First off, I want to say I have been a lurker of TFP for a while. So much amazing information and has helped me out quite a bit. So, thank you. And thank you in advance.
We live in Michigan and are purchasing our first pool for our house. We both grew up with pools so we wanted to get one for our house and our little one to grow into.
I understand purchasing a pool online and doing the install isn't too hard and less expensive, but we both are pretty busy so we went the dealer route, to at least get an idea. I'd rather pay someone to install it since I don't have the proper equipment as of now. Especially when it comes to leveling the pool.
We went with this dealer nearby that several friends and coworkers recommended.
When we went in, she told the sales guy (who just happened to be the owner of 2 of the local stores) that she grew up with a Doughboy and her mother keeps insisting we should get a Doughboy. I understand there are other pools out there. So we went in with an open mind, but we know what we wanted at least (54", 24 round, resin top and uprights , 19" sand filter 1.5hp motor)
So he tells us its a Doughboy Desert Breeze. It has everything. And he is cutting us a deal at 3k + tax. Any ladder we want and he tossed in some free stuff. Not a bad deal I felt, especially Doughboy.
He wrote us up a quote with Doughboy name on it, we take it home to talk about it. I do some research, and I find there is a Desert Spring, and Autumn Breeze. But no Desert Breeze. So she calls up and he says no, it is Desert Breeze. They are a custom order that HII Doughboy does for them because of the volume of sales. Cool. I believe him at this point. We put 1k down deposit.
Then we decided to do an aluminum deck since we didn't want to deal with the headache of wood deck and we got some run around on pricing later and it tipped me off when he took our old quote, and wrote us a new one to make it look cleaner and fit more on the quote sheet. This time it doesn't have the brand name, only model
So I did some digging around, and I contacted Doughboy. They informed me that it is NOT a Doughboy, but it is an Embassy pool that is custom made for them. There are 4 differences between Doughboy and Lomart and he told me what to look for and sent me some info. So we returned and played stupid with him asking what brand it was again because it wasn't on the sheet. She asked is it a Doughboy and he stated "mhmm". So I called him out, and he said Lomart and Doughboy is the same pool, they just offer different colors (Okay, he's wrong, but I'll forgive him for being misinformed) I wasn't going to argue, and we played it off as if her mother pointed out when we were telling her about it that it wasn't a Doughboy. So he then wrote Lomart by HII on our invoice and made a copy.
I asked to see any packages or THEIR order slip to show what exactly they order, and he gave us the runaround and said they delivered all of their Desert Breezes out that day. Yeah, okay. I'm not an idiot, but it's a nice looking pool, and it looks to be of very good quality.
So I asked about Embassy. He goes oh absolutely not, that is HII's Chinese junk line they sell for cheap, we don't sell it. So after Doughboy told me that it was an Embassy, and then sales guy saying Embassy is lower quality, I'm wondering just exactly what we're getting. He also is telling us that he has this liner that was for inground pools that is made by Latham 25ga virgin liner but they had it cut for this specific pool. I attached some pictures.
Need some input. Besides getting some variance in the sale, everything seems to be of good quality. I just want to post here and see what everyone says, and what kind of pool do you think this is etc.
Once again, thank you to everyone!
We live in Michigan and are purchasing our first pool for our house. We both grew up with pools so we wanted to get one for our house and our little one to grow into.
I understand purchasing a pool online and doing the install isn't too hard and less expensive, but we both are pretty busy so we went the dealer route, to at least get an idea. I'd rather pay someone to install it since I don't have the proper equipment as of now. Especially when it comes to leveling the pool.
We went with this dealer nearby that several friends and coworkers recommended.
When we went in, she told the sales guy (who just happened to be the owner of 2 of the local stores) that she grew up with a Doughboy and her mother keeps insisting we should get a Doughboy. I understand there are other pools out there. So we went in with an open mind, but we know what we wanted at least (54", 24 round, resin top and uprights , 19" sand filter 1.5hp motor)
So he tells us its a Doughboy Desert Breeze. It has everything. And he is cutting us a deal at 3k + tax. Any ladder we want and he tossed in some free stuff. Not a bad deal I felt, especially Doughboy.
He wrote us up a quote with Doughboy name on it, we take it home to talk about it. I do some research, and I find there is a Desert Spring, and Autumn Breeze. But no Desert Breeze. So she calls up and he says no, it is Desert Breeze. They are a custom order that HII Doughboy does for them because of the volume of sales. Cool. I believe him at this point. We put 1k down deposit.
Then we decided to do an aluminum deck since we didn't want to deal with the headache of wood deck and we got some run around on pricing later and it tipped me off when he took our old quote, and wrote us a new one to make it look cleaner and fit more on the quote sheet. This time it doesn't have the brand name, only model
So I did some digging around, and I contacted Doughboy. They informed me that it is NOT a Doughboy, but it is an Embassy pool that is custom made for them. There are 4 differences between Doughboy and Lomart and he told me what to look for and sent me some info. So we returned and played stupid with him asking what brand it was again because it wasn't on the sheet. She asked is it a Doughboy and he stated "mhmm". So I called him out, and he said Lomart and Doughboy is the same pool, they just offer different colors (Okay, he's wrong, but I'll forgive him for being misinformed) I wasn't going to argue, and we played it off as if her mother pointed out when we were telling her about it that it wasn't a Doughboy. So he then wrote Lomart by HII on our invoice and made a copy.
I asked to see any packages or THEIR order slip to show what exactly they order, and he gave us the runaround and said they delivered all of their Desert Breezes out that day. Yeah, okay. I'm not an idiot, but it's a nice looking pool, and it looks to be of very good quality.
So I asked about Embassy. He goes oh absolutely not, that is HII's Chinese junk line they sell for cheap, we don't sell it. So after Doughboy told me that it was an Embassy, and then sales guy saying Embassy is lower quality, I'm wondering just exactly what we're getting. He also is telling us that he has this liner that was for inground pools that is made by Latham 25ga virgin liner but they had it cut for this specific pool. I attached some pictures.
Need some input. Besides getting some variance in the sale, everything seems to be of good quality. I just want to post here and see what everyone says, and what kind of pool do you think this is etc.
Once again, thank you to everyone!
