I’m the least sporty person you will ever meet, and I had to get the Sport Premium level because I wanted dark blue 
I’m a contractor, and I know exactly what he means.
When you are dealing with customers and you are in an industry with a bad reputation (deserved or not) some customers thinks it is more than acceptable to preemptively try to screw the business over in any way, shape or form. They feel like its a free pass for the most unethical behavior, all while protesting that they’re the victim.
What was the car? Was it a low production, scarce model? Or an extremely popular car right after initial release? Hard to believe in a market the size of LA. Yes, there are still car salespeople that will lie to get you in the door. Heck, many dealers lie right on their website for the same goal. I see it in new car pricing online all the time, often even without disclosures. What they’ll do is post some really low price on a new car and they get there by throwing every rebate and program at the price to arrive at a phony price because TA DAA! You don’t qualify for all those rebates sir, THIS is actually your price, and now that you’re here, the chances are higher you’ll buy anyway because you never would have shown up otherwise. If it’s too good to be true it usually is. It’s also unscrupulous as hell. As far as your situation goes, if I don’t have a car that may still be showing online (another dealer trick to make the inventory look like we have more of something than we really do, leaving cars online sometimes for a couple weeks after it’s been sold), I will tell you. I don’t have time for games nor do I play them It’s bullshit.
Well, unfortunately people with bad credit by and large are at fault for their situation. Now, those with huge medical bills because of a family tragedy or something I absolutely sympathize with. But I don’t have too much sympathy with people that don’t pay their bills, waltz onto my lot thinking they’re going to buy a $80,000 Denali Yukon and waste my time once I find out they’re in an active bankruptcy, or had a repo, or whatever. I literally had a guy who sheepishly admitted to me that he didn’t think we’d find out. Dude, we’re pulling your bureau! It is absolutely part of my job to investigate whether you can even buy a car period because so many can’t, even with money down or whatever. I have to be careful in what I ask though so I don’t offend someone, it can be a delicate dance. And you can’t prejudge people based on their dress or what they drove onto the lot in either.
I recently sold a diesel truck to a Farmer Bob type that nobody else on the floor wanted to talk to because he had a broken strap on his bib overalls and egg or mustard stains all over himself and was dentally challenged. Turns out Farmer Bob really was a farmer, and a wealthy one too, and I sold him a truck.
Buy here pay here places exist because they literally are the last chance saloon for people with destroyed credit. They do their own financing and charge outrageous rates because they can and their customers are desperate for a car. The cars are usually junk as well. I could never work at a place like that, I simply can’t feed off human misery.
No, untrue. In the other thread in GQ there are a couple people that simply do not understand that telling me your payoff on your trade doesn’t gain me anything other than ascertaining your equity situation. I NEED to know that, and knowing it doesn’t alter what the car is worth. It’s worth what it’s worth based on book values driven by what a dealer can buy a car just like yours at an auction. The two biggest objections are always trade value and price/payments.
And yes, it would throw me off if you came at me with a trade after telling me you weren’t trading because any equity, positive or negative, affects the deal and the payment structure. If you have positive equity, you can use that in lieu of money down if you wish or you can just use some of it and get a check back. It’s your money, it’s up to you. Negative equity is a HUGE game changer because it may affect whether a bank will even loan you the money for the car period depending on how underwater you are. That negative equity has to be accounted for in any new auto loan. For every $1000 you finance on a car, it’s roughly $20 a month on your payment. If you have $8000 in negative equity on your trade because your credit was shitty when you bought it and maybe now it’s improved, that’s about $160 a month in a car payment that you’re adding to whatever the payment on the car you’re looking at would be given no trade at all. For most folks with average credit and average income, banks want to see one car loan per person, so maybe the bank won’t float you another loan if you opt not to try to trade a car you still owe on. It all depends. Income, debt to income ratio, credit score, how many open lines of credit you already have, etc.
Yeah, I won’t do that. But yes, my dealership is a very active trading partner with other dealerships so chances are if we don’t have exactly what you want, and you like dealing with me, we will work up the numbers in advance, broker an agreement and take a refundable deposit on the vehicle pending acquiring the car. The only way the deposit is non-refundable is if we secure that shit brown, rear wheel drive single cab truck that only you wanted and we get it and you back out, we use your $500 deposit to defray our taxes, writeoffs and insurance costs for now having a shit brown, RWD regular cab truck that will sit on our lot forever because it’s an undesirable set of features.
