Kia dealership paying $135, $125 & $90.

There are multiple of each of these shops within 240 miles of me, all paying those fees. How difficult are they? Are they full of excessive narrative? Why isn’t anyone doing them?

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

More About Payment

I did 4 of these last month for lower fees. I would gladly do one for $90 and jump thru hoops for $135 that was reasonably close to me. Expect to spend and hour or a little more at the dealership. The report is IMHO pretty easy.

@misspocos75 wrote:

There are multiple of each of these shops within 240 miles of me, all paying those fees. How difficult are they? Are they full of excessive narrative? Why isn’t anyone doing them?

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

The online inquiry Is easy. I found the dealership visit a joke.. They let me take the test drive by myself and they never went over the features of the car with me. They wouldn't budge from MSRP stating we were selling cars above MSRP during Covid. The written quote was also lame. He wrote down the payments (purchase and lease) on a quote sheet but filled in nothing else. He guessed at the interest rate and the residual value for the lease when I asked.

Amazingly enough, they never asked for my contact information. Amazing!

I did get what I believe was a computer generated e-mail sent 45 minutes after they closed for the day. It stating to get in touch with them about something urgent they found out. Easiest car shop I've ever done.

No real narrative, just short responses.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2023 05:13PM by wrosie.

I have not and will NOT do this shop...but I think the question that should be asked is....Can I start the car with a USB cord like I have seen in so many videos?

I did two last month, and enjoyed them. The report is fairly easy. Like @wrosie, on my second shop, the salesman let me do the test drive by myself, mentioned only one or two features about the car, and said that they are not discounting the vehicles because they're selling at list price so they don't need to. On my first shop, the salesperson did a great job.

There's one about an hour from me, and it must be one of the leftover ones from last month. If it goes up to $130+, I'll try to grab it--and do a Five Guys on the way home....

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

There are a few of these near me as well for $90. I haven't even looked at them. I despise car shopping and hate to think of the fact that my lease is up next year. After reading other comments I might have to look at it.

deleted

Moderator Note:

Inappropriate post removed.

Is that a bad thing?

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

Moderator Note:

Quoted portion of inappropriate post removed.

Yes, I use the search feature quite often!
The definition of "forum" ~ a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.
Kind of the point of the forum is to talk about it!

Moderator Note:

Quoted portion of inappropriate post removed.

How about this...
I took xxxx job and found it fair pay for the work involved or I took xxxx job and it took me waaaay too long for the pay.

Why don't we see these posts? To me it just seems like so many posts here want others to GIVE information instead of the posters OFFERING information to others.

Moderator Note:

Quoted portion of inappropriate post removed.

@Datagirl wrote:

Yes, I use the search feature quite often!
The definition of "forum" ~ a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.
Kind of the point of the forum is to talk about it!

I TOTALLY agree, but it's already been discussed at length. The OP's question was answered (and far beyond answered, including some GREAT pieces of valuable information).
The OP could have spent some time reading that thread and gained a LOT more knowledge about these shops then posting the question again and getting the responses offered.

I believe it may have been Babybooey or something like that who offered up many helpful bits of knowledge in that thread.

Moderator Note:

Quoted portion of inappropriate post removed.

@luckygirl0100

To answer your first question, yes, I saw and read the thread on the Kia dealership however the topic seemed to go in another direction from the questions I was asking and so I started a new one, which is exactly what this forum is used for.

Second, if you search “Kia” nothing comes up. It is because the original poster titled her subject “KIA”, and therefore it makes it harder to find unless you’re using all caps.

And third, if a post bothers you so much, you can always use self control and scroll right past.

Thank you for your time and I hope you have a less stressful day.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2023 08:43PM by misspocos75.

You could always start your own forum and require such things.

@misspocos75 wrote:

@luckygirl0100

To answer your first question, yes, I saw and read the thread on the Kia dealership however the topic seemed to go in another direction from the questions I was asking and so I started a new one, which is exactly what this forum is used for.

Second, if you search “Kia” nothing comes up. It is because the original poster titled her subject “KIA”, and therefore it makes it harder to find unless you’re using all caps.

And third, if a post bothers you so much, you can always use self control and scroll right past.

Thank you for your time and I hope you have a less stressful day.

I just did a search. Did NOT use caps and the original thread was the first one listed.
Two of your 3 questions were answered in this thread.... the only one that wasn't was 'why aren't people doing them'
There is even a post in that thread by BirdyC on March 3rd that sums up the shops VERY well.

Sigh.... it is a forum where laziness is allowed.... so on with my day.

BirdyC 3k 9y
I just saw that the new month's shops are posted--at $35 fee. If anyone hasn't done one of these and is tempted, that fee is not worth doing these for. These are great shops for the right price, but involve both an online inquiry, with numerous screenshots and PDFs, and the on-site visit. The report is long, with several narratives (which may or may not be long, depending on what happens during the visit). I've never yet done a vehicle shop that was worth less than $50! And that's borderline, but I've done a couple at that fee just to test a high-end brand.

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

I guess the original thread with this reply was 'in the wrong direction'

The Kia shops are relatively easy, in my opinion. I don't know what the rotation is, but I would not jump at these for less than $80. Of course it's all very location dependent, but in my area there are numerous dealerships getting up over $100. I would expect these to have a long rotation, but my own personal rotation would be long anyways. I don't enjoy dealership shops and certainly don't enjoy going back to the same dealership within a year of my previous visit. So I plan on picking and choosing locations that get up over $100.

@luckygirl0100

Pardon me, but I just tried searching Kia once again and once again, the search comes up with zero, so I’m obviously doing something incorrectly when I search the forum for answers.

