Clay & Company

We have purchased our last 8 vehicles over the span of 25 years with Clay and Company. I will never work with anyone else as long as they are in business. Karen Clay is awesome and will guide you through the entire process. Don’t torture yourself by working directly with a dealer (except for doing a test drive to figure out which car you want.) Karen and her husband get a great deal from the local dealers, and if local dealers do not have the car you want, they can search all over California and the dealer will ship it to her. They also once sold a popular model used car for us, and got a great price — not sure if they still do that.

I used them and send all my friends and family to them. They get you a great deal, no hassle and great to work with!!!

I have purchased four vehicles from Clay and Co., nothing but smooth, easy transactions. They are extremely helpful and I couldn’t be happier about the deals.
I know both Karen and Mark personally and would recommend them to all with great confidence.

This had to be the easiest car lease! I have purchase 3 cars from Clay and Company and was always thrilled with the process. This time around I wanted to lease a new car – something cute and economical and just could not decide on the car. Karen recommend the car I am now leasing. I really love My Subaru!!! Karen even delivered the car to me in my home town. I got want I wanted in two days and drove away again thrilled with my auto brokers, Karen and Mark. Thanks guys, Sally Sue

Yes, they did get a great deal on our vehicle. But in terms of professionalism and ability to work with people, not so great.
I guess we first noticed the problems in communication when we were ordering the truck. It was clear the broker wanted to get a good deal for us and to order what we wanted, but it was hard to communicate even from the beginning since we felt the owner, Karen, would not listen and would talk loudly over us regularly on the phone. This turned out to be an indicator of the communication problems we would have later.
We ended up having to move to SD and asked if there was a way to do the financing and take delivery of the vehicle out of state (Stateline, NV) so we could drive it and register in our new state. Clay and Company’s owner Karen (
) informed us that this was impossible unless we paid cash. This seemed odd, since other dealerships said they do that sort of thing all the time. We found that having conversations with Karen were difficult. She would not listen, would become emotionally agitated and would shout over us on the phone. We were merely looking for our options (who wants to pay sales tax, license, and registration twice?), but she indicated that we were reneging on our original agreement and told us to contact the dealership directly, which we did. She had apparently indicated to the dealership that we were «problem» clients, but someone from the dealership did eventually call us back. This sales representative from the dealership was great — a very helpful, positive, can-​do sort of guy who was happy to deliver the car at no extra charge out of state, who said doing the financing was no problem for an out of state delivery, etc. We completed the transaction with no problem and had a great time working with the sales and finance staff.
We were not sure what the communication was between the broker and dealership at this point, but when we got an email from Clay and Co. asking us to contact them, we did right away. This time it was Mark on the phone (Karen’s husband) and he indicated that this deal was «out of control» and that we had been nothing but trouble since the beginning. He seemed upset that we had discussed a trade-​in with the dealership (not sure why). We did not end up doing a trade-​in, but had discussed it since the dealership brought it up. He suggested we complete the transaction without them since they no longer wanted to be involved. Again, we thought this was odd. After all, the dealership was happy to hire a driver to deliver and we were going to go pick it up. This should not have been a burden for Clay and Co., — in fact, it meant they did not have do do the delivery themselves (about 70 miles each way, at least).
If you have a very straightforward transaction with no unexpected situations I am guessing they would do a decent job for you. They do seem to be able to get good prices for their clients. However, be sure not to question them or ask for changes or options, otherwise you might run afoul of them and the interactions might become unpleasant, as it did for us.

First review! I hope this starts a trend, because Mark and Karen are fantastic and they deserve all the business they can handle.
I recently purchased a new Hyundai through Clay & Co. and had an amazing experience working with them. I hadn’t bought a car in 14 years, and it took a while for me to figure out what I wanted, but once I did, I wanted to be in that car ASAP and Mark and Karen made it happen. My situation was complicated as I split my time between the Bay Area and Sacramento, but they were patient and persistent and helped me get the car I wanted.
Apparently the combination of colors and features I desired proved more difficult to find than Karen and Mark were used to; as such, I think they were a lot more frustrated with the mere week it took to find «my» car than I was! But in the end, I got a great deal on my car (way below MSRP) without stress and strain.
I highly recommend using Clay & Co. for your next car purchase if you want painless, personal service. They will work tirelessly to find you the car that you want, by providing many options to choose from at low prices. They will even deliver the car to your home. My family has now used Clay to purchase 3 cars, and each experience has been great.