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The car business, at its core, isn’t just about steel, glass, and silicon.
A buyer walks into a dealership not just to buy a car, but to buy into a brand. And when that first handshake turns into a shell game of fees, accessories, and middle-manager issues, the buyer doesn’t walk out thinking the dealership failed; they think the brand did.
Which brings us to Labelexec75, a Reddit user who posted his dealership story in r/Ioniq9 with the kind of clarity and candor that rarely survives the fog of modern auto retail.
He was ready to write off Hyundai entirely, burned by more than one bait-and-switch dealership experience in Orange County, California. Then, a single sales rep, Ray Alvarez of Puente Hills Hyundai, did something astonishing: he told the truth. And then stuck to it.
“After several bad experiences with several Hyundai and Kia dealerships in the Orange County, CA area, I closed and brought home a 2026 Hyundai Ioniq 9 SEL from Ray Alvarez of Puente Hills Hyundai.
From the first contact with Ray, it was quite refreshing to deal with someone who’s really straight up with no bs. I had contacted the dealership through TrueCar. Most dealerships on True Car give you a sizable discount, only to negate it by adding on useless, unwanted accessories.
I briefly told Ray about my recent experience with two Hyundai and one Kia dealership. Ray assured me he was straight up. He told me he’d give me a bigger discount than what was listed on True Car and remove the accessories.
At this point, seeing was believing to me. Right on point, he texted me in writing confirming what he had said he would do.
I asked him to send me a lease deal sheet. At first, the numbers were off. He admitted he had made a mistake and corrected it. His second deal sheet came back less than my calculations.
I told him, let’s wrap it up, and I’ll be by to pick up in 3 hours.
I drove 45 minutes to Puente Hills Hyundai to pick up the car. True to his word, I was in and out in an hour.
The deal was as he said. Nothing was padded. No double-dipping on fees (I’ve had other dealerships try to add an acquisition fee to the drive-offs and also added to the adjusted cap cost). No “let me go as my manager” games and try to change the deal or pressure me to do something else.
Overall, a great experience, and I think I got a great deal on a 13-mile 2026 Hyundai K9 SEL.
In the end, the car’s MSRP was $68,840. He gave me a sizable discount, more than 4 other dealerships in Orange County, and a $13,000 incentive from Hyundai. All fees, taxes, and first payment were capitalized. $815/mth 36 months 15,000 miles. All I did was fill out a credit app online, sent over my ID and insurance, came into the dealership, spent most of the time going over the features of the car, spent 10 minutes in finance signing paperwork, and boom, I was done.
High five to Ray Alvarez and Puente Hills Hyundai for making my Ioniq 9 buying experience the second-best car buying experience I’ve ever had (I’ve had over 15 in 32 years).
Give him a call if you want an honest, upfront, straight shooter with no BS games.
If you need help with lease numbers, I used leasecompare.pro. It gives you an AI breakdown to explain step by step how and where the monthly payment is derived. You’ll know if the lease quote you were given is inflated.”
The Ioniq 9 itself is a solid piece of machinery: three rows, 800V charging, a tech suite that’s genuinely competitive, and, if you tick the right boxes, over 420 horsepower. But all of that would’ve been irrelevant if the dealership experience had derailed the process one more time. And that’s the point: the best product in the world won’t save a brand from its own salespeople.
Hyundai Ioniq 9 Material & Design Process
- The Ioniq 9’s styling follows Hyundai’s “Aerosthetic” philosophy, blending aerodynamic efficiency with expressive surfaces (e.g., active air flaps, sculpted underbody, low-drag wheels) to help lower the drag coefficient.
- Exterior details draw cultural inspiration: its side character lines evoke diagonal folds reminiscent of the traditional Korean hanbok garment, connecting form with heritage.
- For the interior, Hyundai prioritized a “lounge-like” spatial feel, wide open cabin, flat floors, reclining “Relaxation Seats,” swiveling second-row seating options, and modular seating layouts.
- Material and user-experience choices emphasize quality and sustainability; the interior earned Wards’ “10 Best Interiors & UX” award in 2025, in part thanks to clever packaging, interface design, and use of eco-friendly materials.
What’s most telling is how this story resonated. Commenters piled on not with the usual Reddit skepticism, but with agreement. One user, scyoung121, remarked,
“This is how it should be. Glad it worked out!”
An indictment of just how rare it is for car buying to go right.
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Another, Historical-Heart8192, took the advice literally:
“Hey OP, want to thank you. I got my deal from Ray, and it was smooth… I was out in about 90 min.”
We’re at a point where spending less than two hours at a dealership is treated like a miracle, and perhaps, in most showrooms, it still is.
The Buying Experience Explained
Customers now spot the overage per mile, calculate the cap cost adjustment, and ask for PDFs. And if they don’t get straight answers, they walk, and they post. Just ask Stranded-In-435, who shared a comparable lease at $650/month for 12K miles annually, noting he chose not to pay for mileage up front. That post didn’t just inform, it gave context. It helped others make smarter choices.
Even more instructive? Labelexec75’s frustration about Hyundai’s lack of mid-lease mileage purchase options, something BMW and a few other forward-thinking brands allow digitally.
That’s not a dealership problem. That’s a manufacturer policy problem. And it reveals something deeper: the sales process, from contract to ownership, is part of the product now. If your app doesn’t let me manage my lease, your car might as well have a carburetor. Customer experience isn’t just part of the value proposition; it is the value proposition.
Hyundai Ioniq 9 Sales Figures
- Globally, Hyundai reports that since its debut in February, about 14,391 units of the Ioniq 9 had been sold (4,745 in South Korea; 9,646 in international markets) as of a recent tally.
- In the U.S., through June of a given year, cumulative sales reached 1,013 units, with a downward trend from 1,009 in April to 767 in June.
- Its EPA-estimated range spans 311–335 miles, depending on trim and drivetrain, giving it strong competitiveness among large EV SUVs.
- Trim choices include Long Range RWD, Long Range AWD, and Performance AWD (the Performance AWD version is claimed to do 0–60 in around 5.2 seconds) with a battery capacity of 110.3 kWh.
Hyundai, to its credit, has come a long way. The Ioniq 9 isn’t just a good EV, it’s a legitimate threat to legacy brands. But it’s precisely because the product is so good that the company can no longer afford the dead weight of dealership friction. You can spend a billion on engineering and still lose a customer at the finance desk. Or, conversely, you can build goodwill and loyalty for life with a guy like Ray Alvarez who simply honors his word.
That’s the real lesson here. Automakers can control the metal, the tech, and the marketing. But if the sales floor tells a different story, one of games, padding, and mistrust, the brand takes the hit. Customers don’t separate the showroom from the C-suite.
If Bob’s Hyundai does them dirty, they assume Hyundai Motor Company was complicit, or worse, indifferent. And in a world where “I got hosed at the dealership” travels at the speed of Reddit, no manufacturer can afford that kind of silence anymore.
You don’t just sell EVs. You sell confidence, clarity, and decency. And in 2025, that might just be the most electrifying powertrain of all.
Image Sources: Hyundai Media Center
Noah Washington is an automotive journalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. He enjoys covering the latest news in the automotive industry and conducting reviews on the latest cars. He has been in the automotive industry since 15 years old and has been featured in prominent automotive news sites. You can reach him on X and LinkedIn for tips and to follow his automotive coverage.
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Source: torquenews.com
