GTA exotics review. Not a good one.

[Quattrocket]

I just got back from this place and what a horrible experience! I got this gift card for christmas from my wife who found a deal on wagjag. I scheduled appointments which kept getting canceled because the R8 I wanted to drive was "in the shop" for weeks on end.
Eventually I got an appointment for today and drove down to Oakville from Guelph (1 hour). Upon opening the door to the scuzzy building, I was met with a dirty look from the receptionist. I though wtf? Is this the wrong place? Then went outside to check the sign.
I went back in with my family to inform her that I was there for my appointment@11. She got her back up immediately and said, "You were told to be here at 8 or the car was going to be gone!" when we started to get irritated she said, "i heard him talking to you on the phone." Which was a lie. When we started to talk to her, she put her hand up to us and said we had to talk to the owner.
We called wagjag and got our money back. I couldn't believe how rude she was.
We left and drove back to Guelph.
Apparently he had an opportunity to make more money than I was paying and rented the car out from under me. After returning home I checked my messages, emails, and call log. He never contacted me.
Upon researching this business I found negative feedback after negative feedback. Well except the ones clearly written by the business owner lol!
This is my experience and my advice is, never do business with these people. It's sad because on the way home all I could think of was how much more awesome I could run a business like that.

[B5 Quattro]

Wow.
Tha sucks. Sorry to hear. And thanks for the heads up.

[ragazzi_07]

yeah his cars aren't the greatest either.

rented a Ferrari F355, it was most likely a salvage title from the US.

it was poorly kept and nothing worked, the top had a huge tear in it, with duct tape covering it loll

consider yourself lucky

[dariussquared]

i had an email correspondence with a rather rude and abrupt person there and so I decided not to give them my business. can anyone recommend any places they've had good experiences at?

[MAlby7]

Great, my brother and I are going tomorrow for their exotic car tour. Drive 6 cars on a 250km trail. I hope our experience is better than yours. I will post about the day we have.

[SleeperAvant]

Great, my brother and I are going tomorrow for their exotic car tour. Drive 6 cars on a 250km trail. I hope our experience is better than yours. I will post about the day we have.

I hope you have a good experience, I did two years ago.

Sorry to hear about this OP, very unfortunate. Did you get a refund at least?

[Quattrocket]

After the attitude I received from the" piece of work" receptionist, I just called wagjag or groupon, whatever it was, and they agreed to pay me back and fight them for their money. Wasn't interested in talking to any more rude classless individuals.

[woofster]

Never ceases to amaze me how businesses can be run in such a way and expect to succeed. A poor product or service is something that is more difficult to turn around without a major investment. Poor customer service is the easiest and most crucial yet often overlooked aspects that can make or break a business. Glad to hear WagJag or Groupon was willing to give you a refund.

[Quattrocket]

My wife said it was groupon, they have been a pleasure to deal with. Nice to see someone somewhere knows how to run a business!
Too bad they had to treat me the way they did, I would have been back for every birthday/christmas.

[Saturn]

After the attitude I received from the" piece of work" receptionist, I just called wagjag or groupon, whatever it was, and they agreed to pay me back and fight them for their money. Wasn't interested in talking to any more rude classless individuals.

Eastern european accent ... thats the one of the owners wife. Yes she is a piece of work. Went through that too.

[ragazzi_07]

Affinty Car Rentals.

Met the owner at the gym a while back, really nice guy.

http://www.affinitycarrentals.com/sh...xotic&count=18

[Veraxial]

I'm really sorry to hear about your experience with GTA. If you would like to redeem your exotic car experience, I would strongly suggest Affinity Car Rentals. Over the many years they've provided my friends and me with great service and fantastic cars and James (the owner) is a great person to deal with and he knows how to provide great customer service. I don't think you could go wrong with Affinity so, if you're willing, check them out. Thanks ragazzi_07 for posting the link.

