Yeah, I know. The title’s kind of inflammatory. Trust me, this isn’t a pit thread (though if someone wants to start one on this topic, I can relate).
Many of us have had the “pleasure” of shopping for a “new” (either brand-new or new-to-you) car. I’ve been shopping for cars since I was eight. My dad would take me with him when he’d go looking for a new car. From 1966-1972 we could rarely afford to trade up to something that wouldn’t itself need to be traded in only a year or so, and thus I got to see every ploy ever invented by those who make their living by selling us transportation.
Scrupulously honest car sales people are rare fish. My sister is a car seller (awkward, but I prefer it to salesperson). My mom’s next door neighbor owns a used car lot (at least he seems honest to people he lives next to). I ran across an article at the Edmunds.com web site called Confessions of a Car Salesman. It confirms a lot of what I already suspected about the car sales business. I found it to be a very interesting read.
Now, I really like shopping for cars, but when I’m seriously looking for transportation I don’t like being jacked around. The best deal I ever got on a car was one time when my old car was paid off and there was no pressure to get a new car. Whenever the salesman came in with his “Here’s our final offer – it’s as low as we can go!” I’d just get up and say “Well, maybe I should just keep my old car for a while until I can get some more savings for a down payment.” It was funny to see the panicked look on the salesman’s face as he quickly backpedaled and tried to get a better deal for me than the “best possible deal” he had already offered me.
I just wanted to share the link to the article above. I was also wondering if anyone else had any car buying (or selling – I presume the only car salesmen who would frequent the SDMB are honest salesmen ;)) experiences they would like to share?
~~Baloo
I used to be a plaidcoat, my first job out of college. Trust me in that the majority of car salesmen are nothing but pathetic, scumbag losers and crooks.
Unless selling ahigh ticket item, most car dealerships really dont car if you are a deadbeat or a froemr felon. Just that you can get monay out of a customer (or, in car salesman terminology, an “up”).
What stories do you want to hear? How we used to take customers keys for a test drive of their trade in then hide them?
Or the girl who came in for delivery of her new car only to find out that we “messed up” and her payments were really $275 a month, not $238. We apologized and readjusted it to $260, and in the heat of the moment, she took the car.
OR how another salesman took the day off and asked me to take delivery on a convertible for a lady who lived 100 miles away. Of course, the sale price was $1200 more than what she agreed upon when she signed the deal, but the sales manager got her to accept $750.
I was canned from an auto sales job 8 years ago. See, I was the newest hired. Most car dealerships hire too many salespeople then fire them to motivate the other salespeople. My manager told me that I would never make it in car sales because I was “not vicious enough.”
He was right. I got out of car sales because I couldn’t live with myself any more.
Bythe way, I’m still in sales. I’m not vicious, and I do very well.
What else do you wanna hear?
My cousin is a nice guy car salesman, and he made asst. manager this year.
It’s the coming thing. Soft sell. Tread women with respect.
Make your money on the people who don’t come to argue. Let the hagglers walk away.
I work for a car dealership (in the service department–but that’s a whole other thread). The salesmen who have the most success are the ones who give the customer what he wants as opposed to trying to sell him what the salesman wants him to buy. There are some like that, and for some reason they always seem to sell the most cars.
Why are typos always so backward! They never come out better, only worse. 
Oh, I beg to differ. That was classic.