We’ll get tooting our own horn out of the way quickly: We have excellent reviews on Facebook and Google. By and large, our customers love us. That doesn’t come as a surprise, we’ve always gone out of our way to be a friendly family dealership in Winnipeg and it’s nice to see the love coming back to us.
Still, we do get some negative reviews. We thought we’d own up to our critics, learn what we could from them and do better next time. So we set out to write a Worst Reviews of 2015 post.
Turns out, we just don’t have enough negative reviews to fill a blog post. Most of the negative reviews aren’t reviewing us at all… they’re just a bit confused about how financing works. We’re not mad, we’re not going to leave bad reviews because they came to us with bad credit. We’ll just take it as an opportunity to educate consumers about car loans.
Did Your Parents Teach You Where Baby Loans Come From?
After a review like this, we always reach out to the (potential) customers who wrote them, because we really do strive for 100% customer satisfaction. In this case, we talked to them on the phone, cleared things up and still hope to send them on their way in the Rubicon of their dreams.
So, what can we learn from reviews like this? People shopping for used cars need to be better educated about car buying and loan financing in general.
We Don’t Give You a Loan, We Just Help You Get One
While we pride ourselves on being able to get virtually anyone a used car loan, and use this as a big part of our advertising, we do not lend money. We are not a bank.
What we do is work with 15+ lenders across the country. We talk to all of them on your behalf. One of the reasons we’ve been so successful is because we do everything we can to negotiate the best rate for each of our customers.
Interest rate is based on your credit history. The worse your history, the higher your rate is going to be. If that’s you, don’t lose heart. We have thousands of happy customers and countless stories about customers who started at a high interest rate and are now at prime rates.
Even if your credit is so bad nobody else will give you money for a car, we can almost always find a lender who will work with you. It won’t be the best interest rate but it’ll get you in a car. Being on time to make payments on that vehicle is an important first step in repairing your credit.
In this way, we’re actually able to help credit challenged customers. But that interest rate is between you and the lender, we’re not making any money off of it. Don’t shoot (or leave a one star review for) the messenger!
Don’t Buy a Car If You Don’t Like The Interest Rate
We say this all the time, but we’re going to say it again: Get pre-approved before you go to your local car dealer. By getting pre approved, you can know in advance what your interest rate is and how much you can afford to spend on a car.
If your interest rate is really high, buy a car you can pay off quickly. You should never be caught off guard or surprised by price or interest rate at a new or used car dealer. You should know before you set foot in the dealership what your loan and term will be, then find the right car to fit your budget.
Before you buy a car from us or any car dealer in Canada, do your homework. Research the vehicle you’re going to buy, find a good price for it and buy it from a reputable dealer.
At Ride Time, we use third-party software to price our vehicles. We make sure we’re competitive—our prices range from average to below the market. Prices are clearly marked, so you can easily shop within your means. We don’t try to sell people the most expensive car on our lot, we actually try to educate and encourage people to buy within their means.
Your Ticket To Ride
You can buy a used car from any number of dealers in Manitoba. We believe we are the best place to go for good value and a great experience, and have thousands of 5 star reviews to back it up. So what are you waiting for? Go get pre-approved today and then come see why almost everybody is leaving us 4 and 5 star reviews.
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