You clearly knew what you wanted, and that is exactly what I will be doing later this year. But in that scenario, you knew approximately what you were looking for and in what price range.
I gave the shorthand version of the other kind. The type I’m talking about (for RV sales, which was my experience) come on the lot and want to look at everything from the highest end big rigs down to the smallest trailers. They have no intention of purchasing, and if pressed, will never tell you what it is they’re looking for. These were usually lunch-hour people who were bored. That’s fine, as long as there aren’t a lot of customers on the lot. I’m assuming that in the car world, people want to test drive both the Lincoln Town Car and the Ford Fiesta, which is a pretty clear indication that they are not interested in buying anything. A good sales person will accommodate them with a smile on the off-chance that they may come back in the future. I’ve had sales people offer to take me out for a test drive when all I’m doing is waiting for my present vehicle to be serviced. Sales people get bored, too.
I haven’t had many bad experiences at car dealerships. I go in knowing what I can afford and what I want to do and if they can’t meet it, no harm, no foul, we will all live to fight another day.
I have bought a few vehicles this exact way, done some legwork ahead of time so I don’t come in with a crazy idea “I want this brand-new car for a DOLLAR!” and generally we all leave happy. They do a good job (and it’s usually a pretty tough one), and deserve to get paid. I am honest and upfront and deserve not to get gouged.
Ain’t that the truth. They both make great cars but the sales people need to sell 30 cars a month to make decent money.
I sell both new or used cars. Used cars are a challenge in that I do not know them as well as what I sell here new but I’m pretty car-oriented so I can figure stuff out pretty quickly. As for the last part, yeah, ala-carte options on buying new cars is pretty rare. Everything is packages now. I have a 2015 Buick Regal Premium II, and I wanted the Bose audio system and the navigation and had to take the sunroof I didn’t want as part of the “Experience Buick” package. You can still order a car pretty close to exactly what you want but then not only is the lead time measured in months, but the incentives may change for the worse when your car arrives on the dealer lot because incentives are only for cars that are “born” and already have a VIN number. So whatever programs are out there two months from when you ordered the car will be what you get as opposed to maybe getting additional rebate money that’s available if you buy the gold car you didn’t want right now. We call this “colorblind for the right price”. It’s almost always the money with people.
Yeah, some lots are like that where a pack of salespeople are waiting for customers to pull on the lot. Usually there’s a rotation, but not where I work now which is great because I work with a lot of older guys and I can just hip check them outta the way getting by them through the door to get to the customer first. I keed, I keed!
Usually I know I have a straight looker when they tell me there’s absolutely no way they are buying a car today. But you never know. As a salesperson you have to keep asking the right questions to ensure there’s not something else preventing them from making a decision.
Car buying is rarely fast and the reasons are many. Test driving three or more cars, negotiating, signing paperwork, waiting on detail…my experience is usually the longest time elapses with bad credit customers where we’re waiting ages for a bank to say yes to a loan.
Not anymore. Most dealers start at 4-5k markup on a used car and a lot of places have a timeclock whereby the price slowly drops online or on the lot or both, and eventually after 90 days it becomes considered “old age” and is then priced at or even below what the dealer owns it for. This is the best time to buy a used car but it’s also the time when a car can quickly get bought out from under you, even while you’re heading to the store to buy it yourself. We don’t take deposits on used cars and it’s first come first served.
I have to stop for now, I’m at work. I’ll check back in later this evening.
We wanted to pay cash for our car, but we were told we wouldn’t get the dealer incentives unless we financed.
It was ridiculous, because we had the cash in hand, but we had to apply for a loan and get approved in order to drop the price of the car a few thousand bucks.
We did pay it off before the first payment was due, but when did car dealers start turning their nose up at good old cash? (Yes, I know, they want the interest, but damn.)
That shouldn’t be completely laid at the dealer’s feet. Manufacturers sometimes offer incentives if you take out a manufacturer-provided loan, like GM or Ford financing. It seems silly, but you might as well take out the loan, get the incentive, and then pay it off early. I’ve been seeing this for at least 15 years.
Yeah, cash is no longer king due to the parasitic kickback system in place between lenders and dealers. The good news is that most lenders now don’t have prepayment penalties.
Usually the way this goes down is that a cash buyer on a new car has picked all the meat off the bone, there’s no more “wiggle room” left and yet they want more and we may knock another couple hundred off to give the customer a win and we get more than that back from financing short term, and the customer paid like $50 in interest to get the $300 off for financing for 90 days or whatever.
Years ago, when I wanted a particular model of car, I called all the local dealerships (it was in L.A., so there were many). ALL of them said they had that model in stock. When I said I’d be right over to see it, there was a lot of hedging.
