Independence Auto Center

Called yesterday to find out the mileage of a Toyota Tacoma, the «gentleman» I spoke to was going to call me back in 5 – 10 minutes. Never heard back from him.

This place is a JOKE. The sales people are rude, frustrating and just downright annoying. They seriously seriously need to have all sells people go through classes that teach them, respect and further most courtesy. Heck I think all the people there need to. I do NOT recommend this place. Go somewhere else…

**** BUYER BEWARE ***
They don’t deserve 1 star, we purchased a 2003 lifted Chevy truck the middle of March from BJ, went to purchase 2 new front tires after we bought the truck ($ 1150.00). We were told that we have major issues with the truck so we took it to a shop that specialize in lifted trucks.
INDEPENDENCE AUTO sold us a truck with a cracked frame & cracked lift kit. I had the shop email BJ the repair estimate, I called BJ to consult with him about the truck, he was not concerned at all he said that’s just a sales pitch to get you to spend money the truck is safe. I said fine I will get a second opinion, so we did & sure enough same findings emailed BJ. Both estimates said NOT SAFE TO DRIVE NEED NEW LIFT KIT & FRAME. BJ was not returning are calls the last call BJ said I need to check with the owner never heard back, so I get Christian (finance manager) on the phone, he said I wasn’t aware of this we will take care of you apologized for BJ not taking care of us, brought the truck back to the dealership for them to take a look at the truck, they had the truck a little more than 2 weeks. They fixed parts that needed to be replaced & took the truck to a body shop to weld the frame where cracks have formed. We took the truck back to the shop that specializes in lifted trucks, they said the truck isn’t safe to drive still needs new lift kit & frame. The welding that was done on the cracked frame didn’t do any good! So I had the shop email Christian this information, after many many many phones calls to Christian, I said either put a new frame & lift kit on the truck or do a buyback. We had to purchase mud flaps as well ($ 200.00), got pulled over twice for not having mud flaps. I can go on & on about this whole HORRIBLE experience, so in a nut shell 2 ½ months later Christian prepared the paper work for a buy back. We requested that they pay for the 2 new tires, mud flaps & 2 payments we made towards the truck (total $ 2254.00). I was told NO we will uphold the contract only, BJ tried to cheat us out of $ 1000.00 off the contract, he BULLIED me on the phone was extremely rude & had the guts to say by the way the truck is safe my people told me so!!! Christian asked that we speak with BJ because he was the one that originated the sale. I refused to carry on the phone call with BJ, I told him that I will speak with Christian when he gets in the office on Friday. BJ said he is going to tell you the same thing, which Christian said no we will uphold the contract. When we went to the dealership to process the buyback BJ walked right by us & didn’t say 1 word. Christian sincerely apologized for everything we had to go through. I will be completing complaint forms with BBB & Attorney General Office!
*They say all their vehicles go through safety inspection our truck was never looked at!

I wish I had looked through Unilocal first! As they pay their salesmen $ 50 for every Unilocal review they get — here’s one. They tell me that they are family owned and have a very specific safety inspection on every car. The second week I had mine the ‘check air bag system’ message popped up. A month after I bought my car the ‘check emissions system’ message came on. Give me a break. There are so many other places on 99 to go to — and I encourage it.

Everyone beware of INDEPENDANCE AUTO. They are dishonest. I recently bought a car here and was told they had a certified Mechanic that thoroughly goes through every vehicle on the lot. Upon buying my vehicle on the way home I broke down on hwy2, in which time I immediately called them. The told me to call back the next day. So I say on hwy2 for 2 hours with a car I just paid 7k for. I called them the day, and Evelyn told me to bring in my receipt and they would reimburse me for the parts. Here it has been over a month and still no payment, and the problems are coming out with the car. I need to dump a lot of money into the car now. The only reason they get 1 star from me is because I had to for a post on Unilocal

I have never had a bad experience with any company as I have with this company today, Sam, the «service» lady was absolutely down right rude to me yelling at me on the phone because they were supposed to fix our truck that they have held for 7 weeks and have not touched, and then decided to hand it off to another company (Bucky’s, they are amazing!) Who had it fixed in 3 days but we have been making payments on this truck the whole time and it has broken down 3 times now in less than a year for safety issues, which legally the lemon law says they have to take care of no charge to us, but Sam and the mechanic she handed me off to both refused to help us out what so ever, and yelled at me for absolutely no reason it was like talking to children. I would NEVER recommend this company to ANYONE!

you guys need to update your system. I’ve got over 3 phone calls and emails from you guys. I bought this car like 3 years ago. Oh and can I mention, costed over $ 5k to get things fixed 6 months later.
Evelyn Arambula
Aug 27, 2015 (5 days ago)
Dear Customer,
I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for expressing interest in one of our vehicles. Here at Independence Auto Sales, we take pride in offering our customers a good quality vehicle at a great value. I would like to set up a time that would be convenient for you to come in and test drive the vehicle to ensure that it meets your needs. If you have any further questions on the vehicle or if I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to hearing from you soon and have a great day.
Sincerely,