Dealer trades are NOT scams at all. But most dealers will try to sell you what they have on the ground because it affects their allotments from the manufacturer. My dealer trades a LOT. And honesty IS always the best policy as long as it’s reciprocated on both sides.
-
They are EVERYWHERE! Shhhh…
-
Well…for me it’s people with bad credit that strut around like they have options. Or the wacktasticly unrealistic people that think we have 20 grand in markup in new cars (it averages 5%). Or people that think it’s unfair for a dealer/salesperson to make a profit (it’s how I live!). Only in this business is profit a dirty word. I get that people want a good deal and I try to get that for them. I think the funniest thing about this business is that my happiest customers are the ones I made the most money off of, bought the extended warranty (which isn’t bullshit), bought GAP insurance (also not bullshit), bought the environmental protection package (questionable), etc. My unhappiest customers are generally the ones that grind us into powder, they get an incredible deal, I make $100 on the sale and they still feel they are screwed, or that on top of the dealer basically giving the car away they want us to throw in all kinds of stuff, bedliners, all weather mats, etc when there simply isn’t any money left in the deal, they just want a free lunch. This happens a LOT.
It really depends. My rule of thumb is to give the customer what they ask for. If they say they want “car x” and they want their payment to be “x” and I fulfill that desire, then I have done my job. Even if we made ten grand (extremely rare these days) selling them the car. And by “we” I mean the dealer. I get a percentage of that based on where that ten grand profit is (front end v back end, etc).
Hmmmm. Hard to say. I think sometimes people decide that they just want to leave and won’t buy the car no matter our offer so they make something up on the spot to justify hating the car. “Oh, I just noticed that red cross stitching on the headrests, I HATE that!” Sometimes something like lacking a feature like push button start. My most frustrating moments are people that sign off on buying today if figures are agreeable, agree that the figures are what they want, that they like me and I did a good job, that they love the car, they’ve been cross shopping dealers for six months and they still have to “think about it”. I try to inject humor wherever I can. I had a lady not long ago that wouldn’t buy until “she prayed about it”. So I got on my knees, offered my hand and said “let’s pray together”. We did, she bought, all was right in the cosmos.
My other pet peeve is people that attach a level of fate or serendipity to buying a car, especially a used car. We can’t take a deposit on a used car to hold it because they are first come, first served. They along with other customers are eyeballing this car online over the course of a few months as the price comes down, they come out to drive it, love the car but can’t make a decision. I politely inform them about the (absolutely true) “here today, gone tomorrow” nature of used cars (new cars in a current model year I can always get another like it. Ma’am, I cannot shit out another 2013 Toyota Sienna Limited with only 14,000 miles on it because they aren’t making them anymore!") and people interpret that as a sales tactic. It is, but it’s 100% true.
Everyone online shops for cars these days, and informed buyers know that on a used car the older it gets the cheaper it gets. But at some point you have to act because if you don’t, someone else will.
So they want to “think about it” and say “Well, if it’s not here on Saturday when we come back then it wasn’t meant to be”. WTF? Meant to be? The Fates are not directing your decision, YOU are! Then invariably they call me two days later “FGIE, we decided we love the car (you already decided that last time) and we’re coming out today to buy it!” and the fucking thing has sold yesterday, and they have the GALL to be mad at ME because “I let someone else buy their car!” Lady, it was never yours! Shuffled your feet, lost your seat!
It means like what fisha said it means, exactly every word. And it’s all true.
I cannot allow myself to feel sorry for people that have willingly, or ignorantly, dug themselves into this hole. They KNOW they are underwater on a car, THEY are the ones that came to my lot to buy something else, my job is to SELL them something that THEY say they want. Their situation is of their own making. The bad thing is that most bad credit people cost me more money than they make me. All that negative equity and bad credit means the dealer generally has to pay the subprime lender a fee to pick up the loan, the lender will only authorize so much money, and in addition to the fee we have to lop off all the front end profit just to sell them a car. That’s IF we can even sell them a car. Nothing will cost you more money in this business than people with bad credit, whether directly like I just described, or indirectly by wasting your time because a lender won’t touch them, the sales manager doesn’t want to let them go until he’s exhausted every avenue, and meantime I’ve spent five hours with them while my cohorts sell people that CAN buy a car. Luck of the draw to a degree, but I’m on the internet squad where I work so that avenue really helps me establish pricing, appointments, qualifying, etc ahead of time, and saves me AND the customer time if they simply can’t buy a car.
