Saddleback Golf Cars

Chino and his team at Saddleback golf cars are great. They got me a great deal on a LSV EZgo golf car for my home in Laguna Beach. I got it a couple of years ago and they handled everything for me. This included licensing and installing everything necessary to make it street legal. I love my golf car in Laguna Beach. The servicing and the maintenance on it after purchase have been great. When a few little issues have come up in the past they have handled it honestly and fairly.

Saddleback Golf Cars was amazing! Thank you so much! We had our charity golf tournament in June and worked with the SGC team who took amazing care of us 100% of the way. I am so grateful for their hard work and diligence to make sure our event was a success! Thank you so so so much!
–Pamela

Saddleback golf cars was recommended to me by a new neighbor so I wanted to give them a shot. Here is my experience. I went in to drop $ 10,000K or more on a cart at Phil Bellafaire’s Saddleback Golfcars. I Picked out my cart and everything. When coming back to pay for the cart I showed the manager a link from his website that stated «Price Guarantee! Saddleback Will Meet or Beat any price From Any authored Competitor on rentals, New or Used cart Sales!» So I show the manager a quote from a competitor. The manager called the owner Phil Bellafaire to get the price match approved. The price difference was 30%. The manager came back and said Phil Bellafaire declined to meet or beat his competitor. I said that’s horrible to advertise «Price Guarantee» and then decline. Not even a counter offer… nothing. Bottom line is this Saddleback golf cars uses deceptive marketing to gain potential customers. Very shady business tactic. Phil Bellafaire is now on my poo list for worst business practices in Orange County. Welcome to the list Phil Bellafaire. Here is the link to the meet or beat price guarantee.

I’ll keep it short and simple.
Cart went dead and was picked up on a Thursday.
I called them twice the following Monday as I hadn’t heard from them, and wasn’t even sure they had it. Also sent a follow up email.
Received a call Tuesday and was very politely told they needed some time to get their diagnostics done. No problem.
Wednesday they called and gave me an estimate of over 4000.00. That’s more than I paid for it.
I paid them the «estimate» fee to get the cart released and had another company go get it.
Estimate for repairs ¹⁄₈^th of theirs, so hopefully things work out.
Woman answering the phone was pleasant, service guy was polite when he did eventually did get back to me, but I decided to take my business elsewhere after reading other Unilocal reviews and being shocked by the estimate provided.

WISH I COULD CLICK ZERO. BEWARE… Bait and switch tactics.
I wanted to get my EZGO updated. I explained in full detail what I wanted and was verbally quoted $ 2,500. I agreed and they came and picked up my golf cart, at the wrong location by the way. Even after verifying my address with them 3 times. ONE MONTH later I get a written quote for $ 6,000. I said absolutely not. They then proceeded to try and up sell me on a, «better, newer» model. I still said no. When I asked that they return my golf car, they held it for ransom until I paid, ahead of time, an, «estimate fee» of $ 139. I had no choice even though they had nothing in writing and no signed agreement from me. They said that they would deliver to my house at 10:30AM, they showed up at 1:00PM. Then they neglected to leave me my key and claimed that the driver never picked it up when he picked up my golf car in the first place. Right… how convenient to come up with that excuse off the top of your head after having the car for 90 days. Great memory I guess. I will never, ever use or buy anything from Saddleback Gold Cars again and I will strongly encourage everyone I know to stay away. And, living in a resort, beach area like Dana Point, Laguna Beach: That’s a lot of people with Golf Cars. I would rather trailer the thing to the desert where there are plenty of reputable dealer. Too bad they are the only game in town…
After reading other reviews it seems as though everyone has had a similar experience.
EXAMPLES:
«The women office staff here need attitude adjustments or better yet, to find a new job. «
“I finally told them to tow the car back to our home, it took weeks to get the car back. I spent 2 mornings waiting for them to deliver the car, no delivery; no call to let me know they were not delivering it. I wasted 2 Saturday mornings waiting for nothing. By the time we got it towed back, the car that I gave them very clean, we got back dirty and dusty! I finally got a chance to look inside, they changed the ignition key without letting us know. They are crooks, do not trust them with your vehicles!»