[MAlby7]

Today my brother and I took part in the exotic car tour @ GTA exotics. I have to say that I had a blast. We got to drive a Dodge Viper, Corvette Z06, Audi R8, Ferrari 360 Spider, Nissan GTR, and Lamborghini Gallardo. The cars are a bit beat to shit to say the least but I'd expect that from a company that does 5 of these car tours every week. We all jumped into cars and left the shop. The shop owner lead the pack on motorcycle and another guy followed the pack on another motorcycle. Every half hour or so we pulled over to switch drivers, and every hour we switched cars. We started driving at about 10:30 and we drove straight to 1:30 where we stopped at Shoeless Joe for lunch (burger and fries) which was included. At about 2:15 we got back in the cars and drove to about 4:00pm which we then arrived back at the shop. The are pretty lenient when it comes to having fun with the cars. We did get some great acceleration runs in and some very spirited driving.

Being as hot as it was today we died driving the Viper, Ferrari and Galardo as the A/C wasn't working in the Gallardo and Viper. I have to say my two favourite cars were the 600hp GTR and the Ferrari, followed by the R8. Most of the cars are modified and they really ruined the R8 by putting too low profile tires and slamming it. The car is very bouncy. The Ferrari and the GTR were by far the most comfortable. The Viper was complete shit as I expected it to be. It was uncomfortable and very difficult to drive. The Z06 was exactly what I expected; brute force with minimal refinement. The Gallardo was such a let down. It was slightly uncomfortable, brakes were almost toast, and the car pulled to the right as the alignment was off. Top it off with no A/C and I would not recommend it. Overall if you love cars as much as I do, I would definitely recommend this package.

[QuattroCan]

Is it possible that group deal customers are treated differently than those who pay full price?
Good to know about Affinity, I will keep them in mind if i ever pull the trigger on these exotic rentals.

[Quattrocket]

Does affinity have an R8? I checked their website but the second page of cars refuses to load for some reason.

[wellused]

MAlby7,

Thank you for the write up. Were you a passenger for half the time? I know they offer driving the whole time if you pay for a second spot.

Would/was it worth it to pay the extra to drive the whole time?

Today my brother and I took part in the exotic car tour @ GTA exotics. I have to say that I had a blast. We got to drive a Dodge Viper, Corvette Z06, Audi R8, Ferrari 360 Spider, Nissan GTR, and Lamborghini Gallardo. The cars are a bit beat to shit to say the least but I'd expect that from a company that does 5 of these car tours every week. We all jumped into cars and left the shop. The shop owner lead the pack on motorcycle and another guy followed the pack on another motorcycle. Every half hour or so we pulled over to switch drivers, and every hour we switched cars. We started driving at about 10:30 and we drove straight to 1:30 where we stopped at Shoeless Joe for lunch (burger and fries) which was included. At about 2:15 we got back in the cars and drove to about 4:00pm which we then arrived back at the shop. The are pretty lenient when it comes to having fun with the cars. We did get some great acceleration runs in and some very spirited driving....

[RippleChip]

Is it possible that group deal customers are treated differently than those who pay full price?
Good to know about Affinity, I will keep them in mind if i ever pull the trigger on these exotic rentals.

I'm sure, as with Groupon they sell at a discount and Groupon gets 50% of the sale price.

[Pr0n]

Is it possible that group deal customers are treated differently than those who pay full price?
Good to know about Affinity, I will keep them in mind if i ever pull the trigger on these exotic rentals.

Assuming it was this deal ( http://www.groupon.com/deals/exotic-car-tours-toronto or http://www.groupon.com/deals/gx-exotic-car-tours ):
$299 "Regular price"
- "Discount of 50%"
~== $149 (Groupon price)
- Groupon's cut which is another 50%,
~== meaning GTA Exotics makes $74.50 or 75% off their regular price.

They are probably hoping you'll upgrade your package to something else, or hope you'll forget you have it until it expires (Groupon actually uses this as a "selling feature" of "free money" to advertisers).

