Thursday, December 03, 2009

Sheehy Nissan in Waldorf, Maryland: A customer experience

As I mentioned in a previous post, we recently had to shop for a minivan quite unexpectedly. In all honesty, we'd been keeping our eyes out for a new car, scanning the ads and such.... to replace our 12 year old Cavalier, not our 4 year old minivan. Unfortunately, when you are the meat in a Ford Expedition sandwich on a two lane highway, circumstances change.

So, we found ourselves without our family car because our insurance company totaled out our Nissan Quest. Though it gave its life valiantly (relatively minor injuries on our part), we still mourned its loss. We understood why the Nissan Quest gets a 5 star safety rating considering the car behind us that slammed us into the vehicle ahead of us had its occupants taken away by ambulance whereas our car looked the worst, was wrecked beyond drivability, had pieces of both bumpers strewn about the two lanes yet we were basically OK - not needing an ambulance ride like the others.

We decided right away that we wanted another Nissan Quest and began to look around via the Internet and found a beautiful 1-1/2 year old Nissan Quest... in Annapolis, Maryland. This posed a bit of a problem logistically, but the Sheehy Nissan dealership in Waldorf was able to secure the car for us to view it the next day. Our salesman, Robert Wiley, knew we were serious about replacing our minivan and knew that this Quest would be a good fit for us. We met with him, took a test drive and went inside to talk about price. In the end, we got a great deal, the added peace of mind of Gap coverage (something our previous loan did not have), an extended manufacturer warranty and a stain resistant/water resistant coating inside and outside of the car. All of this for just about 20 dollars more than what we were paying for our old car.

Robert worked with his support staff there at Sheehy to find us a competitive interest rate. We were prepared to work through our credit union, but they were able to secure us financing through Wachovia at a rate lower than our credit union could offer us. This extra rate reduction helped offset the cost of some of the extras we added on, buying us more for our money... and it allowed us to drive off the lot that day with the car we wanted.

We weren't jerked around or given a hard sell either. We truly appreciated that Robert listened to us and understood our needs. He didn't show us a car that didn't have what we wanted most - a DVD player. When we had called to a dealership in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to ask about Quests they just didn't have a Quest in stock that had a DVD player installed. They were more intent on selling us a car and upgrading it later than finding us what we needed now.

The other nice thing about Sheehy Nissan was that the salesmen worked as a team. While Robert was working on paperwork, David Miller was checking to make sure the DVD and CD player worked and even took the car to the gas station to make sure we had enough gas for the long ride home. I think by the time we were done, all of the salesmen and staff had been introduced to us and/or had done something on our behalf.

They also didn't have any problems working with us even though we live in Virginia. They are taking care of all of the title paper work for us, as well as paying the sales tax for us so we don't have to do it later. Overall, we had a great, low pressure experience and considering our time constraints with needing a car fast, we got exceptional service.

Best of all, we were able to buy an 08 Quest, with extras, for less than what we would have paid for an 05 Quest for sale at Carmax with higher mileage (though it had a sun roof and skylights). In the end, we just couldn't turn down the deal we were offered at Sheehy.

Sheehy Nissan in Waldorf, Maryland

Sheehy Nissan - Waldorf is located at 2950 Crain Highway, Waldorf, Maryland 20601. The sales team - Robert Wiley, David Miller and Calvin Jackson - can be reached at 301-843-5300 or toll free at 877-503-1081.


Pinching Abe's above review is unsolicited. No compensation has been paid by Sheehy to Pinching Abe for the positive review posted above. The opinions put forth in the above post are 100% hers.

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