Truer words were never spoken. Fair or unfair, this is an enormous truth in my industry. People lie left and right because they think I’m trying to screw them over even by drawing a breath or speaking.
Car sales story from a friend of mine:
The friend is a first nations guy from a reserve near here I used to live. We worked together. Well one day, he won about $750,000 in a lottery. Nice. He had been borrowing his dad’s car since his had recently died. So he heads to the nearest Ford truck dealer. Is looking around. A salesman came up to him and more or less told him to piss off. (Yes, lovely racism is still hard at work). My friend insisted he was interested in a new truck. So they sent out the 20 year old green salesguy to “deal with the native dude”.
My friend decided he liked the new crew cab F350. He told the young sales guy that he wanted two - one red and a blue one for his dad.
When the young salesguy was working on the deal, a senior guy came over and tried to horn in and take over. My friend told him to (more or less) piss off. He was very happy working with this young guy.
I understand that, I guess. I probably didn’t work in the biz long enough to get a tough enough hide. I had a young military couple come in, showed them some trailers, and they settled on a reasonably priced unit that fit their needs. Then we went in to close the deal. I was reading his paperwork upside down as he filled out the financial sheet and noted that he owed $65K in vehicle debt. I stopped him and turned the sheet around to make sure I hadn’t seen it incorrectly. His monthly payments were consuming at least half or more of his income, and I pointed out that he was incurring another $20K in debt. He just gave me a dopey grin and said “Oh yeah?”
It angered and saddened me, as his young wife sat there looking completely clueless as to what he was getting them into. So I told them they needed to go home and think about it and talk it over. They looked confused and then he got a little riled, and I told him in my most avuncular tone that this was a big decision and they needed to get some perspective. So they left, and I stuck the paperwork in a drawer. The sales manager wasn’t too happy with me about it, of course. They didn’t come back, and while I’d like to think they decided against the purchase, it’s more likely that they just went somewhere else.
This warms the jaded cockles of my cynical heart. 
Young salespeople are often brief stars until the business, the time investment or a couple bad months of negative draw scares them away. If I owned a dealership (which I actually hope to do) I would salary my sales floor BUT I would have a more rigorous hiring and firing process in place whereby I could identify those that are not fit for the business and simply not hire them (typically dealers hire in waves of bodies. I was one of twelve people hired on at my old store, after a year I was the only one left) in the first place, launch those that are happy with or coasting off their salary or provide forgiveness for good employees that were like bad credit magnets for a couple months. Attrition in car sales is ENORMOUS and is a huge problem IMO. This needs some managerial mitigation along with providing your return customers (and their referrals) with a familiar face to work with. Not flooding the sales floor with too may people thereby diluting opportunities for your good sales staff is another concern.
My ultimate dream store is like the restaurant where the waiters insult you to your face. I want to pull down all the walls and be able to tell people without couching phrases in “sales speak” something like “Look motherfucker, you don’t pay your fucking bills, okay? You know it and so do I. This is the car you want, I’ve got you where you said you needed to be, so just buy the motherfucker already, or there’s the fucking door” …or something. I’m still refining the concept.
That is a different situation, had it been me, I probably would have tried to close the sale anyway but 65k in vehicle debt? Where was the approval coming from? That’s usually the delicate part of the business where a couple like you describe are just so buried in their current situation where I let them down easy. I will always let people like that escape an even worse financial nightmare with their dignity intact. They are fellow human beings at the end of the day.
What’s your experience with and opinion about car buying services( TrueCar and its hundred free morphs through AAA and whatnot, Costco, paid services, etc. )? How is the average profit on sales from such services vs. the total average universe of buyer negotiated deals?
I actually understand the fear. They’re out of their comfort zone, they’re spending a lot of money, maybe they’ve never bought one before, and they’ve heard all the horror stories.
This still doesn’t give them a license to be an asshole.
I’m still a naive optimist at heart. I still believe in the general goodness of people. And every single time a homeowner tries to pull a fast one, I’m disappointed.