[MAlby7]

MAlby7,

Thank you for the write up. Were you a passenger for half the time? I know they offer driving the whole time if you pay for a second spot.

Would/was it worth it to pay the extra to drive the whole time?

I would say no, it's not worth it. I would bring someone I know instead so that you can feel comfortable with the person that's driving your patient ass around and not trying to kill you. My brother and I went and I probably drove for close to 3 hours and I was exhausted by the end of the day. The full days drive would definitely kill you (especially in yesterday's heat).

[VAGKraft.com]

Thanks for the feedback!!

[MAlby7]

Thanks for the feedback!!

No problem. It's nice to find a review on something you are contemplating on partaking in. So I thought I would contribute to a site where I've learned so much!

[spa]

Thats why this groupon wagjag shit has got to die.. no one wins on this except groupon wagjag etc itself. People get it at a reduced cost but the provider of the service treats them differently then a regular customer as they assume they wagjager is just there for the deal or would never come otherwise and will never be a repeat customer. The first few they might treat nice after a while they become bitter about it or even try to avoid them accepting the coupon all together.

[audi6gta]

I spoke to them last week looking to rent the R8 for today and had to call like 10times with no call back. then got a lady on the phone said the R8 was booked but could do the viper. Price on site was 250 for Saturday she wanted 1500 like all other cars are listed


I ended up not renting it


Glad i found this thread.

[cstyles]

I also just did business with GTA Exotics; My wife and my close friend's wife booked my friend and I on the $699 per person exotic car tour, and then booked themselves as well so that my friend and I could drive the entire time rather than sharing with each other. They had to pay full price for their passenger seats, so needless to say it was a lot of $$$ spent and we had very high expectations being that we are both car nuts. We just did the tour a few weeks ago at the beginning of June.

Our experience wasn't the greatest. It wasn't horrible, but certainly didn't meet our expectations. Yeah, maybe my sights were set too high but when you are spending this kind of money, I feel you should be able to have high expectations and have them met.

The good:

• Stu, the owner, seemed like a nice guy
• Ferrari 360 Spider was just bought and picked up from a dealer that morning, so it was in fantastic shape and drove like a dream (unlike the others, watch this space)
• Lunch was great @ Shoeless Joe's in Guelph
• Route to Guelph & convoy management by Stu and his employee was pretty good

Now you'll notice that the 360 Spider was the only car-related note in the 'good' column. There is something to be said for that, when you have paid $2,800.00 + HST for your group to have the automotive 'time of your lives'.

The not so good; could have been improved on; whatever you want to call it;

• There was a forecast for potential rain on our scheduled day, and as per their website they contact everyone the day before to advise if the run will happen or get rescheduled. That phone call didn't come until 9pm the night before. Not a big deal I guess, but considering they only run these tours tuesdays, wednesdays and thursdays, you will have likley booked time off work to accomodate it. Anyways, not really a big deal but bugged my wife quite a bit
• When we booked the event a couple of months prior (and paid in full, mind you), the advertised cars in the tour were a Mucielago, Gallardo, 360, GTR, R8, Viper
• The night before the event during the 9pm phone call to tell us we were rescheduling until 2pm the next day rather than 9am, I asked about what cars we'd be driving the next day. I was told Murcielago, Gallardo, 360, Porsche 911, GTR, V8 Vantage. Not quite the same list as the original, but still sounded good to me. My buddy on the other hand was very disappointed about the lack of the Viper, as he is a Viper nut and was talking about how excited he was to drive it for months before the event
• We arrive at the building for 2pm, and there is no Aston Martin V8 Vantage out front with the other cars for the tour; instead, there is a C6 Corvette with a Z06 wide rear end to make it look like a Z06... but was no Z06 lol. Rear tires were bald, and I mean bald, the driver door panel was about 80% of the way to completely falling off the door
• Porsche 911 had the turdbro rear quarter fenders (with the air intakes) and all the other external markings of the 911 Turbo... but like the Corvette, wasn't the Turbo. Just a base 911
• Other than the 360 Spider which was new to the fleet that day, and to an extent the GTR, every other car was in poor, poor condition. Most of them had electrical tape covering the driver dash area trying to cover up MIL's, warnings, etc...
• Virtually no introduction to the cars at all. The intro was instruction for everyone to get in a car, best drivers in the driver seat first to get out of the city without stalling, and that he was going to speed 20-30 over the speed limit so that 'we could hurry up and get the day over with'. Not exactly the verbiage that inspires excitement from your clients that have paid $700 per seat to participate
• Very poor driving experience; Murcielago was in horrible shape and every time it came to a complete stop, the RPM's would rapidly fluctuate and then stall out. Gallardo had a pull to the right so bad, you couldn't focus on the driving experience of it; the transmission / shifter was in bad shape as well. Porsche 911 looked like someone had their dog inside of it and allowed it to scratch up everything. Lastly, the C6 Corvette - what a crooked nightmare that was. If you gave it any gas at all, the entire chassis would speed-wobble. Had very obvious structural / frame issues and IMO when considering the bald tires to go with it, was an absolute liability to drive.

