Do I Have *Moron* Tattooed On My Forehead?

The BBQ Pit
21

I’m kinda sorta in the late-model business, but I can tell you for a fact that ANY dents or scratches, even on <1996 models, will cost you a LOT more in reselling than seems logical. Scratches on wheel covers can reduce the price by hundreds. You’d have to get a condition report, or at least an estimate on fixing the dent, before the book value has any meaning.

$200 is definitely a joke, though. Trade-ins are almost always a rip-off. Your best bet is to sell it yourself.

(Aside to anyone wanting to sell an SUV: DO IT NOW! The bottom’s falling so hard and so fast you’d think they were growing in the wild.)

As for buying a car, the best advice I ever heard was “Never buy a car on the first day”. Ask some questions, seem mildly interested, get a price, give them your phone number, then leave. Odds are they’ll call back within a couple of days with a much better offer, though you might have to do another “just looking” trip to the dealer.

22

[lame-ass-rant]

The wife and I went to trade in our Mercury for a van of ANY type as my kids are all now teens…sigh. We go to FIVE different dealers and every single one tries to bait and switch me. I ended up going to a rinky dink little dealer 25 miles away. He not only took my 96 mystique with almost 100k miles on it, bald tires and damn near no brakes, but he ALSO paid $1500 OVER the book value that was still owed on the car! Took all of 30 minutes and we drove off in a 98 Chevy Venture, fully loaded at the SAME monthly payment as the car was.

What really burned my ass about the car dealers was that I told them up front exactly what I wanted and they STILL tried to sell me something else. Look dickweed, if I WANTED a fucking station wagon, I would have fucking SAID so!

[/lame-ass-rant]

Xploder

23

You know what you want. You know what you are willing to pay. Why not just just tell the salesperson that?

24

We went through heck when we were looking to buy our Subaru Outback. We went to a ton of dealers. We needed to know about the weight capacity of the roof racks and various options for increasing the capacity. I understand that the salesmen would not know that information by heart, but instead of finding the information, most of them just made up lies. And we got all kinds of bullshit when we tried to nail down the price of the car.

Finally, we went to the Flemington, NJ Subaru dealer. No BS. No stupid gender-based questions. Didn’t even really try to “sell” us the car, since it was obvious that we already had looked carefully at it. They had to get the rack info from HQ, but called the next day with the information we needed (and more).

So we went back there and said we wanted to buy it. We were all armed with the invoice and holdback information, so we expected to be in a good position with regard to negotiations.

We sat down with the salesman. He said to us: “This is the invoice price. This is the invoice price minus the holdback. Then there is the dealer rebate (which we didn’t know about!) This is what we are paying for this car. We would like to make a $500 profit, so this is what the car will cost you.” And quoted us a price lower than the invoice price–which was where we were planning to start our negotiations. (In other words, we paid invoice minus $250)

So, we just said OK and bought the car. We were happy and the dealer was happy. And there was much rejoicing. And he gave us $300 for our trade in, which was actually very generous…considering. (The car had 200K and was held together with duct tape.)

Then, 2 years later, the car was totalled in an accident. So we went back to that dealer and bought another one. Again, we had the price information, and his initial offer was more than fair.
Hopefully, if we don’t allow ourselves to be treated like morons, the practices in the industry will eventually change. Hopefully.

(With regard to vanity mirrors and other stereotypically female concerns: We also recently acquired a 1984 Jeep J10. It had no vanity mirror. The horror! I bought a clip-on vanity mirror at the auto-parts store right away. I guess I’m more vain than I had thought!)

25

I wish I could go and negotiate for you. I LOVE buying cars. I bought my Camry from an idiot who tried to convince me that alloy wheels had some functional purpose. I just nodded, then said “that’s a load of crap.” I know I got a good deal because he called me the next day to say that the wood trim that I had insisted he throw in would cost $775 to install. I told him “This state gives me 3 days to change my mind about this deal. Now you have 30 minutes to decide to sell me this car with the options we agreed on at the price we agreed on or I walk!” Needless to say, he withdrew the charges and then I got the fun of telling them exactly what an ass he was on the customer satisfaction survey. My best car-buying tip: go when you have PMS-it will definitely make you negotiate better!

26

psychobunny - Actually, alloy wheels reduce the unsprung weight of the vehicle and can improve performance… that’s why we put them on sports cars.

Anyways… I’ve met some really decent car salesmen, I know that sounds like an oxymoron but it can happen. Then there’s those other guys to which this salesman belonged to.