Not only are they willing to lie, cheat, and outright steal, they have no qualms about projecting all of that shitty behavior onto me, my motives, and my company.
I had never heard that phrase, FoieGrasIsEvil, but I knew exactly what you meant. Let me buy you a beer one of these days, we can talk shop between a sleazy contractor and a sleazy car salesman.
As an aside, I’ve bought my last three trucks from three different dealers and didn’t have any problems. Two of them I flew out, they picked me up from the airport, test drove, paid for them, was out of the dealership in an hour, drove them home, haven’t had any issues.
I did my research, knew what I wanted, knew what they were worth, treated everyone professionally, and had a great experience. And I’m a woman.
Not only did I hold up my end of the bargain, I wrote them all a nice review.
Don’t be an asshole, it’s not that hard.
I think I know, but what do you mean by front end vs. back end? The dealership makes money selling the new car from markup over invoice and holdback, right? And they also make money from extended warranties, paint protection, loan fees, etc.? Do you get any credit for those, or just the finance department?
And then there is profit on a trade-in, but you don’t know how much that will be until the trade-in is sold or wholesaled. Am I missing any other profit centers (leaving out the service and parts departments of dealerships, which I understand are run separately)?
Any chance you could address my questions in post #18? It’s regarding using e-quotes as the buying process. Thanks.
And my question #13?
To rephrase the one I really want to know:
How would you advise your adult daughter to go about buying a car alone without getting ripped off? (no fair saying “bring Dad/SO along to negotiate”)
There are some pros and cons to this approach.
In fairness, pricing and comparing - a process we’re going through now - is a bit easier with clearly defined trim levels. If the vehicle is available in four trim levels, you have four possible prices, and you can usually find a trim level that suits your needs.
The “trim levels plus options” model favoured by some manufacturers allows for a bit more customization but can require a damn spreadsheet to clarify what you’re getting and what you’re paying for, especially when one options package partially supersedes another or, in some cases, makes it no longer possible to have the other option.
We have to replace my wife’s vehicle this year and have been to - let’s see- Honda, Acura, Toyota, GM, Ford, Infiniti, Nissan, Volvo, Lexus, Audi, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Subaru, and Mazda. In some cases multiple dealerships. My wife is, to say the least, a very careful shopper. The truth is there is no one common experience. Some salespeople are outstandingly knowledgable and some are surprisingly clueless about their own product. Some are honest and straightforward and some are almost comically scummy. Some really know how to sell, some just don’t. Often the difference is within the same brand; the Honda guy in Ottawa was an absolute nightmare, but the Honda guy in Oakville was fantastic.
The last car we bought (Feb. '16) was absolutely painless. “Built” the vehicle we wanted on the Nissan website. Submitted it to the local dealer. Their internet sales person contacted me the next day. I laid out everything we wanted, he found it at another of their dealers in our second-choice color and we were good to go. (Turns out nobody in SoCal had ordered that model in the color we wanted.) Price was X. I offered Y. He boosted what they gave me for my trade-in way out of proportion, splitting the difference and we signed the papers. Took it back in a week for the dealer to install the remaining options. They had to keep the car for an extra day, so they threw in an additional option gratis to make up for the trouble. I LOVE dealing with professionals!
It may have helped that my trade-in was the truck I bought from the same dealership 16 years ago. 
Sorry to have missed this. I am on the internet “team” at my dealer and as such I get a lot of inquiries and questions about price quotes. My SOP (standard operating procedure, sorry, former Army!) is to quote someone, if they have found a SPECIFIC car, $1000 behind invoice less rebates, on a new car. The quote is good for 48 hours and there’s a disclaimer stating as much. Obviously this is lure to get the customer in the door right away to buy, and if they do, they will get the quoted internet price.
As to your second part, I simply don’t know. I have worked several deals like this (and your scenario only applies to cash purchases…financing involves actually pulling someone’s credit, which can often be a battle in itself. I can’t tell you how many times someone keeps telling me to assume an 800 credit score when putting together figures on a deal only to find out later when (because at some point if you’re financing, we HAVE TO pull your bureau) we have an agreement that they actually have a 580 credit score and need a co-signer.
