I’ve purchased seven cars in the last 20 years and only once had a sales guy try to run the “If I could, would you…?” tactic on me. I couldn’t believe that there was still someone who thought it was still a viable way to sell vehicles. I just told him to find me a different salesman. Anyway, I was fully prepared every time I went in to buy, and other than that one time, never had to deal with smarmy tactics.
As for the salesman going to talk to the sales manager, that is NOT a dishonest tactic. The sales manager has to approve all sales because he has access to what the cost to the dealer is on every vehicle in the inventory, and knows what the profit margin has to be. A dealership owner would not be in business long if he relied on 20 different sales people to make that decision.
My latest purchase was at Meiers-Herzog in Beaverton. I was in and out of there within a couple of hours, but left the car overnight to be detailed. Quick and easy, and I got them to throw in the GPS.
As I mentioned in the other thread, there were sales people at the RV dealer where I worked who were dinosaurs, and who still tried to run the old con games. Problem is, anybody with a computer and a brain is well aware of those tactics and will walk away, so it’s a mystery to me why anyone would still try to use them. Not only that, but people who feel they are being scammed are going to light up Yelp and other rating services, and name names, so it’s a pointless exercise.
At an RV dealership, it is very common to be asked how you’re planning to pay for a unit or what you can swing for a monthly payment. This is because most people have no idea what they want, and the variety of available models and prices on RVs is staggering. Getting an idea of what the customer wants to pay, and what he’s going to use the RV for, really helps the sales person narrow down what he shows to him.
I heard it at least once (maybe twice) in the last ten years or so. Either a Honda or Toyota dealership.
Thought about for a few seconds, then realized that if it was that good of a theft deterrent, it would probably be included (like an alarm). Besides, if someone stole my car, it would take them a few second to break the windows and get new ones.
Besides, the VIN is in multiple other places on the vehicle, should it get stolen.
I think the scam is that they’re charging you hundreds or thousands of dollars for something that costs them $15 or $20.
A lot of what I’ve driven have been old cars I bought and fixed up myself; here I’m talking basic new car dealerships.
I was going along these lines. I don’t know that I would ever have called them scams but there are games to get the best profit from each sale and they still go on. I can’t blame them - in a business like that I would do the same thing. My usual form is to head in knowing what I want and what I want to pay and sticking to it. And being willing to walk at the drop of a hat if my ground rules aren’t met. (I do not want a lease; forget it. I always tell the salesman upfront that if you use the “L-word” I’m leaving and I have.) Cars are like an every-8-years or more thing so I haven’t had to do it much but I don’t see much of a difference between today and 1980.
One one of my previous cars, I worked every detail out via email over the previous week or so. I had test driven the car already and just needed to go in, sign the paperwork and drive away.
When I get there and I was just about to sign the first paper, he said “Now, there’s $700 due today, do you want to do that with a check or put it on a credit card?” Honestly, I figured it was just a sales tactic. That he’d go and “talk to his manager” or find some other way to get rid of it and be a hero…unless I didn’t push back. So, I pushed back. As I started to explain that we discussed this entire deal and that $700 never came up, the manager stepped in to explain that this fee can’t be waived blah blah blah.
I stood up and walked out. I thought I was calling their bluff. I assumed they’d chase me out to the lot or call me in a day or two. Nope, the next time I heard anything from them was months and months later when I got a cold call.
So, after I walked out on them, I printed out all of our back and forth emails and went up to another dealership. I sat down with the first sales person I found, showed him all the emails, explained what happened and told him that if he could match the deal I was supposed to get at the other place, he can send me right to the finance office to sign the paperwork, I don’t even need to test drive it. He went to the manager, got the okay and I was signing papers within a few minutes.
Honestly, I don’t know what happened there. I don’t know if they were just trying to get an extra $700 out of me or if it was a legit charge and the other dealer ate it.
Makes me think there were a few unwelcome surprises in the contract that they now know you might be smart enough to find, so they dumped you and hooked the next sucker.
At least one of those wasn’t a scam, it was outright illegal. The second one, with the pickup truck, involved a third party changing the numbers for the amount of the loan and forging his name on the loan documents. Someone, somewhere pocketed $6000.
The first one, with the Kia, is something out of Fargo. I’m gonna guess that, even if she missed it, even if it’s scummy, she agreed to what happened. My WAG is that the contract stated that if approved for the loan, they’d automatically transfer the money to the dealership and start billing her.
I’d think in that case, the first thing I’d do is contact the credit reporting agencies and dispute it. Call the dealership and loan company ask them what’s going in and ask for the VIN of this car and if they don’t deal with it in the next 48 hours or so, call my states AG and file a report.
Who knows. I think I just caught them off guard. The time between them informing me about this charge and me being in my car was probably 45 seconds.
And, for that reason, I don’t play the “uhh, where are my keys” bullshit. If you want or need to look at my car because I’m trading it in, that’s fine. But by the time you come back to the table, with an amount to offer me, you don’t need them anymore and I’d like them back.
Around here, we’ve got a chain of car dealerships that have re-invented bait-and-switch, using sites like autotrader and carsoup.