I don’t know why but I have always felt sorry for people like you, who think they are so much better than everyone else. I’m guessing you have no idea what it’s like to be an imperfect person, unlike yourself.

@everyone
I do want to thank everyone who is helping out with this subject. I haven’t done much mystery shopping for the past 3 -4 years (since Covid put a big halt on everything, so I went into merchandising instead) so I am just getting back into ms again. Some things have changed but it’s clear to me that there should be two different forums. One for the high and mighty bullies and one for the people who truly care about how they talk to others.

One big problem with dealership shops is that so many of them are part of huge companies, so they share a computer system with their other locations and will have shoppers marked in the computer system at multiple dealerships.

@misspocos75 wrote:

@luckygirl0100

Pardon me, but I just tried searching Kia once again and once again, the search comes up with zero, so I’m obviously doing something incorrectly when I search the forum for answers.

I don’t know why but I have always felt sorry for people like you, who think they are so much better than everyone else. I’m guessing you have no idea what it’s like to be an imperfect person, unlike yourself.

@everyone
I do want to thank everyone who is helping out with this subject. I haven’t done much mystery shopping for the past 3 -4 years (since Covid put a big halt on everything, so I went into merchandising instead) so I am just getting back into ms again. Some things have changed but it’s clear to me that there should be two different forums. One for the high and mighty bullies and one for the people who truly care about how they talk to others.

And one for the passive aggressive posters....

You feel bad for me? Oh bless your heart.....

@Snuffycuts99 wrote:

The Kia shops are relatively easy, in my opinion. I don't know what the rotation is, but I would not jump at these for less than $80. Of course it's all very location dependent, but in my area there are numerous dealerships getting up over $100. I would expect these to have a long rotation, but my own personal rotation would be long anyways. I don't enjoy dealership shops and certainly don't enjoy going back to the same dealership within a year of my previous visit. So I plan on picking and choosing locations that get up over $100.

Rotation is 6 months

[cse.google.com]

Notice in my search I did not use all caps....

I almost always do a search before I post a question about a new-to-me job, but often the search doesn't turn up a thread that might be on here. (And, really, I do know how to use this search function, but the results aren't always complete.)

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

Moderator Note:

Quoted portion of inappropriate post removed.

Back to the Kia shop, do these go up to $135 very often, in your experiences? I'm waiting for one that's at $125 now to go to $135, but it's not budging! I might just take it at $125 and see if I can find at least one other job in the area. By the time I factor in the cost of gas to shop that location, that $125 decreases pretty rapidly!

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

@BirdyC wrote:

Back to the Kia shop, do these go up to $135 very often, in your experiences? I'm waiting for one that's at $125 now to go to $135, but it's not budging! I might just take it at $125 and see if I can find at least one other job in the area. By the time I factor in the cost of gas to shop that location, that $125 decreases pretty rapidly!

These top out at $100 in the Chicago suburbs.

@BirdyC wrote:

I almost always do a search before I post a question about a new-to-me job, but often the search doesn't turn up a thread that might be on here. (And, really, I do know how to use this search function, but the results aren't always complete.)

I linked my search and the previous thread was the first one.
Sometimes it isn't as great but it's usually a good starting point.
The OP admitted they read the thread you posted in and stated that the thread didn't give them answers to the questions they were asking.

I guess your post wasn't good enough for the OP...
Personally, I thought it was great info!

Moderator Note:

Quoted portion of inappropriate post removed.

@BirdyC wrote:

Back to the Kia shop, do these go up to $135 very often, in your experiences? I'm waiting for one that's at $125 now to go to $135, but it's not budging! I might just take it at $125 and see if I can find at least one other job in the area. By the time I factor in the cost of gas to shop that location, that $125 decreases pretty rapidly!

I'm in a relatively rural area and several dealerships near me got to $135. With that said, $125 is pretty darn close to the max for these and if you could find a filler shop for the route it might just be worth taking. But then again, I have no idea what kind of mileage you're looking at to get to the dealership.

There are two different ways to search on this forum; (1) the regular search field, and (2) the Google search field.
Each brings up different results.

My experience at the dealership was the same!

I did one of these when they first came out for a much lower fee unfortuantely. The dealers webform was not configured correctly and I never got a submission comfirmation after submitting my inquiry. I cleared this with the scheduler prior to doing the onsite portion to make sure I would be paid. During editing of my report I must have went back and forth with the editor about 6 or 7 times and copied the scheduler. They would ask for the submission confirmation, I would write back and say due to the dealer website not working correctly it never gave a confirmation. They would NOT read my response and would ask again and again. Finally after two weeks and numerous emails they must have read one of my emails and accepted the report.

My experience at the dealership was almost the same as another poster on this thread. They lt me test drive by myself, explained NONE of the features of the vehicle and only offered MSRP pricing. After that the salesperson and his Manager hounded me for at least a month with text messages, emails, voicemails etc. Finally it has stopped. Not planning to do any more of these.

@Paula7928 wrote:

After that the salesperson and his Manager hounded me for at least a month with text messages, emails, voicemails etc. Finally it has stopped. Not planning to do any more of these.

I buy a new phone number every month (about $3) from the Burner app on my cellphone. I use it ONLY for new home, apartment, automobile, assisted living, etc. shops. I voice record a basic greeting, set it to “silent” and only check for follow up when I’m writing reports.

After 30 days, I “burn” it and buy a new one. Worth every penny to not use my real number.

I get a little kick out of thinking of all the pushy salespeople trying to blow up my phone number after it’s served its purpose, I’ve logged the calls and I’ve deleted it. Ha ha, gotcha.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2023 07:30PM by ColoKate63.

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login

Kia dealership paying $135, $125 & $90.

Create an Account or Log In

Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies

Mystery Shopper Magazine