The once instance I regret not researching Unilocal first! We bought my husbands truck on a Sunday and brought it back Monday morning for them to fix some issues. Our truck sat there all day with nothing but one minor item being repaired and them scrambling to fix the tires with no luck. We brought it back again and when we called in to find out if we could pick it up we were given the run around. We decided to stop by our bank who funded this and had an interesting chat with some higher ups and were told that they would no longer be funding any loans with Independence and ours was the last one. As we were there interestingly enough another person came in asking for help with the exact same problem.
When we returned out truck hadn’t even been touched. My husband was being ignored so he decided to march right into the managers office. Within minutes our sales rep walked out from the back and I told him about what the bank had said. Clearly if a bank cuts you off your company has done something majorly wrong and I’m guessing it was fraud. Our rep walks into an office which is right beside where my husband is and before I know it my husband comes storming out screaming and heads to the other office door and starts pounding and screaming for them to get out here. Turns out he could hear their whole conversation about us which included «tell his wife to {bleep} herself». They started threatening my husband then when he wouldn’t back down they threatened us with the police to which I just laughed and said no problem let me call them their response time will be quicker since its one of my jurisdictions. Then they didn’t know what to do so they started with well this is private property. Complete idiots! I actually had one of the guys ask me if what they were doing was fraud and I told him straight up absolutely. Turns out I found out from the bank they had not included the provisions paperwork to the bank. TOTAL FRAUD and it all makes perfect sense now.
Now that I am reading all these RIP OFF posts it is very clear what I am going to do. I will be using these idiots as my newest fraud prevention tools and presentations. Since my expertise is bank fraud it will be my pleasure to present this in my future seminar which will include a enough head bankers to spread the word. As well I will be attending a major fraud conference here in a few weeks with several big wigs in my industry from national state and federal agencies. Go «bleep» myself huh! Abso friggin lutely as it will be my pleasure to do my job!
PS: The last person who told me to go bleep myself fell from grace with a huge crash and his law degree, huge law firm and all the money in the world couldn’t protect him from my wrath! He is now sleeping on a friends couch! The 3 before him are in jail. And that’s just recent!
Sincerely,
Lori Gileno-​Kirkland
Sr. Forensic Analyst

My wife and I needed a second car. We did the whole on-​line thing and found a fair few in our price range/​geographic radius. One listed at this particular location was particularly appealing, so I called ahead and asked if it was still on the lot. The sales rep told me it was and that he would do his best to keep it there until I arrived. Sounds great, right?
We hopped in our existing car and drove the 50-​some miles to the lot where the sales rep I had spoken to was nowhere to be found. Another representative came out quickly and offered to help us, but sadly, they had sold the car I was looking for «mere moments» before I arrived…
I was (understandably) frustrated, but she said she could work with me on finding something else in my price range. She promptly led me to two other cars on the lot; boasting that they were «only $ 6000 over the price of the one I had come to look at!»
Frankly, I would have been far more impressed with her boast had not the original vehicle I came to see been $ 6000 to begin with. Call me crazy, but I don’t think you get to call it a «comparably priced vehicle» when it’s literally twice the price, but I digress…
The rep was very pushy, insisting that I should use their in-​house financing to cover the difference even after I informed her that I had no intention of financing anything.
Anyways… here I sit three days later, and the car I originally came down to see is STILL listed as «on the lot.» Thinking this may just be the result of technological shortcomings, I called them from a different number and asked again if the car was there. They said it was… dirty fracking pool.
If I had a choice between going to this dealership again and walking everywhere I go with a sentient dung pile named Nicodemus following me everywhere asking «are we there yet,»… I will be making friends with a sentient dung pile named Nicodemus.

This car lot is absolutely disgusting. They harassed us by trying to pressure us into buying a car we could not afford. We told them up front how much we had, and they wouldn’t listen and came back with a payment estimate for about triple what we had to work with. Furthermore, they tried to sell us a car that had mold damage, at which we informed them that my mother has a severe mold allergy and that it wouldn’t work. They insisted they would «take care of the problem» free of charge but wouldn’t put it in writing. After keeping us there for over 2 hours, I finally told my parents «We’re done here, we’re going, these guys are scammers.» My dad then had to demand his debit card back, as the salesman was withholding it, saying that he was trying to «negotiate a better deal» for us with a lender. Yeah, the deal was better by about $ 5 for the monthly payment and the down payment was $ 400 more than we had.
You couldn’t pay me to set foot in this place ever again.

After telling me the car had been inspected and nothing major was wrong, I took it to another mechanic and was told there was 7000 dollars worth of repairs due on the car. After calling them 25 times they never returned my phone call.
DO NOT BUY A CAR FROM THEM