My wife and I are currently in the process of car shopping and I am, again, struck by what a truly sleazy experience it is to have to deal with car salespeople. I can think of no other purchase I have made in my life that compares to how car shopping feels. I have bought houses, appliances, high-ticket electronics, I work in PC purchasing at my job and deal with vendors and salespeople on a daily basis. No where else have I had to arm myself against and fend off such slimy and underhanded sales tactics as I have with car sales people. Even with the best, most honest New Car salesperson it is liking standing on a corner at a three-card monte table. Playing fast and loose with monthly payments, upselling, out right lying, the old “talk to the sales manager” tactic. What happened that made car buying such a … unique … experience to any other purchase big ticket or otherwise?
It’s become accepted, and most people think it’s inevitable. It isn’t, and some people don’t accept it. They walk out of one or two dealerships, and when they find a smart salesman, they don’t have to deal with it.
Out the door price is the only price that matters, and the first sign not to deal with a salesman is if they pretend to have a different understanding of what ‘out the door price’ means.
Last week I bought a new-to-me car. The dealership was totally sleazy:
I found the car I wanted on cars.com for $16,999 and called the dealership. The sales guy said “oh that car just was reduced in price by $1000”. I figure was a tactic to get me in there quickly.
Overnight I checked on the dealer’s website and saw it really was reduced, and more than he’d said, it was actually reduced $1600 to $15,400. Score! Checked out the dealers reviews on yelp, which were horrible, but all dealers have horrible reviews on yelp.
So we drove - 2 hours - to the dealership the next morning. Test drove, tried all the buttons, bells and whistles and then started on the paperwork.
Sales guy brings over some other guy who sits down at the table and starts to tell us about a “computer glitch” and how the price on the site was wrong and the actual price of the car was that original price. I asked him if he was not willing to honor the $15,400 price and he was all no really can’t, computer glitch etc. So I stood up, picked up my bag and said ok thanks for your time and started to walk out. I was 100% on my way out the door. I like the car but I’m not getting jacked in that way.
Which is when he’s all like "oh well you don’t need to be like that, we can work something out. And that is when I said, “If it’ll help I have your site’s page cashed on my laptop here, so before wasting any more of my time, please tell me if you will honor your advertised price.”
We bought the car for $15,400 about an hour later. Which is $5000 under KBB. Take that slimy car salesman guys.
Commission. Any time people are paid on commission you get the sleaze. It’s inevitable. It destroys everything it touches, and IMO it should be outlawed. Thre’s nothing wrong with giving people bonuses when they perform well, but a basic living wage should be required underneath that.
Mattress sales seem to be similar, for some reason. Oh, how I miss Saturn.
I say this in almost every car buying thread. Use the Costco Auto Buying service. If you’re a Costco member, decide on the make, model, and options of the car you want. Tell the Costco Auto Buying service what you want, and they’ll refer you to the LEASING manager of a few local dealers. He will give you a FIXED price for the car, typically very close to dealer cost (depends on the model, of course). There is NO haggling and minimal upselling. I have bought all of my new cars in the last 20 years through this service (probably about 4 or 5 cars) and it is a painless, no hassle way to buy.
If you aren’t a Costco member, there are other organizations that offer this kind of service. Think of organizations like AAA, credit unions, AARP, etc.
J.
Part of the acceptance is that a car is usually the second biggest thing a person will buy, after a home. So it can get tiresome to keep shopping and shopping and it becomes easier to put up with sleazy or borderline unethical behaviour.
Huh; that’s good to know about.
I didn’t know the leasing manager had purchase price authority. Do they all?
Thank you. I just checked AAA, and they have such a service. I will look into it.
Similar services are offered through Consumer Reports, Edmunds.com and Cars.com. I think those things only work well if you’ve decided fairly precisely on the make, model and trim level.
I have never had a dishonest car salesman. They all try very hard to sell more expensive vehicles, or upsell extra features, but not once have they tried to pull a tactic like what happened to Hedda Rosa above. I don’t really see haggling or negotiating as sleaze, though, so ymmv.
The last car I bought was through my credit union. We looked on their website for cars, saw the prices listed which were comparable to kbb. The salesman asked what we were looking for and I told him about models I saw on their website. Did the test drive and all that, we said we’d take it, did the paperwork and that was that. No haggling, no trying to take our keys, none of the “I’ll have to ask the manager” then hours and hours of waiting for them to fuck around in the back hoping we’d just pay what they ask. It was all done in an hour or so.