TrueCar is a nightmare. Dealers have to participate in it, and many don’t but people want to bring it up on their phone anyway. Common scenario:
“Hey, my trucar app is telling me a guy up the street bought this same car for $1000 less!”
Me: “Great! So if I matched that price you’d be all in right now?”
“I have to think about it”
:Le Sigh:
The biggest problem with TruCar (other than that they are being sued in some markets) is that it reports on what people paid for a car just like what you’re looking for in YOUR REGION as an aggregate. Sounds good, but the problem is in the aggregate. TruCar doesn’t take into account special pricing like 20% Black Friday, employee pricing, other incentives, etc or whatever, it all gets thrown into the aggregate. Dealers simply cannot continually sell cars for such a low price or they go out of business. And employee pricing drives that aggregate number DOWN, and creates an unrealistic expectation. Hardly ANYONE qualifies for employee price and WE NEED THAT AUTHORIZATION CODE or we lose money selling you the car below what we own it for without getting the manufacturer allowance back, which we can only get with the authorization code. And the allowance is nowhere near what the discount is, so it’s not a particularly great deal for us to begin with, which is why GM is insisting on no negotiating on employee price.
So when and where for this beer? I will buy the first round, I’m rich from fleecing unsuspecting fellow humans.
Holdback is only on new cars. It’s right in the word, it’s the last little bit of money a dealer can make selling you a new car at invoice. Front end is straight dealer gross profit. If I get 20% front end and I sell you a car that makes us $2000 over what we own it for, I make $400. Which is completely fair. Back end is warranties, Gap insurance and such. Some dealers pay plans pay you on both at lower percentages (12% front and back), some pay you only on the front. In the case of the latter, the finance manager gets the money for selling you an extended warranty, which I encourage everyone to buy even if I don’t get paid on it due to the higher failure rates of the increasing amount of technology/electronics in cars today, not so much the mechanicals.
My answer would be “How capable/intelligent/educated on cars is this adult person?”. It doesn’t matter to me the gender of the buyer although traditionally females were preyed upon in this business. If it’s a young adult with limited credit history, Dad or Mom will need to come along moreso to co-sign the loan as much as they are there for advice, much of which is given poorly depending on the person.
Why are you visiting so many dealers and considering so many cars at once? Does she not know what she wants or is this an exaggerated case of “due diligence” (or both). Information overload on ANY purchase can certainly hinder the process, not just on a car. I get being a careful buyer and it sounds like you’ve encountered some likable, engaging salespeople. Buy the car you like the most from the salesperson you like the most. If the salesperson is worth their salt, they are seeding the sale to you with the opportunity to sell to everyone you know as referrals, the lifeblood of the business.
Sounds perfect, I have deals like this all the time as long as both sides are in mutual agreement on everything and things that are owed are documented. I love east deals like these as long as the customer isn’t being unrealistic.
The most common meme or problem for “my side” is customers want retail for their trade AND wholesale for our car. Whiskey…Tango…Foxtrot…
How am I, or by extension, we, supposed to make any money on that deal? I know customers often don’t care but reality is a cold dead fish-slap in the face. If I can’t make any money selling you a car and you’re being unreasonable, what’s my impetus to not tell you to have a nice day?
How does one go about breaking up with your assigned salesman?
Last year we needed a new used truck. We had very specific requirements and there were only a few such vehicles available in our area. One was 2 hours away, so I called before we went to the dealership (a major dealership, not a side-of-the-road place) to see if it was still there, etc. The guy who answered the phone to verify said to ask for him when we got there, and, like an idiot, I did so.
I don’t recall another instance in my life where I have taken such an extreme instant loathing to a person. He was a caricature of a sleazy used car salesman. I hated everything about this guy, and the more I got to know him the more I wanted to punch him in the face. But the truck was exactly what we were looking for, and I wanted it. And it seemed rude to be like, sorry, you’re awful, can I talk to someone else, please? Is there a nice way to say that? I can’t think of one.
On the plus side, instead of being an upfront bitch and asking for another, less disgusting salesman, I was a passive aggressive bitch and was having none of his nonsense about how his boss was going to to be so broken up about the terrible offer we were making. We definitely paid less for the truck than we would have if we’d had a more likable salesman. On the minus side, I had to look at him for like, two hours, and my skin still crawls thinking about how wretched he was.
