# Car salesman asked how I owed on my trade in.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-salesman-asked-how-i-owed-on-my-trade-in/754487>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 10, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-salesman-asked-how-i-owed-on-my-trade-in/754487 "2016-05-10T14:41:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 7

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-salesman-asked-how-i-owed-on-my-trade-in/754487/121 "2016-05-17T05:53:31Z")

</div>

> [@Pantastic](#):
>
> Let me ask you this: if you started with a specific analogy trying to point out a problem, and people pointed out that not only was the situation not an analogy a problem, but that they had actually been in that situation and it wasn’t remotely a problem, would you just ditch the analogy, or would you keep doubling down and trying to make the analogy fit the situation through several pages of replies?

Don’t get all Wise-Ass with _ **ME** _, PAL.

> [@](#):
>
> You were a car salesman and you’re very clearly arguing from the perspective of the salesman, so I classify you as one of the ‘car sales people’. It’s not exactly a leap.

The other posters remark was

> [@](#):
>
> Do you car sales guys realize that you’re making _ **your profession** _ look much, much more sleazy by the way you’re acting in this thread?

Car sales is no longer my profession. The last time I sold cars was in 1993.

Your statement would be like if you flipped burgers 20 years ago, before graduating to a Macy’s shoe salesman. So while surely this analogy is not far off from reality, still, would it be OK I classify your profession as a short order cook?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-salesman-asked-how-i-owed-on-my-trade-in/754487/122 "2016-05-17T13:13:31Z")

</div>

> [@RedSwinglineOne](#):
>
> Ok, that makes sense. So is the salesman at some point accountable for any loss on the trade in if they do in fact, get less for the trade in than was paid for it?

I can’t answer this other than my observation has been that the salesman doesn’t pull the trigger on a deal without the consent of a sales manager.  
I imagine that the sales manager has the task of fitting the salesman’s incentives with the dealer’s profit.  
As a sales manager I wouldn’t want my salesman to lose a deal (and profit for the dealer) because he didn’t want to eat the loss on on component of a multipart deal.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-salesman-asked-how-i-owed-on-my-trade-in/754487.md?page=6)