My favourite story comes from a friend of mine who used to sell Mercedes Benz. This old guy pulls up in a battered old pickup truck, walks into the dealership and asks to look at a top of the line sedan which was selling for about 50K at the time. The salesman who greeted this guy blew him off and asked my friend to take care of him thinking that the old guy was a flake and a waste of his time.

After a long test drive the old guy asks my friend to tell the manager that he’ll pay 47K for the car and not a penny more. So my friend takes this decent offer to the manager who doesn’t believe the old guy is for real either. My friend tells the manager to go and talk to him and after a brief discussion the old guy goes out to his truck and brings back a suitcase which he sets on the trunk of the car. When he opens the suitcase there was $47,000 inside.

After the manager picked his jaw from the floor the old guy closes the suitcase and tells him that he won’t do business with anyone who won’t take him seriously. Before leaving he gives my friend $500.00 and thanked him for the test drive.

My friend got a call from another car salesman in another city a few days later, apparently this old guy walked in with a suitcase full of cash and left with a new Mercedes. He paid $46,500 for the car, explaining that another salesman from another city had already taken him for a test drive and deserved a portion of the commission.

27

YES! and it drives me nuts too when some idiot treats you as if you are stupid.

28

I just bought a car, and had an enjoyable experience. My best advice? Find a long-time salesman. They have the power to deal, and they’ve been there a while, so they must be doing something right (hopefully that’s not screwing people). Try calling and asking for the internet sales manager, or the fleet sales manager. Dealing with the person who okays the deal is easier than working with a newbie.
In my case, I found someone to talk money with me on the phone, and we had a commitment to a price in 10 minutes on a very hot car. I didn’t even have to go into dealerships that wouldn’t meet my price. I did however have to wait 2 months for delivery.
Apricot

29

Hey, pesch, I’m glad you had a good buying experience, and I hope it works out as well for anyone else who comes armed. But: do not be fooled, fellow Millions, into believing these guys are any better than the rest of the used-car thieves out there.

I was stupid, this I readily admit. I walked into a CarMax and impulse bought a '97 Infiniti. I did no prep work on the buy - it fit my price range and it looked nice, I bought. There would be no reason at all for me to complain except this one thing: I later found out it’s a fucking salvage rebuild title. They sold me a car that’s probably worth $5,000 for nearly $20K. I chose to not make the effort to do a Carfax.com check on it because, hey, it’s CarMax, right? Part of their advertised guarantee is that they’ll never sell a car with frame damage.

It’s not safe, guys. You’re never safe. My lawyer assures me that they’re no better than used-horse traders from two centuries ago. And, they’ll likely spend $50K in lawyer fees to win this $20K case, because they can’t afford to let it get out that they can be beaten at their game. I’m expecting an out-of-court settlement about another year from now. Cover your ass.

  • Dave
30

I was incredibly lucky when I bought my car, for a couple of reasons.

First, I knew the dealer anyway (I work at a radio station, and he’s one of our clients; I’d been doing business with him for eighteen months, so we already had a pretty good relationship). Second, he’d told me quite a bit about the car I was planning on buying due to that relationship. When he told me about the car - including how much he’d paid for it - I wasn’t in the market for a car and he knew it.

Third, and most important, one of the people I work with used to be a car salesman and ran very effective interference on the (extremely minimal) bullshit the dealer tried :slight_smile:

What really helped, though, was I was buying cash, no trade. Removed a whole level of negotiation, and we could get right down to tin tacks.

31

Yes, they would. It’s happened to both my husband and another guy friend.

32

Yes, they would. It’s happened to both my husband and another guy friend.

33

A used-car-buyin’ anecdote:

The last time I was in the market for a car, I visited a few dealerships to see what they had. I told the salesmen that I was looking for a small, used, Honda/Toyota/Mazda, less than five years old, stick shift, with good gas mileage.

So I go to the local Toyota dealership and tell the salesman my requirements. He says, “just a minute, let me ask my boss what we have on the lot” (which should have been a clue to me to skedaddle). He comes back with the sales manager in tow, who tells me, “I think I have what you’re looking for. Follow me.”

“Great!” I think. So we walk to the back of the lot and the guy shows me a twelve-year-old, fully loaded, Mercury Marquis, a car that was about as different from my requirements as a Lunar Rover would be. Unfortunately, when someone takes me for an utter and complete moron, I’m usually far too flabbergasted to properly tell him off, so all I said was, “Umm, I don’t think this will meet my needs.”

The sales manager says, “Son, you can’t just look at the car, you have to look at the value.” Why this would be an inducement to buy is beyond me.

And people wonder why a used-car salesman is such a cliche.

