Merlex Auto Group

They wanted to add $999 and $699 in "fees" for processing and other nonsense even though I was going to handle the titling, tags, registration etc. Unbelievable. Make sure you ask for the bottom line cost to you, not just the price.

In 2016 I bought my daughter a new car as a high school graduation present. After graduating college in 3 years with honors, she got a great job in the Washington DC area and wanted to buy her first car on her own. She found what appeared to be a great deal on cars.com at Merlex for a low mileage 2018 suv. After work she fought traffic for an hour to reach the dealership; inspected and loved the car. The only problem was the price on cars.com was not the real price. It had been increased by the time she got there due to "reconditioning" (cars.com listing still active). Adding that to their $999 "processing fee" brought the price too high. My daughter left without purchasing and went home. The next day the salesman texted and said they would drop their fees a small amount. My daughter went back again only to be told because her trade-in was in my name she couldn't use it and I would have to be on the loan (lies). She went home again with no car. On the way out she was subjected to sexual harassment and told, among other things, that "she can't expect to come into a dealership and get a good deal because she is pretty and does that thing when she talks" and also asked if I was "her dad or her sugar daddy" among other things. Disgusting, crooked and unprofessional, and I would challenge any Dad to not be upset when his daughter was treated like this. The next day we did an internet search and found a very similar vehicle right here in our home town at a local dealership. I went in and negotiated a $2k price decrease; my daughter drove 8 hours home after work on friday and yesterday she bought her dream car on her own and using her old car as down payment. I intend to pursue this matter further with the Virginia motor vehicle board and the state attorney general's office. After reading many of the google reviews from this dealership this is a continuing pattern of behavior.

I don’t have words. First of all, I should’ve known from the very beginning reading the plethora of bad reviews of this place. Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt like I did. Second, advertised price online is NOT the real price, it’s true. Imagine walking in thinking you are going to get a good deal and then get slapped $999 for “processing fees” and $799 for “reconditioning fees”, I laughed out loud. They couldn’t tell me what the reconditioning fee was for, just that they have to do soooo much to clean the cars and get them up to inspection-right. Next, imagine walking in the most unprofessional backyard car dealership that is a group of guys who know nothing except how to find different ways to rip people off. Running around trying to find eachother, trying to find papers, phones ringing with nobody picking up as they're outside doing nothing, casual conversations about random things. Profanity etc. I think they spent more time online googling the same car I was looking at trying to convince me that none of other ones around were as cheap. Maybe before they added thousands of dollars in hidden fees. Should’ve left right then. But I really liked the car. Fast forward to after they added the fees, me telling them that isn’t the price I came here for and they would need to come down a little bit. Nope. Not even 1$. They let me walk out. Text me the next day yea we will come down a few hundred. Okay. How much is a few hundred, can you give me a final price offer? “No I can’t”. That was their response. I go in that next day, and the first thing they said is “bad news, someone is in there right now that wants to pay full price right now”. (There was no one in there). I replied wow okay so go ahead and sell it to him then! He says “wait no no no I was just saying before you didn’t let me finish that I was gonna hook you up still”. You’d think since they had all day to prepare for me coming that they would have paperwork ready etc but I had to wait until they were done smoking their cigarettes and then find my paperwork hidden in different places around the office. What really did it for me, is that they say 2 words to you then go back in their little office room and shut the door to come up with the next scheme to xxxx you over. About 30 minutes of that back and forth xxxx and I was done. They said it wasn’t possible to make a simple title transfer of my trade in and because of that I needed to go sell my car somewhere else and then come back, because they didn’t want to take my car to an auction. I walked out. Schemers, slimey crooks that I have never experienced in my life. Not to mention have never been treated that disrespectfully as a woman. Sitting there for two days, I heard them talk about making money off of people and lying to customers that fell for it.

This place is an absolute joke. Called about a car that had been on the lot since at least July. Talked to the salesman, was looking into logistics on a sight unseen purchase. Salesman texted me shortly after saying it had sold. I found it odd that it had been on the lot for several months and just suddenly sold within 3 hours of when I inquired. But whatever, that could happen. Kept an eye you because I had read bait and switch reviews, so I was suspicious. Low and behold it popped back up in their inventory and was updated, so I know it isnt just a case of "havent removed a sold car". Total sham of a process and hard to believe a dealership would even try to get away with shady practices in this day in age. Save yourself the trouble. I saw other reviews much like this where people had even flown out to see a car only to find the same thing, but I found that hard to believe that would even be possible these days. Turns out it is.