Same here as EvilTOJ. I bought a new car a few years ago and I knew exactly which model/options I wanted and what I was willing to pay before I ever set foot in a dealership (I can’t imagine doing it any other way). The process was pretty painless, really.
As I’ve mentioned in a couple of other threads, I’ve given up the psychological games and bought my last three cars from CarMax. Take-it-or-leave-it sticker prices, salaried salespeople, a good guarantee, and an easy to understand two page contract. And I’ve gotten what I consider to be good deals.
Some people love the haggling game, but I’ve grown to hate it. Just tell me how much the damn thing costs and I’ll decide whether it’s a good price or not.
I sold cars for a minute back in the late 90s. I wasn’t very good at it.
Customers I dealt with loved me. They thought I was really great, and knowledgable. I worked for a reputable dealership and didn’t see any dishonesty occuring where I was at (though I heard plenty of stories about things happening elsewhere). Even though I was well-liked by the shoppers, I didn’t sell very many cars. And you know why? Because I wasn’t pushy enough. A really good salesperson is able to push someone into making a purchase without them even knowing they were pushed.
95% of the time, if someone leaves the lot without buying your car saying they want to “think about it” or any other excuse - what’s really going to happen is that they’re going to run into a good salesperson at another dealership and they’ll end up buying there.
It’s all a big game but I believe the customers feed into the cycle as much as the dealerships do.
IMHO, they don’t care whether you can afford it or not, they make their sale and comission and let their collections department deal with you afterwards.
In the event that you can’t pay, they’ll put a lien on the car and destroy your credit rating, then they’ll repo the car, sell it cheap at auction, and sue you for the oustanding balance.
A couple of tips to save money.
1.) Decide on what you can afford then subtract 15%, this is your bottom line. Do not negotiate any higher than this number.
2.) Research the vehicle that is in this price range. Contrast and compare prices everywhere. You need to get a sense of the approx. dealer cost and use competitors prices during negotiations.
3.) Always negotiate the principal, do not ever, EVER negotiate what your weekly/monthy payments would be.
4.) Avoid terms of over 60 months.
5.) If you have a mortgage and good credit, you can negotiate a better interest rate from your own bank.
6.) Leases are for suckers.
7.) Do not be afraid to walk out!
It has nothing to do with a basic living wage underneath. Everywhere I’ve worked, the sales people are reasonably well paid before commissions, and they’ve all still been sleazy and douchebaggy, because that’s what puts money in their own pockets.
It’s the very nature of putting that much of a personal stake in it for them, without any commensurate long-term penalties if the sale sucks, the customer isn’t satisfied, etc… What happens is that the focus becomes very narrowly focused on making that sale, without regard for what happens afterward. I think the narrowness of the focus varies with the base wage, but you’re not going to ever get a real customer focus with large-scale commissions being paid.
Some years ago, I went to a dealer for a used car which had appeared in a newspaper ad for a very attractive price. I drove the car, liked it, and said I wanted to buy it. I didn’t even try to haggle because I’d done my homework and knew I was getting a good deal.
Sounds great, right? Then came time to talk about my trade-in. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but I’d say KBB value was maybe $2500. I asked for $2000 and probably would have accepted $1500. But the salesman practically laughed in my face and said they could give me some ridiculously low figure ($250 maybe) for it. When I told him that was unaccepatable, he tried to tell me that I was getting such a great deal on my purchase that I should give them a break on the trade-in! Not having it, I said nope, these are two separate transactions, and that he didn’t seem to want to be reasonable about the second one. My wife and I got up, walked out, got in our car and started the engine. That’s when the salesman came running up and said OK, we’ll give you the $2000. How ridiculous that those are the games you have to play.
Every car we’ve bought since then has been from Carmax, which I heartily recommend. Fair prices in both directions and no haggling. As it should be.
It seems to be a combination of several factors.
-Largest consumer item you will ever buy (probably)
-Salesmen paid on commission
-You’re probably financing it, which can make the math complicated
I refused to play the game. I purchased a 2001 Audi A4 in 2003 from a dealer across the country. I had arranged a loan from a private company, and made a flat offer to the dealership via email. They acccepted. Flew out, signed the papers and that was that.
I forgot that one, don’t even mention your trade-in until you have negotiated a final price.