34

My supervisor at work came into some money and decided to treat herself to a brand new, top of the line, fully option-loaded Acura CL. She did all of her research, new exactly what she wanted, exactly what she was willing to pay, had called several dealerships in and around the area to see what sort of deal she could make, etc. All she wanted to do was hit the local dealer for a test drive, and see if they could match the best deal she’d been able to get at another dealer about 50 miles away that she’d discussed over the phone.

She walked into the Acura dealership, and told the salesperson that she wanted to test drive the Acura CL. He looked her up and down (Nicole is 25 and fairly attractive) and said “Oh…you don’t really want to buy an Acura, do you?” and proceeded to walk her over to the other side of the building. Where the Hyundai dealership was. And points to a lime green, base model Hyundai sedan. Nicole says “Ummmm…I really don’t want a Hyundai.” The salesperson, in all of his brilliance, replies “Oh, don’t worry…it comes in other colors.”

Nicole turned around and walked out. She came back a different day, got a different salesperson, test drove the car and paid cash that day for exactly the car she’d asked for. Why the original salesperson saw fit to flush the commission on a $30k car down the toilet, I’ll never know.

35

They waste my time. They try and get me to negotiate against myself. If you try and negotiate, some of them do the big shocked “Oh, no. This is the price of the car.” I have never ever dealt with a car salesman who didn’t try to feed me a line of shit. Apparently the more expensive the car, the more professional the salesman. Maybe I’m just buying cheap cars. The guys I buy from have been irritating dickweeds.

But, I love:

  1. the walkaway. Start walking. As someone said above, they’ll run.

  2. the “I’ll just go and check with the boss.” I say, “We’ll if you don’t have the authority to make a decison, let me talk to him directly.”

  3. messing with their standard form contracts. Bump up the warranty period and initial it. Write in a clause which says that the offer to purchase is subject to expiry within 10 minutes, date it and write the time. They start talking fast. Nothing on that form is set in stone. Not unless they want to miss their commission.

  4. optional extras. Because they will throw in alloy wheels, remote car alarm, CD player, and window tinting to make the sale, and you should insist upon all of that after you reach your price.

36

I’ve owned four different Hondas in my life. I never plan to go to another car manufacturer. They’ve really got my loyalty… and to me this is a bad, bad story to hear. I suggest you type up a formal version of the OP and show it to the salesman (as a letter to send to his boss or someone outside the dealership directly). I would love to see someone sweat under seeing their own lies clearly pointed out for them.

Then reexplain the situation to him, and ask him if there is anything he can do to attempt to earn back your trust. :wink:

Looks like you may have a super-cheap car comin’ Jodi! (I wouldn’t recommend pulling the lawyer schtick either)

37

I love that scene in Fargo where we get to see what the salesman and the boss really talk about! “How 'bout them Packers?”

38

Actually, most of my experiences have been with Honda dealers, too. I like Hondas - they’re good cars, but the car salesmen they employ are tosspots.

39

Thanks for all the comments, guys. It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one who’s been treated this way.

KELLI – You didn’t insult me! I never took your posts as anything except a pep talk, which I appreciate. :slight_smile:

ERIS – I LOVE Hondas. I still want the same car. I love owning a new car and driving a new car – I just hate buying a new car. I have never heard the DAVE’s phrase “tosspots,” but the salemen are that and more, in my unfortunate experience.

And ANOTHER thing – I should stop talking about this, I’m getting mad again – what’s with showing me the CD player, cupholders and vanity mirrors, as if they are the chief selling points of the vehicle?? Me (on the test drive): “Well, it’s a little slow on uphill exceleration, but not bad for a four cylinder.” Him: “Another change in the 2001 model is that there are cupholders in the front and the back!” Yowza. :rolleyes:

A friend mentioned last night that his dad knows a guy who owns a Honda dealership – one I haven’t been to yet. My friend is going to call his dad and see if he can call the guy and tell him I’ll be dropping by. I’m going to follow up on that very slim connection and see if I can’t get a decent deal there. I’m also NOT going to trade my old car in. I will either take a stab at selling it myself or I’ll donate it to charity and take the tax write off. Sigh. We’ll see how it goes.

40

Yeah, I think I read in consumer reports or somewhere that some of the best-rated cars (like Hondas) get some of the poorest ratings on dealerships & sales tactics.

That’s been my experience, too.

Also, don’t count out Auto-by-tel and other internet price quote services. I bought our Accord via Auto-by-Tel, and then used another service’s quote to smack the salesman down when we bought our CR-V a few years later.