They list a used car, at a very attractive cost, but somehow the car is never there when you go to look at it. “Ah… to bad, we just sold it. How about this one, that costs several thousand more.” And next week, the “sold” car is still listed as available.
The first (only?) time I walked into a dealership and had them say exactly that, the sales person showed me, on the ad, an inventory number. He said that any time you see an inventory number that means that the deal is only for one specific car and by the time you show up, it’s probably not going to be there anymore. On top of that, the car I went in for was manual locks/windows, no AC, no radio etc.
This would have been late 90’s early 00’s. Manual windows/locks were still a thing, but that was the only time I’d seen a new car without a radio.
We have a Toyota guy who we’ve bought 3 cars from now. He simply says “What do you like? I’ll do 0% for you. It’s ok to say no to anything the finance person asks you to add.” We’ve been in and out in under an hour.
I bought a Hyundai back in '13. They tried to up sell me on probably ten different things, including the window etching. I refused all of it. However, the car did have window stickers proclaiming it was protected by the etching. I hit a pothole and broke two tires and bent two wheels within a month of buying it. It made me wish I’d gotten the tire/wheel insurance. I think it was only $350 or so. New tires and wheels added up to way more than that.
Fast forward to yesterday. I’m buying a new Impala, fancy wheels included. I remember that fateful day in the land of Pothole Pence. I inquire about the wheel/tire insurance. $575 for five years, $515 for three. I guess I’ll just take my chances and be extra careful when traveling in Indiana.
A lease isn’t attractive to me for one very simple reason: I plan to drive every car I own into the ground, and that should happen well after I’ve totally paid it off. With good maintenance and good luck I should get at least a few years without any car payments at all, and whatever level of insurance I feel like paying rather than what someone else dictates to me. I’m not here to throw my money into an endless pit if I can pick one with a bottom. Always “needing” the latest and greatest is a fool’s game.
Guess what, I paid off my phone and didn’t get a new one immediately! Shocking! Yeah, and now I’m “saving” $35 every month I keep it. Why toss a perfectly functioning smartphone so quickly? Same deal. I’ll replace it when I irreparably break it or it can no longer perform what I ask of it.
As for sleazy tactics, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth when the dealership refused to take the financing provided by my credit union. Over and over, we can’t do that, it’s not really approved, it’s sure to fail, it will take a long time to process, I’ve never seen that before, we’re going to need you to use our financing. We were up against the wall since we needed the car right away (not that they would know that), went with their financing just to get the sale to go through, and immediately refinanced through our credit union for more than half off the interest rate. Yeah, they got their little bonus, by pissing us off. And the salesperson had the nerve to look shocked when we said we wanted no dealership branding on our vehicle at all. I left them a bad review.
That sounds borderline illegal. The RV place where I worked had a low-level scam going on. If you came on the lot just looking around with no intention to buy, the sales person was supposed to tell you “Well, just for coming in, we’ll put you in our “Golden Ticket” lottery to win some nice camping supplies. Just fill in your name, address and phone/email.” In the showroom, there was a large rotating barrel about a third full of tickets and some camp chairs and other stuff next to it. After about a month, I asked about when the drawing was supposed to happen and another sales guy told me that in the three years he’d been there, it had never happened. The “Golden Tickets” were only to get contact information for cold calling purposes. I quit doing it after that. :rolleyes:
I was shopping for one a couple of months ago at a fairly large Dodge dealership and the price was listed at 16k, I had NADA’d before I came and knew it listed at 13k. Guy comes back with a ‘NADA’ of 16.5k and says he is under book. He had inflated the engine size, added a sunroof and features that the car didn’t have. I pointed it out and removed them and got back to my 13k. He said that he paid more than that for the car and I said that just because he got a bad deal doesn’t mean he’s going to pass his mistakes onto me and he can find another sucker. We left the car on the table.
The last couple of times I’ve picked up a Honda, when we get to the extended warranty, I’ve learned that if you just keep declining, they’ll eventually give you the ‘friends and family’ deal on it for $1/month. That’s more than offset by the free oil changes/tire rotations you get during that time.
I have to wonder if they get a bigger commission on the sale of the warranty then what they actually sell it for.
Regarding leases, being worried about damage was mentioned. I don’t know about others, but Honda has a pretty good forgiveness program. Something like $1000 in damage above and beyond normal wear and tear. They also include gap insurance with their lease (so make sure you don’t have it on your regular insurance as well).
I think that’s pretty common. That’s why, unless you like cold calls and junk snail/email, it’s probably not ever worth giving someone your contact info. Be it for a free meal at Noodles or a raffle at a car dealership.
I average 40k miles per year. I drive cars until they’re dead, then I repair them, and drive them until they die again. Then I repair them, drive them until they die, and then I’ll consider giving it to my grandchildren. No dealer wants to take back my car in three years beaten, thoroughly used and with 120k miles on it.
So stop asking. I don’t care what the residual value is. This isn’t an investment for me, it’s an appliance, and I intend to use it until it has absolutely no more value to anyone except the scrap yard.
Also, if residual value is so high, and I was the type to buy a new car every couple years, why wouldn’t I sell it myself and pocket the difference? Certainly the dealership isn’t running a charity. That’s easy money for someone, and why shouldn’t it be me?