Turned out NONE of them had that model in stock (the state was giving the manufacturer a hard time for the pollution controls, and it could not yet be made or sold). ALL of the salesmen said they would order the car through the dealer exchange, but I had to sign a purchase contract first, and some wanted to charge for the exchange search.
Apparently it was the standard method of doing business. Usually any model could be had at one of the dealers in the network, so telling a customer they actually had the model could be used to stall them until they swapped with some other dealer (“Now where is that darn car? I know I saw it on the back lot!”). Or the customer could be switched to one more readily available. So they could usually get away with the ruse, but not this time.
Lots of used car dealerships nowadays are loan offices where they happen to provide you the collateral (the car). There’s a motorcycle dealership in my area that I don’t think would even sell you the bike unless you took out a loan. The online ads for the bikes are less than 1 line of copypasta about the bike, and pages of information about the 72 month loan you’re gonna love! Zero dollars down!
The “no credit, bad credit?” dealerships are the same way. C’mon in and buy a car at the maximum interest rate allowable by law, because you’re more likely to be bad at managing your personal finances if you have bad credit, anyways.
It seems to me that many potential buyers have information that is woefully incorrect. Which makes some sense, because car buying is not a common occurrence for most people. But things like “the car loses half its value as soon as you drive it off the lot” hasn’t been true for a long time, unless you really got ripped off.
My question is about one of these “common knowledge” situations: in the past it has been recommended to mention that you’d like to trade in your old car towards the end of the transaction rather than mention it earlier. More recently, I heard that that is out of date, and the salesman doesn’t gain any additional leverage by mentioning it earlier, but it does through him/her off because they then have to reprocess the payment with the car’s value included. Is this true nowadays?
I had this experience in 2014, also in Los Angeles, at one of the three dealerships I actually went to after checking with their internet department. (To be fair, several other dealerships I contacted admitted that they didn’t have what I wanted in stock, but could get it for me to test drive with a few days notice.)
That particular dealership told me via email that yes, they had the car I wanted, in stick shift, in one of the two colors I wanted, so come on down and take a look! When I got there I was handed off from the internet contact person to a salesperson, who preceded to interrogate me: Did it have to be that car? (yes). Did it have to be a stick shift? (yes). Why? (because that’s what I want.) Was I planning to lease? (no). Finance? (no, paying cash.) What about a used car (if I wanted a used car I’d stick with the one I’m driving now.) It was almost funny to see his face fall at every answer. I was eventually passed off to a supervisor, who reluctantly admitted that they didn’t have the car I was looking for on the lot. “So you lied to me to get me in here?” “well, um, it’s possible we had the car on the lot when you inquired two days ago…” I walked out at that point, and ended buying my car from a dealer who didn’t lie to me and had what I wanted in stock. Thank goodness I live in Los Angeles.
Hard to believe, but there are honest car salesmen, even in Los Angeles! :eek:
After being given the runaround, I finally spoke to a salesman at a dealership far away, and he told me over the phone how the dealer exchange scam worked. He said that the model I wanted could not be made or sold in California until the manufacturer passed the pollution tests, and they were having trouble passing. He said that he expected it to pass in the next few weeks, and he would show me all the orders his dealership had for that model.
I found it hard to believe that such an honest salesman existed, so I went over to see him (did I mention he wasn’t the closest dealer?). He said if I picked out one particular car in the ordered list (color, accessories, etc.), he would notify me when it arrived, and he would reserve it for me for a few days at least – no contract, no deposit needed. Or I could place a specific, custom order, but that might take…forever.
I picked one out from his pre-order list, he called me a few weeks later when it came in, and I bought it. Maybe sometimes honesty is the best policy.
A lot of people hate to haggle and will just say “I want that one, let’s get the paperwork done.” People with a lot of money will usually go straight to the business owner and get the best price, since the owner knows he will get repeat business and referrals and get to keep the commission he would have otherwise had to give to a salesman.
As for the other, I used to tell young folks who were looking to buy something fun for their families to offer a lower price. Yeah, I know that sounds like BS, but I didn’t like taking advantage of people just because they were ignorant of the process. The worst that could happen is that the sales manager would come back with a counter.
I’ve know a few people in my life, actually a few too many, that were woefully ignorant on money matters and approached car buying in the “How much will my monthly payment be?” every time. Often when they were already upside-down on their current vehicle.
I’ve always assumed that these are car salesman’s favorite people to deal with since every up-sell and increase can be justified with “It’s just X more dollars per month.”
Do you foam at the mouth with these type customers or do you actually feel sorry for them?
