car dealer for the first time, I make sure that the first words out of my mouth are; "There is absolutely no way Im buying a car today." With that said, the salesman who greeted me at my car door (it doesnt make the best 1st impression when they swoop in like vultures before you even turn off the engine) was very polite and courteous, although I found it a little strange that his Bluetooth headset was permanently attached to his ear. There were two models of VW Rabbit that I wanted to test drive. I had checked online and made sure they had both on the lot, with the features I wanted. Even though I was very specific about the colors/options/transmission I wanted to test drive, the only one of those he got right was the transmission. The test drive was very pleasant, as the salesman was happy to either tell me where to go or let me decide. He let me drive the car as I wanted to, only suggesting once that I slow down on a particular stretch of road. (And as we rounded a curve, there was in fact a police car sitting there.) After the test drive, the salesman asked me to wait while he put some numbers together that I had asked for. He returned with a man I assume was his manager... the experience spiraled down quickly from here. The manager, who sounded Russian or Ukrainian, had brought one piece of paper with him, with the price of a particular model. He quickly went about telling me how hard these are to find with manual transmissions (there were 6 on his lot) and sort of trailed off each sentence, leading to uncomfortable silences where he did nothing but stare at me. After about 5 minutes of this, I decided to leave. Thanked both gentlemen and asked the salesman to get the keys to my car (they had offered a free appraisal earlier). When he came back with them, I asked about the appraisal and he told me their offer was $1,000. Now, my car is 13 years old so the blue book values vary greatly, but in the condition its in KBB lists it as being worth $2400 as a trade-in. Needless to say I would not recommend trading a car into this dealership, trying to negotiate off of their starting offer just wouldnt be worth the effort. Overall, the sales staff at King VW appears to be very polite and courteous, but doesnt seem to know much about the cars they sell. The management is best avoided at all costs, and I would definitely not want to deal with them again.

TI

Tina de Wit

Worst experience of my life - buyers and owners beware! We used to take our VW into this dealership to get it serviced, but were pretty much done with VW at this point. At around 41K miles and about a month after our 40K routine maintenance, our check engine light came on, . It turns out that the fuel system had to be completely replaced, as the dealership said that it might have been caused by a case of bad diesel fuel. I dunno about that...seemed a little odd to me that something major like that happened within 3 years of ownership and within a month of getting it checked out. As it was covered by our extended warranty, we went ahead with the repair. About a month later and 1000 miles later, our check engine light comes on again and the service department says its a failed sensor...reason being "sensors just fail sometimes." I dunno about that one either...seems like sensor just dont "fail" on a practically new car. About a month after that and another 1000 miles later (44K miles in), my engine completely dies on a busy interstate while im 5 months pregnant. Apparently a bolt holding the injector pumps in place broke, dislodged the pumps and killed the engine. Breakage was traced back to fuel system replacement done 3 months ago. Obviously I was very upset by this, as the incident could have been disastrous. The dealership offered to pay for the repair at no cost and set us up with a rental car -- well no kidding 1) it was their fault in the first place and 2) my extended warranty would have covered the costs and rental regardless. And the final kicker, if my story hasnt raised alarm about their servicing yet: I filed a formal complaint with the dealership and the GM of dealership reacted by aggressively demanding his rental car back and threatening to call the cops on me if i didnt return it immediately. This was an unreasonable request, as I got the voice mail while I was at work, and I was 2 hours away. In addition, we were loaned the car until the end of the week anyways. I felt the GM acted very unprofessionally and instead of listening to a valid complaint, reacted in the worse way possible. Not only did King VW fail big time in servicing our car, it failed even bigger (if thats possible) on customer service. I will never buy a car from this dealership again, nor recommend anybody from doing so, nor or recommend anybody from taking their cars to get it serviced here.

EV

Evan Reid

I have been a customer of the King body shop for six years. My car has had two passenger side windows repaired, body work from an unfortunate accident with a piece of farm equipment, and now body work from a run-in with a deer. After my last visit, I will not be using the King body shop for any future work. The work: The body work and paint match were done well, the impacted door looks pretty good. The paint work on the door was fine, but had some bubbles where it was blended on the roof, also overspray on non-painted surfaces. When I arrived to pick up the car I had to point out the paint work issues, as well as alignment issues with the driver’s door, and a variety of new scratches that had appeared on the car in the two weeks it was in King’s care. The alignment issue was taken care of. The bubbles in the paint were wet sanded, so now they only look like rock strikes in the fresh paint. This was done while I waited for an hour and a half to pick up my completed car. Customer Service: My service adviser was friendly and helpful right up until I started pointing out issue with the car. At which time we went through three cycles of him pulling the car into the shop, fixing a couple of issues and bringing the car back out so I could point out the same issues again. I left the first day with paint bubbles sanded but still visible, a couple of scratches and the paint overspray buffed, and a large nick in the passenger door buffed too little effect. The customer service experience degraded further when I returned the car a week later to point out additional scratches that were new to the vehicle. After waiting for 15min for the manager (who was rude and condescending in the three minutes he spoke with me), I was given a story about how the scratches could not have been made in the shop, and how they would not do anything about them (they did offer to wet sand a scratch in the trunk lid that ‘also could not have been their fault’ but I was annoyed enough to just leave). There are plenty of body shops in the Rockville Gaithersburg area; I would recommend one that is not King. If you do have to use the King body shop, make sure to thoroughly document the condition of your vehicle, so when it comes back with damage, you can prove that it occurred in the shop.