I guess I like haggling because I like the feeling I got a better deal than many other people. 
You could look at it this way - don’t haggle on the price at all, and then pay off the car early. You’ll probably save more on interest than you would have on haggling the price down, and saved yourself all that stress. 
What he said. I’ve been buying and selling cars for nearly a quarter of a century. I know all their games, and I’m too old and too damn tired to play any more. I don’t need the hassle, and if a dealer wants to try and lead me on his little dance, I’ll go find another one who just wants to sell me what I want at a price that’s acceptable to us both. I don’t mind negotiating - that’s part of the process - but when he starts playing his little Salesman 101 games {Step One: get the customer to agree with you. "You like a bargain, don’t you? No, I’m an eccentric fucking philanthropist and I like spending money I don’t have to on something I don’t want and haven’t asked for}, that’s when I walk.
Yeah, I know you can, but people generally don’t do it, and I’d rather not waste my time. I just don’t like haggling. I know there are times it can cost me more money, but if it’s between giving it to them and paying for another therapy session, well, I’m already there
That’s what the internet is for. Many years ago I negotiated what I believed to be a fair price for my Honda. Then I got to talk to the Finance Manager. After 15 minutes of his bullshit, I packed up my things and walked out. Before I was able to leave, the salesman run up to me and I told him he’s lost a sale because of him. He promised that I was now done with him and I signed the papers. When I went back to buy a new car 4 years later, that salesman was now the Sales Manager, and after we came to an agreement, he brought me to the finance guy, who said, basically:
I understand you don’t need financing. Correct.
I understand you don’t need or want any extended warranty. Correct.
I understand there aren’t any extras I can help you with. Correct.
Deal done
One of the saddest days of my life was when Mike Rodriguez left the auto business.
Maybe you did, and maybe you didn’t
Exactly
Oh, I’ll see your point, and raise you an eye-brow; I just don’t get the hard-sell, either. It may make one sale, but doesn’t bring in repeat business.
I think my point was, one can, sometimes, be gracious, too. I don’t like to be mean to sales people; it’s a rotten job.
(I don’t mind taking on the service managers, though; they are just flat thieving bastards. I’ve thrown some fine scenes with them.)
Exactly. When I was a kid, I like to play all the games. Hell, I remember bargaining for 20 minutes on a 2-dollar purchase in Hong Kong. I just don’t have the patience that much for games any more. I will negotiate, but let’s skip the bullshit.
What I don’t have a lot of sympathy for, though, are people who play their games but come unglued on people who play theirs (such as in a recent pit thread, also about buying cars). Also, people who play games, such as “good cop, bad cop” but then bitch about games from the sales people.
I think Scissorjack has it. Simply getting up and leaving isn’t that hard.
Aw, man. You wasted a perfect straight line.
<Yoda>Do, or do not. There is no try.</Yoda>
That “check with the sales manager” thing is so lame, you have to wonder if they are stupid, or think you are. For any given car, the salesman knows how low he can go, and how much commission he will make. But they want you to believe that the minimum price is set on the spot by the sales manager and kept secret from the salesman. What advantage would there be to running a business that way? “OK boys, get out there and give 'em the hard sell! If they want to negotiate, relay the offer to me and I’ll consult some entrails.”
I hate it when they start out lying to me. It can only go downhill from there. Today I looked at a Saturn (I need a tow-behind for the RV) on the local dealer’s online inventory. They claim the MSRP is over $18K, and their “sale” price is “only” $16,600. Wow, what a deal! However, when I look at the same car on Edmunds, the MSRP is $16,500. I can hardly wait for the reply email to my query as to why.
You know, I always thought they did that to give people a chance to confer (“How low do you think they’ll go?” “I don’t know, but I am not paying more that $21,300, not matter what”)
Do they really do that with people who are alone?
Oh, most certainly. I’ve even had them do it via email, which suggests a stunning level of presumed customer stupidity.
They do it to make you worry and stew and think about how much you want the car.
-FrL-
When I bought my last car there was some sort of “market adjustment” of $2,000 or so on the window sticker. I was getting ready to walk off when the saleslady found me. Wound up making a deal for exactly the price I had in mind, never any mention of the market adjustment.
Too many games.
Not necessarily. I sold RVs for awhile and salesmen absolutely did not have authority to approve deals, nor were we privy to lowest price information. If the customer offered anything other than the sticker price, it had to be run through the Sales Manager, who would go into the database to see what the cost to the dealer was, flooring costs, etc.
Yeah, I once had a salesman tell me that the red check engine light was because the car was due for an oil change. :rolleyes: It was a sensor caused by the transmission. I immediately would only do business with the sales manager, and made it clear I didn’t want to see that liar again. It was a car my son wanted. I ended up buying the car on the condition that they would guarantee the transmission. Typical older used car, and they wanted to sell it as is, but finally relented.
Um… yeah… that car ended up eating transmissions. If I remember correctly it took three new transmissions over the course of a year. Fortunately my son ended up wrecking it 
before we had to put a fourth one in there. At least it didn’t cost us $$$, plus we fared OK after the crash (it was totaled)
I went with my friend when she was trying the Camry/Accord/Altima level at various dealers. She was up-front about not being ready to buy that day. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of sleaziness. I mean, they certainly pointed out all the good things about their car but there wasn’t pressure. They said, Well, I have to ask, is there anything I can do to make a deal today? but they weren’t jerks about it.