I don’t have words. First of all, I should’ve known from the very beginning reading the plethora of bad reviews of this place. Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt like I did. Second, advertised price online is NOT the real price, it’s true. Imagine walking in thinking you are going to get a good deal and then get slapped $999 for “processing fees” and $799 for “reconditioning fees”, I laughed out loud. They couldn’t tell me what the reconditioning fee was for, just that they have to do soooo much to clean the cars and get them up to inspection-right. Next, imagine walking in the most unprofessional backyard car dealership that is a group of guys who know nothing except how to find different ways to rip people off. Running around trying to find eachother, trying to find papers, phones ringing, casual conversations about random things. Profanity etc. I think they spent more time online googling the same car I was looking at trying to convince me that none of other ones around were as cheap. Maybe before they added thousands of dollars in hidden fees. Should’ve left right then. But I really liked the car. Fast forward to after they added the fees, me telling them that isn’t the price I came here for and they would need to come down a little bit. Nope. Not even 1$. They let me walk out. Text me the next day yea we will come down a few hundred. Okay. How much is a few hundred, can you give me a final price offer? “No I can’t”. That was their response. I go in that next day, and the first thing they said is “bad news, someone is in there right now that wants to pay full price right now”. (There was no one in there). I replied wow okay so go ahead and sell it to him then! He says “wait no no no I was just saying before you didn’t let me finish that I was gonna hook you up still”. You’d think since they had all day to prepare for me coming that they would have paperwork ready etc but I had to wait until they were done smoking their cigarettes and then find my paperwork hidden in different places around the office. What really did it for me, is that they say 2 words to you then go back in their little office room and shut the door to come up with the next scheme to **** you over. About 30 minutes of that back and forth game and I was done. They said it wasn’t possible to make a simple title transfer of my trade in and because of that I needed to go sell my car somewhere else and then come back, because they didn’t want to take my car to an auction. I walked out. Schemers, slimey crooks that I have never experienced in my life. Not to mention I have never disrespected as a woman to this degree ever in my life.

First you should know that I am lenient when it comes to reviews so when I give 1 star its bad.I bought a vehicle there. Vehicle is nice. But it cannot pass MD state inspection. It failed for leaking front struts that need to be replaced, emergency brake wont hold on a hill and broken engine mount all of this was identified within 48 hours of purchase. I also Identified a tire sensor fault before leaving the dealership. That they said would go away and less than 96 hours after having the vehicle I have a problem with the rear back up system. The vehicles are sold as is. When I called I was told to take it for an estimate but when thr repair shop called the manager he said I was paying for it. I went back to the office and they wrote the wrong email address for me to contact the corporate office luckily I tried to send the email from the parking lot and was able to go back in and get what I hope is the correct email address. I contacted the corporate office and have not heard back from them as of yet. So now I'm stuck with a $2000 repair bill on a vehicle that I did not own for 48 hours. To make things even worse when I went back to the office there was another person that failed Maryland inspection that had their car for less than 30 days

First you should know that I am lenient when it comes to reviews so when I give 1 star its bad.I bought a vehicle there. Vehicle is nice. But it cannot pass MD state inspection. It failed for leaking front struts that need to be replaced, emergency brake wont hold on a hill and broken engine mount all of this was identified within 48 hours of purchase. I also Identified a tire sensor fault before leaving the dealership. That they said would go away and less than 96 hours after having the vehicle I have a problem with the rear back up system. The vehicles are sold as is. When I called I was told to take it for an estimate but when thr repair shop called the manager he said I was paying for it. I went back to the office and they wrote the wrong email address for me to contact the corporate office luckily I tried to send the email from the parking lot and was able to go back in and get what I hope is the correct email address. I contacted the corporate office and have not heard back from them as of yet. So now I'm stuck with a $2000 repair bill on a vehicle that I did not own for 48 hours. To make things even worse when I went back to the office there was another person that failed Maryland inspection that had their car for less than 30 days

First, they will advertise the cheapest car on the internet and when customers call on the phone, sale guy will say the car is on lot and they are selling with the whole sale-price. Boom.... That car just sold and will force to look at other car and $999 and $799 fee will add extra before tax and title fee. That 40k car will cost 48k in the end. (Make sure you touch and feel all the body and bumper and paint of the car because all their cars have been in multiple accidents)

They listings cars that not available any more. I found two cars that I like but when I contacted them they said both are already sold. The adds are still in the website for more than 10 days.

My wife and I were off and we passed Merlexautogroup, she seen couple of Land Rovers and she asked me if we can stop by and check them out, we pulled up and Mike came out to let us know where to park. We told him that we were just looking, he didn’t mind showing us the cars and going over the fees. My wife was extra happy when Mike showed us the Carfax and let us know that all these cars are clean no accidents, if anything just finder binder damages. No air bag deployment. They sell so cheap that we had to go from looking to drive one home. Thank you very much Mike I make sure to come check you guys out for myself S550. Next month thank you very much Mr Ray. I highly recommend that everyone must go and see them and ask for Mike