The biggest disappointment of all was the fact that I just wanted / hoped it would be the most kick-ass automotive experience ever. Here is the twist of the story for ya; my friend that accompanied me is actually my business partner (we are in an entirely different business lol), but both of us, and our wives,couldn't stop talking about how amazing the experience COULD have been, and how there is absolutely zero competition to GTAExotic's dream car tour in Canada. A week after the event, we approached GTA Exotics and dropped the bomb that if he and his wife ever considered selling the business, to contact us. I highly doubt that the call will ever come, but hey who knows, we've got some RE we could offload and try our hand in the exotic car tour business LOL. A little vehicle refresh (ie replacement), building refresh, and customer service refresh could go a long way in a business like this.

[MAlby7]

CSTYLES,

I agree with you that the cars are in rough shape, but it's what I expected them to be in because they have been beat every single day of their miserable existence. I didn't see the 911 so I cannot comment. I did notice the Z51 badge (and the absence of the Z06 badge) on the side of the Corvette and was a little suspicious, but any corvette will pretty much act the same when driving in the manner that we did. I agree the customer service is not there at all. Stuart defends, at all cost, his business even if something is clearly wrong. The girls working inside are not great either. $700 per seat is a lot of money but not as much as they charge in Vegas where it's $50 a lap on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and they are very short laps. I read a lot of negative reviews before attending my tour date and that's why I didn't expect too much, so in the end a was impressed.

[JackalS4]

Wow, interesting thoughts and experiences!

I rented the 2003 Viper SRT-10 for 24 hours (after trying to be convinced to do the tour, which I thought about for what I wanted and turned down) and had the time of my life!

I could definitely see others having issues though based on what I saw, but my experience was fantastic, two thumbs up!

I've always had a thing for the Viper and driving it made me realize it's just my kind of car (for a side fun car, that is).

It's ridiculous going over bumps (slam!), has the not-so-hot interior, a heavy clutch and a vague shifter (although i'm wondering how much of all this is the condition of the rental's fault...) but somehow it emerges as a car I absolutely ADORE!

In a raw sports car, I personally am tired of all the luxuries - the paddle shifters, the navigation and overkill sound systems, the bubble roofs & increasing ride heights, much heavier weights, overly soft/electronic suspension, heavy needless electronic convertible tops (amongst other similar gizmos), and did I mention 2-pedaled cars?.... (this is ME anyway..I understand these things' purpose to some)

I liked the convertible more than I thought, it actually turned a lot of heads (and cell phone cameras!) and I got asked a lot about it. I felt like I was driving a car that I wanted because I love it and would want to own it, not just to flaunt it.

Plus it sounded good and pulled hard. Nice burbles on throttle lift.

