NPR Dives into the Rise of the 'Stealership'

The article is a summary of the NPR original:

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/08/30/1119715886/ins...

Car dealers' economics go in cycles. Right now they're coining money, but by the time the media catches on, things will have changed again.

Here’s my Stealership experience:

I bought a car from Shift.com and it was an absolute nightmare.

Originally I had decided on a Tesla that was in Oakland and put down my deposit. The rates Shift gave me were laughable so I contacted my credit union. Shift put every roadblock up trying to convince me to go with their financing and refinance at a later date. I declined and shortly after my car was sold to someone else. If I remember correctly it was within like 24hrs. They apologized profusely and told me that it shouldn’t have been possible for that to happen, but it did.

I found another car in San Diego and put down another deposit. I was contacted about shipping and told if I did it by a certain time they would ship the next day. I did. It took something like a week to arrive in Oakland and sat for a few days before they could inspect and schedule a delivery.

The delivery was a parking spot on a major street with a rushed employee. I mention that because I didn’t notice anything major with cars flying past me.

I immediately drive to a parking lot and start examining the car. The trunk alignment seems off and there was no mention of damage so I take some photographs. Maybe it happened in shipping? I take it to a car wash because it was filthy. The trunk has a leak. It’s gross and musky in there.

Shift blew me off so I emailed their CEO, legal, PR, etc until someone reached out to me. They paid for an inspection and I choose the Toyota dealership. Dealership was shocked that the damage wasn’t spotted during Shift’s initial inspection. There was a huge hit in the rear and the repair work was subpar at best. The body panel was leaking water and the advanced sensors weren’t working because the rear left one was broken. The initial quote was ~$10k.

Shift was provided the report and after some time they scheduled a pickup to have their team preform their own inspection.

Fast forward 8 weeks of very little communication I am informed they have fixed the car. I pressed for more info and they said they sent my car to a DETAILER. Not a mechanic. Not a body shop. Their detailer said the Toyota dealership was wrong. No leak. Sensors work.

Somehow they decided that my front bumper was the problem and “painted it”, or at least that’s what Shift told me. Turns out they lied about that too. Original paint that they buffed, but left compound everywhere and fucked up my headlights and Toyota badge.

When confronted with all of this, with photo evidence, Shift offered me $250.

That’s it. $250 after keeping my car for nearly 10 weeks and then not fixing it. During the time they had it the avg MPG dropped to 21 mpg (typically 40) and managed to break a bunch of fasteners in the trunk.

Now my car has a major accident on the carfax and I’ll be out at least $10k to fix it. Fuck Shift.com