i'll offer some thoughts for the DC / DMV area. I recently bought a GTI. I was very thorough in research, read dealership reviews, and being on a shoestring budget, spoke to just about every dealership in the area. A lot of it depends on the specific salesperson for sure, but I sat down with more than one sales person, as well as management at a few places to dig in to first learn about the cars and pricing structure and then ultimately agree on price and financing. My thoughts are below. Where a sales person was great, I called them out so you can work with them too. Also worked with some pretty awful/ slimy /rude /apathetic folks too, but I won't name names in public...
(Note: I had no intent to mislead anyone or waste anyone's time, FWIW it was my first car purchase ever, so I was unfamiliar with the way it all worked, initially started with a wide set of candidate cars, and finally my researching phase spanned two time periods (shopped in October to do initial research on a bunch of cars, decided to hold off then and save more, and then shopped again in December with the GTI in mind along with end of year deals as the goal, and eventually purchased. I didn't want to jerk anyone's chain and was up front and honest about my budget, needs, and timing. In the end, it came down to price and inventory. I also researched individual sales people to work with in most cases before scheduling an appointment.)
Fairfax - I ended up buying here. My sales guy was awesome. Simon Chu. Knows the cars, is patient, polite, returns your calls but doesn't spam you. I would say the sales manager was kind of meh - not terribly warm over the phone, but good once we got to the right price, messed up the paperwork once. He was new. But a nice dude and a fair dude. Paperwork took a while and unlike other dealerships I saw, their cars on the lot are not as clean and ready to go... These guys made the best price for me in the end. I spoke casually to Al Saleh there too, who is well reviewed as well - he really knew the cars and was passionate about them, and a very nice dude.
Alexandria - sales team - spoke with two sales guys as well as management - are most apathetic. The sales manager while negotiating claimed he "didn't think I was serious" - it's no way earn my business. Worse: they wouldn't honor their own prices on truecar or even on their website in one case, saying "its a teaser price to get you in, but we can't actually sell it at that point, claimed it was a mistake" but didn't fix it for two months. Shady. Also terribly parking lot and sales office - a mess to test drive at or do a deal at. Super cramped and dingy.
Lindsey Dulles - Incredibly unresponsive by phone and email, never made it in.
Ourisman - smooth operators, fast talkers, high pressures sales team. Made up numbers by text message that I knew they couldn't honor to try and get me to come in. Made me do a credit check before offering pricing. Decent inventory but I could tell they weren't going to give a fair deal. Felt very much like the archetypal shady sales team.
Darcars - boy - hate these guys. Sales agent is hyper aggressive and calls non stop. Won't give you any reasonable starting point by phone or email. I went in there and got a great quote "OTD", he even wrote ### OTD on a piece of paper for me, I came back the next day to pick up and they claimed "out the door price" did not include the down payment I had agreed on, so the bill had an extra $4K. Probably the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Out the door is the total price. Make sure these guys don't screw you over. On top of that, before that point, I came in with an appointment ready to buy, cash in hand (before I saw the paperwork) and had to wait 1.5 hours just to meet with the finance manager (who truly didn't understand how to work the software he was using). This was truly a horrible experience on multiple fronts.
King - Well known con artists. All the dealers talk shit about them. They are the "king" of mystery fees that others don't charge. I never went in but spoke to a guy named Chris. Was hard to reach but polite. He didn't follow up or seem to care about my business, it's clear King is running a volume game, so be very wary of the advertised prices, but he was patient enough to walk me through their "unique" pricing structure and was straightforwad about why there is a delta between their advertised prices and real OTD prices. On the one hand their starting point is low, so if you don't fold easily, you can potentially get them to the lowest price point, but it might be hard.
Stohlman - great experience. Had a salesmen named Patrick who was very laid back, taught me a bit about the car without being overwhelming or just dropping irrelevant trivia about the car. He was good people. Great backroads in Tyson's to go test driving. They are very reasonable on price. I really would have liked to buy from them but by the time December rolled around they didn't have the inventory I wanted. But would shop there again in a heartbeat. Patrick was the most no-BS straightshooter I spoke with.
Antewerpen - spoke to once by phone but didn't imagine I'd be able to drive up there.
Catonsville Heritage VW - spoke to a few times by phone with a guy named Naz. Also worked with his manager. Naz is class. Worked hard to get my business. Followed up when we said he would but not excessively spamming. Spoke very honestly from the outset about pricing. Offered to swap cars to earn my business. Offered very competitive pricing. In the end, it was very close between Heritage and Fairfax but Fairfax was significantly easier for me to get to (without a car, as this was my first car).
Overall if you're shopping in the DMV area, and care about: great prices and transparency, decent and good human beings on the sales team who you want to give your business to, and compelling test drive routes in the area, here's my tl;dr suggestion (with a VA and MD side option if possible):
- Try Stohlman (Patrick) or Heritage (Naz) first. Both teams are very decent, honest, competitively priced, and family run without high pressure sales cultures.
- Try Fairfax (Simon or Al) next.
- Give Lindsey or Antwerpen a shot, but I don't have experience one way or the other
- Try King but go in fully prepared - don't be blindsided by their bespoke "D&H" fees and others.
- Avoid Darcars and Ourisman and Alexandria.