Another great article on the GT

"You're going to have to work with a Kia dealer, not a BMW or Audi dealer. You're not going to get the luxury experience of concierge service or a high-dollar waiting room with tasteful food and drink options. And if you don't want to wait for your car to be serviced, your loaner car will likely be a Kia Forte, not a BMW 3 series."....Mack Hogan
Great article indeed...
Well, the Kia dealer where I purchase my Stinger, offered to me while my wife and I waiting for the official delivery, water, coffee, red wine, tea, pastries, salted or chilli potatoes, some kind of little cakes....

 

This article applies to US dealers in general.

I'll be happy if my child car seat is still there after my oil change.

 

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I spent less on my certified 2010 Porsche than my Kia . At Porsche it was an Incredible sales experience with well informed sales people offered me variety of drinks and snacks. Easy sales deal done in 15 minutes with financing done etc. They gave my wife and I a Porsche Cayenne to go out to lunch while they did a thorough and professional detail job. On our return sales guy jumped into car and showed us all key features and synced our phones and our garage door opener to car. After sale awesome too! Porsche dealer sent a sales man to meet me for a warranty service and he personally returned the car to my office. Car was fully detailed on from servicing return. Sales and service people in Porsche dealer are great people and Porsche enthusiasts. They sponsor Porsche events. When I hang at dealer they have an automatic espresso machine and great snacks. I also get to drool over latest GT3 or 991 Turbo in the show room and do pretty people watching. I have now bought 3 cars from the same dealer.

Kia dealer. They offered me water after I had been there for 45 min. Spent over an hour dicking around ......finance people were lame and forgot to have me sign loan paper in correct place forcing me to return to dealer. Some guy in showroom hassled me for not buying extended warranty. Sales guys Didn’t know anything about the Stinger other than it was a very nice car and that it was fast. Sales people were arguing with each other in Show room. Detailing took an hour. While I waited in showroom. Then my new car was presented to me with no detailing, adhesives on doors, predelivery plastics inside and out. Sales guy had me sign document that he covered all features. I was so tired of sitting there I signed and left with no review of features. I did get to hang out with hamster cutouts in showroom.

I just pray no warranty work on Stinger.

 

"The Stinger is fantastic to look at and even better to drive, with a chassis that rivals or bests most German sports sedans.

At $50,000 fully-specced, it significantly undercuts the Germans on price while delivering a full-fat driving experience.

The Stinger is unbelievably good. Not unbelievably good for a Kia. Unbelievably good. Full stop.

On a twist backroad, the Stinger is a cannonball. It's unstoppable, unflappable.

Fast, capable, stylish and most of all fun. I knew someone would eventually make it, I'm just surprised it was Kia.

But Kia did, and it blew me away. The Stinger is a revelation, a history-making car that we'll still reminisce over in 25 years."

The 2018 Kia Stinger GT1 is unbelievably good

 

Yes, it's interesting to read about the differences between the Canadian dealer experience and those in foreign markets - god forbid that anyone would offer a glass of wine here in a dealership, much less provide a complimentary bottle as a thank you to the customer after purchase. Sound like you had a good experience - good for you!

Having said that, I have no complaints at all about my purchase experience, which was pressure free, professional, and thorough. I'm fine without the luxury brand lounge service - never been a Mocha Latte kind of guy ...

 

The Kia dealership experience may not be "luxurious", but if my past experience with my Sorento and prior Hyundai is any indication, I don't expect to spend much time at the dealership. As opposed to the BMW I once owned. That car nickled & dimed me to death, but the waiting room at the dealership was very comfortable.

 

This guy LOVED the Stinger. Enjoyed reading that article. It's not anything new, but still nice to see

 

@CaliSting's experience at a shoddy Kia dealer is a nightmare of errors. Perhaps the firing of the U.S. Kia head is recognition of problems being addressed very quickly. These shops are used to selling low-profit cars to low income buyers in past years and desperately need renovation of both their buildings and their personnel. No excuse for that.

I bought my Stinger at a small dealer that was one "roof" of a 19-roof mega-dealer. The Kia facility is old and out of date. But they are totally rebuilding that facility, it is being run by a nice, young general manager who came from their Mercedes-Benz roof, and his treatment of my sale and the attention to detail was outstanding. They will do very well once the new buildings are completed. No wine or cigars, but they did offer to wash my potential trade-in on my first visit to check the Stinger out, and prepped my GT2 perfectly, even allowing me to be present during the PDI and test drive (the car hit the ground with 4 miles on the odometer.) Outside of the ageing facility, I have absolutely no complaints, and the price was absolutely the best of three dealers I asked to quote. Of the other two dealers in much nicer, newer facilities, one was rude and demanded to bargain over my trade-in (something I warned them I would not do), the other was $2,500 higher on the price.

When I want wine and chocolates, I'll buy my own. I don't want to pay for it up front in the inflated price of my car. I just want nice, fair, professional treatment and an outstanding product.

 

So true; when I had a Volkswagen Passat, my local dealer's service department was open until midnight during the week. It was sold as a convenience (and it was), but I should have asked myself "why it needs to be open until midnight" before buying that car. I enjoyed the car -- but it enjoyed the service department more. And that was expensive.