BEWARE!!! I would give them NO (ZERO) star rating if I could!
Do not use them! They had our GEM electric car for months, without contacting us to give us an estimate repair! I had to keep calling them for status. For a long time, they could not locate the car. After months of trying to get an estimate, I finally told them to tow the car back to our home, it took weeks to get the car back. I spent 2 mornings waiting for them to deliver the car, no delivery; no call to let me know they were not delivering it. I wasted 2 Saturday mornings waiting for nothing. By the time we got it towed back, the car that I gave them very clean, we got back dirty and dusty! I finally got a chance to look inside, they changed the ignition key without letting us know. They are crooks, do not trust them with your vehicles!
I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BUSINESS AT ALL! I posted pictures, look at them please.

Saddleback Carts was recommended to me by a friend who had a positive experience with this business. From my initial phone call to completion I was treated with respect and courtesy. They sent out a mechanic in a timely manor and I was very satisfied with the repair and customer service. Very friendly and helpful staff. Couldn’t be happier.
I have to edit this review… PLEASE, Saddleback Carts… hire people who speak English. This is America and the language is English. Very frustrating to try and work with your mechanic who only speak Spanish. I’ll still keep the 5 stars, but not happy with a 20 minute conversation with your mechanic, that should have only taken 3 minutes. Still not sure if things are what we agreed because of the language issue. Grrrrrr

Somehow this post got deleted, so I will repost it.
Sorry the truth sucks sometimes.
I wish it were possible to put negative stars.
Saddleback came out and replaced all 6 batteries in our golf cart in July of last year, to the tune of about 1500 dollars. We were told the batteries had a year warranty. The golf cart completely died and we called them out again in June of this year to charge the batteries (routine service call: $ 88.50) «while Im here, I may as well grease the axles» the technician said. «and you have a bad drum — I can replace it, it will just be about 50 bucks for the part.» I signed a service order agreeing to approximately 150.00 worth of charges and was told they would be back the following week to put the drum in.
In the meantime — a bill arrives for about 265.50 — 3 hours of labor and the charges for all the greasing the tech did (that we didnt ask for.) I called them and argued with one of the office workers and they removed one hour of labor.
When they called to advise they had the drum, I was told I would be charged another hour of labor (88.50) plus the cost of the drum (I thought this was part of the almost 200 I had already paid!) The tech had told me this part takes 5 minutes to put in. NO WAY — I told the office manager to have the owner call me.
The batteries are still not holding a charge, and that year warranty is a lie… its been 11 months since we had them installed and they told us we can sell them back to the manufacturer at a pro-​rated charge. 1500 dollars worth of cheap batteries that don’t work.
Oh and still waiting for that call from the owner — I’m glad I never paid for the drum that never showed up.
This company prides itself on shitty service and price gouging since they are the only convenient option for south county, but thats no excuse.
Rent a trailer and take your cart up somewhere else… call any major golf course (Pelican HIll, Black Gold) and they will tell you who to go to.
This company is a joke and they dont deserve your money.

PLEASE BEWARE OF SADDLEBACK GOLF CARTS!
The women office staff here need attitude adjustments or better yet, to find a new job.
Saddleback says your getting «NEW» parts when your really not. They also say you need certain things when you don’t. They are untrustworthy and there is a lot of FRAUD going on. If you do choose to come here watch what they do! I I have experienced it first hand! If you dont want to get ripped off then I would go somewhere else.
SCROLL DOWN TO READ HIS FILTERED REVIEWS THAT WERE HIDDEN. I read those after the fact.

We have 2 experiences with Saddleback. It would have been one but they had come so highly recommended.
The first was the repair of an EzGo gas cart. The cart was returned in working condition, but the little things, like adjusting the throttle so the cart would differ in speed based on how much the pedal was depressed…
We weren’t really impressed, but we shrugged it off and sent our Taylor Dunn burden cart for repair.
After about a month of calls and the cart being returned to us twice with an invoice (cart not in working order), we sent our cart to LSV Carts.
LSV Carts made Saddleback look competent and dutiful.
At the end of the whole debacle, we repaired the cart ourselves. Replaced a forward/​reverse switch. Took about an hour.