Lots of things can send a new car purchase skidding off the road into the underbrush of absurdity. Sometimes it’s dealer shenanigans; other times, it’s customers that generate some head scratching. An example of the latter recently rolled through a New Jersey Toyota dealership.
According to a series of social media videos posted by the sales manager who seemingly handled the transaction, someone visited Sansone Toyota with a 2023 Cadillac Escalade showing 510,263 miles on the odometer, looking to trade it in on a new Sequoia. Let’s say the vehicle is four years old exactly, just for easy math—that would still equal 349 miles per day, every day. That’s crazy.
For what it’s worth, the seller claimed that, aside from one replaced transmission, the Escalade was in good condition. As if that mileage wasn’t weird enough, a person negotiating for the buyer—who was on the premises but stayed in the car until the conclusion of the deal, according to the videos—said they only wanted $2,000 and would pay for the new Toyota in cash.
“Our boss is in the car, and everything is cash,” the person negotiating says at one point. They also mention plans to export the car, and later ask about acquiring a second Sequoia (that definitely would not be our choice) and a Land Cruiser.
As shown in the video, once the deal is concluded, the buyer tells the salesperson, “You’re part of the family now,” and invites him to Panama, where the seller says he knows people who can get “whatever you want.”
The Drive called Sansone Toyota to speak with the salesperson and eventually reached them via DM, but they declined to comment. “Sorry, can’t share personal information about it,” they said. “Thanks for reaching out.”
But there’s consensus among the commenters on the four Instagram Reels about what this looks like. The word “cartel” comes up quite a few times, albeit with one person claiming to know the buyer, saying they made their money in construction (which itself will probably draw laughs from fans of organized crime lore).
The salesperson responded to many of these comments with some form of “you’ve been watching too many movies,” and that may indeed be all that’s going on here. Sometimes a situation is just too stereotypical not to come to certain conclusions. But even if this was ultimately a clean deal, there are a lot of red flags.
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