I just bought a new car a couple months ago. I had narrowed my choice down to a Hyundai Elantra or a Nissan Sentra. Since Hyundai was having good rebates, I also thought if I got a good deal, I could work out getting a Sonata as well. I was trading in my 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid, which was costing too much to be worth the cost since I changed jobs and now drive very little.
I went to the Hyundai deal with a price in mind, and I had a very interested buyer (private party) for my Civic, for $18,500. Because of the tax savings on the trade in, I wanted $17,250 at least for the trade, if I went that route.
So after driving the Sonata, and seeing a sticker of 18,900, I was confident we could get a deal done. Ultimately, I wanted to spend no more than $250 a month for 60 months after all was said and done, and get at least $17,250 for the trade.
So he comes back, shows me the price of my trade ($16,500), sticker on the Sonata, minus the $2,000 cash back they had, and said “297 for 72 months. Sign here.” I looked at him like he was nuts, and told him so. I explained that the numbers didn’t work. What the hell were they trying to pull? Even at those crappy prices, that’s not $297 for 72 months. I told him I wanted to see the math, and he kept saying, “do we have a deal?” After getting very pissed, the manager came over, said Ok, $17,000 for your trade…$252 for 72 months.
After being even more pissed that they essentially confirmed they were originally trying to rip me off, I started to leave, and he said “Why not for $72 months?” I couldn’t get him off the fact that I wasn’t going longer than 60 months, and I wasn’t paying more than $250, and that they were crazy if they thought they were offering me a deal.
After a few more minutes of crap from them, I just left, without even trying to talk about the Elantra, and went down the street to the Nissan dealer.
I said “I want a 2008 Sentra S with manual transmission.” He looked in the computer, said “we can get one.” And went to price.
He came back, offered me $17,000 for the trade and about $500 off sticker for the Sentra…coming to $290 for 60 months. I said, I need to get to $250. He went back, talked for a while, came back, gave me $17,800 for the Civic ($18,900 effective after tax savings), a $1500 rebate that wasn’t slated to start until the next month, and got me the car for my asking price. Total time 10 minutes.
Had the car the next day. What a difference.
We’ve had great experiences with Nissan ourselves. Back when they were also selling for Daewoo, we bought ourselves a little Lanos through a Nissan dealership.
After we’d agreed on price and the initial paperwork was signed(!) on the demo model, the sales manager started talking extras, which we couldn’t afford. When we said we couldn’t afford a back visor-spoilery thing for it (about $650) he looked sad and then pointed out the window at a different Lanos and said, “As you can see, they look much better with one on. I’ll throw one in on the deal.” and then proceeded to tick the correct box and write across it: NO CHARGE and his signature.
Seriously, who throws in extras after the sale is made? What a great guy!
The sales guys at the dealership idolised their manager. Our sales guy said (paraphrased), after we told him about the addition: “He just does that kind of stuff. He’s always concerned more that the customer is happy - and hopefully comes back for the next car! - than about money gouging. He’s a great guy. We love working for him - we have the happiest clients around.”
When we did go back for another car, about five years later, the new sales manager said that our original Sales Manager had died of cancer two years earlier, and that all the original staff still missed him. The new SM was part of the original staff, and he told us anecdotes about what a great guy the previous SM was to work for, and how he’d really cared for his staff and his customers.
Such an unusual experience in an industry where the pattern seems to be ‘badmouth whoever came before, and backstab your coworkers’!
Oh, anyway, long story short, after our second trip to Nissan we bought a second-hand Mazda 6 from them at a great price, without haggling. We’d told them our budget and how far it would stretch, and they fully respected it and sold us what’s turned out to be a gem of a car, slightly under(!) budget.
Of our test drive experiences in the last few years, I can only remember one case where the dealership people were at all pushy about trying to lure us into the office afterwards to discuss price etc. Maybe we just look too growly to mess with.
But yes, most car salesmen and their managers are sleazebags.
Real estate agents aren’t so great either.
Trying the hard sell might get you an immediate sale, but in the long run, you can’t build a sales career that way. More car salesmen should learn that. Successful real estate salespeople understand this - the way to build a career and get repeat sales and word of mouth is to provide superior service, make your clients comfortable with you and trust that you’re the person who’s the best around at finding the right house and getting the best price.
I worked in sales when I was younger, and set some sales records. Even so, I got in trouble when my manager heard me tell a customer that our product really wasn’t what they needed, and that our competitor’s product was better suited to what they needed to do. But you know what? That customer came back to me for the next thing, and the next, and the next. Because I gained his trust.
Our last real estate agent showed us house after house, never complaining when we said it wasn’t suitable and asked to see another. When we found a house we liked, he collected all the information, checked to make sure the legal documents were in order, arranged for a lawyer and a mortgage broker for us, then cut a deal with the other real estate agent to hack a few percentage points out of their commissions to allow the buyer and seller’s price points to meet. Not once did he ever pressure us to buy the house. He was totally passive about that.
As a result, we will certainly use him again if we buy another house, and we passed his card around to everyone we knew who was looking for a house, and he got at least one more sale as a result.
A car salesman should do his or her best to answer your questions, to give you access to the vehicle, to use his expertise to give you honest, good advice about the car that would fit your needs and budget. And his or her goal should be to make the sale, but in a way that when you leave with your car you’re comfortable that you got the right vehicle for the right price. Then next time you need a car, you’ll see that salesman out. And you’ll tell your friends to, as well.
If the salesman gets the deal with a hard sell and attacks in a moment of weakness to get a signed contract, he may make a commission, but he’ll never get another one from you. Every day is like his first day, because he’ll have no built-up customer base.