I've missed the SRT-10 every day since!

But alas, to each their own I guess!

Here she is by the way...


To me, it's a special car with GOBS of character...

[Carmine_S4]

Interesting....here's my "write up" from this past Tuesday, August 28th, 2012.

Funny to read about how the wife/receptionist was a complete be-otch...I got that sense the minute I drove into the parking lot and she barked that I couldn't park there. (Even though I would be driving my own car, tagging along for the day.) read ahead for the goof she made. Yeah, forgot about the *cough* ZR1 *cough*. He almost had our group organizer convinced. I sort of expected the cars to be beat - part b/c of what they're used for, and part b/c it can't make $ sense to keep every car tip-top even charging $1200/day/car.

Posted on another site:

My wife's cousin gave his ushers/groomsmen an "exotic car tour" as a gift. Unfortunately, I was not part of that lucky group, so my options were either to a) pay $600 for the day (based on 2/car) or b) get it arranged that I could tag along and drive my own car. I chose b), although I have yet to figure out what the fuel and brake costs will be. :)

Anyhow, it's a five hour (approx) tour, not including the break for lunch. The "tour" is chaperoned by two motorcycles that "manage" traffic at stop signs so that, well, we can cautiously roll through the stop. Guys taking the tour drive a half-hour, switch with their co-pilot for a half-hour and then switch cars. The route is roughly from Oakville around to Campbellville and Guelph; "Escarpment Country"...the scenery is the only thing more beautiful than the cars. These guys know all of the "B" and "C" roads that wind in and around the escarpment.

Basically, it's about 5 hours of 2nd/3rd gear pulls to 120-130, slam on the brakes and do it over and over again, with some nice "country" road curves thrown in; the bikers let the speeds creep up a little, but nothing crazy - they don't want all the headache associated with cars doing dangerous speeds.

I understand that all cars were chip tuned...some more than others.

Lineup was:
1) Murcielago - 6 speed. Everyone had a challenge with the clutch
2) Ferrari 360 Modena cab- 6 Speed
3) R8 V8 - R-tronic
4) GTR - tuned to 600+hp
5) Corvette - Z51 package - 6 speed
6) Aston Martin Vantage V8 - 6 speed


As I didn't drive, I didn't get 1st hand feel, but some commments were as follows:
- Would never be able to drive the Murcie every day...too edgy...too rough...expect to die frequently.
- GTR - incredibly quick...fastest car there....made you look like a superdriver
- Ferrari- I don't remember much said about that car. I think it was overshadowed by everything around it.
- Vantage - slow compared to the others, but probably the most elegant and best as an exotic daily driver.
- Corvette was probably the 2nd "craziest" car to drive...oversteer on demand fun
- The R8 was "voted" as the best car, closely beating the GTR, by the sounds of it. Pure acceleration went to the GTR. I think the GTR probably seemed a little too massaged, where the R8 still had enough of an edge to it; driver involvement. I don't know. Kudos, Audi.

As a side story. The girl - not sure if there are pics of her - who was in charge of signing up the waivers, getting damage deposits etc - and who we think is the $$$ behind this - had an attitude to match her hotness...typical. My guess is she probably gets hit on by EVERY guy and is tired of it...stone face. So she's helping to explain the nuances of every car to the drivers....how each is started (who would have figured there was probably 6 different ways to start those damn cars?), etc. Unfortunately I was in my car and back to the parking lot, when I hear a few loud engine revs....no big deal, right. Well, she had the car in reverse and let the clutch out. The car proceeded to mount the curb behind her and almost "beach" itself. Major face-palm. After the head honcho - who is the front man and biker - gave her an earful of WTF, she was all smiley and giggly. Beach.

(BTW, all the cars are beaten up)

[audifirst]

was it this one ?

[Pr0n]

^I can't tell with the helmet on.
"The old switcheroo"

[MAlby7]

That chick's sister with big guns is better looking.