As we were leaving, he was trying to chat with my husband through the window of the new truck, and my husband almost backed into his own car (which I was driving) trying to get away from him. And my husband is much more friendly than I am.
What was the right thing to do in that situation?
I just *love *the sexism of some salesmen. Some years back when we were shopping for a car for me, I had done my research and we visited a few different dealerships to look at similar vehicles. One idiot was trying to impress me with colors and cup holders and vanity mirrors when I was trying to find out about safety and reliability. I couldn’t get away from him fast enough.
We ended up buying a Scion xA (which I LOVED) from a younger sales guy who was very straightforward and helpful. He even arranged for an aftermarket cruise control, because I need my cruise!
Last car we bought was our Hyundai Sonata. Again, we looked at several different cars, but always seemed to end up with the Sonata. We had a Miata to trade in, so we figured out what we wanted in trade and how big a check we were willing to write. As we were doing the negotiating at his desk, the salesman showed us a number. I said “We were hoping to keep it under $XXXX” so he want to talk to “his manager” or get a cup of coffee or something, then came back with $XXXX-$1! I had to laugh, but we did the deal.
Of course, I do wonder what would have happened if I’d named a figure a few hundred less… But it was end of the month, we’d done our research, and we felt like we got a good deal. I certainly don’t begrudge the dealership its profit - it’s a business after all - and I didn’t leave feeling as if I’d been fleeced, so in the end, I think we done good.
So your take home, after tax withholding, is over $900/week for a job where you don’t need a college education…& you’re obfuscating by subtracting your draw.
Note the bolded part for later…
No, the only reason you NEED to know that info is IF you’re doing the financing.
Awww, poor baby, you need to do some extra work. 
& if you can’t get that other car for whatever reason, how long do you hold the customer’s deposit for before returning it?
So if I research online & do a deal thru the internet, you & you’re cow-orkers aren’t doing much but distracting me during a test ride, typically on roads of your choosing & doing some paperwork, some of which is done by a clerk & for that you’re taking home $50m/year after exorbitant withholding (which I’ll give you, but that’s the IRS). Sorry, but you’re not doing a lot of value add for me & I don’t see why I should pay you a lot for that.
Remember where I said not this for later? You “simply can’t feed off human misery” but you could soak someone? There’s a fine line between Saturday night & Sunday morning. :dubious:
Ooops, you just admitted to creating false urgency.
Ask to speak with a different sales person. It’s just that simple. I walked into a Jeep dealership once and some young guy with slicked back hair and a bad suit rushed over and immediately said “What will it take to put you behind the wheel of this Grand Cherokee?” (I was shopping for a Wrangler). I replied “A better salesman than you”, and went to someone else.
I used to fire obnoxious customers by telling them something like “We don’t seem to be getting along very well here; I’m going to find you another salesman.” A lot of times, that was enough to take the edge off of someone who came in with a pre-existing salesman hate going on, but occasionally I just had to walk away from someone who was being a prick. It’s no different from the customer side. If you don’t like the guy, fire him. He may get half the commission, but that’s not your problem.
:dubious: right back atcha. Everything you’ve claimed in this post is an exaggeration of what I said, a result of your mind being clouded by stereotypes or just nonsense.
I don’t take home $900/week. i wish I did. I might one month, then only my draw the next.
The deposit: only a couple days if the other dealer won’t let us have it.
Aww poor baby? WTF? You clearly have no idea how valuable time is in auto sales. If someone CANNOT buy a car because of too much negative equity in their trade and/or bad credit, I want to know that right away so we don’t waste each other’s time. I fail to comprehend why anyone wouldn’t want that.
Distracting you during a test drive? Screw you man. I am so many things to a customer but a distraction isn’t one of them. You really have no idea what you’re talking about, at all. I am a babysitter, an encyclopedia, a service liason, a follow up machine, a consultant, a guide, a teacher, an entertainer a time saver and an intermediary. Car sales happen because of me!. Buy your cars on the internet, I don’t really care, the internet will never replace much of the car buying process other than maybe some paperwork and reading reviews on cars. The world needs car salesmen.
How am I feeding off human misery when I gave the customer exactly what they wanted? These are my happiest customers! I meant that quote within the context of working at a buy here pay here place. Again, out of context and cherry picked by you.
And the urgency I create is REAL.