Steamboat Motors

We are 1300 miles away from home on vacation. The check engine light comes on so we take the car to Steamboat motors. A person comes out puts a scanner on it and determines it is faulting on cylinder 8. The service advisor comes out and says he can squeeze me in since it's likely a faulty spark plug or the coil which is located on the spark plug. Later I get a call saying they changed both and the car is ready. We get there and the bill is $380. $90 in parts which is reasonable but $280 in labor which equates to one and a half hours of shop time at the $180 per hour rate they charge which is a common hourly rate at dealers now. One and a half hours to install one spark plug is not. BTW the coil has to be removed to remove the spark plug so no additional time should be needed it's just part of disassembly and reassembly putting new coil on. I had the same thing done at my local dealer at home for $200.

I was looking for an older model Jeep with low miles. I drove 10 hours to Steamboat Motors and I would do it again! They are all about customer service and not the runaround game.

Saw a 2015 Nissan Xterra listed on Cars.com and drove 3.5 hours to the dealership to take a look. Vehicle was clean and as advertised and dealership was friendly. Only a couple minor items of note, including a bad rear wiper and missing trailer wiring, which I had to find as the salesman didn't volunteer the info. Price was a little higher than I had hoped, but I made a lower offer and salesman grouped with the manager to write up the paperwork. Since the salesman didn't counter my offer before starting the paperwork, I assumed my offer was accepted. To my surprise, the price on the invoice when returned was $1000 more than my offer. I said, no, that's not what I offered. Was told that they couldn't go any lower. My only real complaint in the sales process is that it's my belief that both parties should agree upon a price before everyone's time is spent writing up the order. I was willing to meet them halfway and upped my offer by $500, but no dice. Left the dealership and was 10 miles out of town heading back home when the salesman called and persuaded me to accept the dealer price and come back to the dealership. It was near closing time by the time I got there, but everyone was willing to stay late to finish the sale, finalize financing, etc. Ultimately, I am happy with the car, knowing that it was in good shape and a rare find locally (2015 was the last year for Xterras). Kudos to the salesman (Corey) for his persistence since I was truly leaving town when he called back. As I said, my experience with Steamboat Motors was positive except for the misunderstanding on the amount of my offer (though that could be just a difference in ways of doing business).