# What's your car buying strategy? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 7, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-car-buying-strategy/516732 "2009-11-07T20:45:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-car-buying-strategy/516732/41 "2009-11-10T03:30:00Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I would, I’d know you were a scam artist or crazy, and walk out. 😛 You’d think that, but it’s all about delivery. You’d be surprised some of the crazy, crazy shit I’ve seen done in a dealership. As long as you treat it as normal. I saw a manager once bet a salesman that he could get a Japanese (like, traditional, stodgy Japanese) elderly couple into the trunk of a used Town Car. He did it, and it was all the entire sales staff could do to avoid busting a gut laughing, right there. I certainly couldn’t manage, I had to leave the showroom. You walk into a dealership think _“Ah, what a professional setting, such nice folks dressed so nicely!”_ After you work there, you walk out thinking, _“Jesus Christ, how are half of those people living? Their livers have to be pickled, and I’m surprised they haven’t been shot yet!”_ ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-car-buying-strategy/516732/42 "2009-11-10T04:25:05Z")
> [@Todderbob](#): > > You’d think that, but it’s all about delivery. > > You’d be surprised some of the crazy, crazy shit I’ve seen done in a dealership. As long as you treat it as normal. I saw a manager once bet a salesman that he could get a Japanese (like, traditional, stodgy Japanese) elderly couple into the trunk of a used Town Car. > > He did it, and it was all the entire sales staff could do to avoid busting a gut laughing, right there. I certainly couldn’t manage, I had to leave the showroom. You walk into a dealership think _“Ah, what a professional setting, such nice folks dressed so nicely!”_ After you work there, you walk out thinking, _“Jesus Christ, how are half of those people living? Their livers have to be pickled, and I’m surprised they haven’t been shot yet!”_ Dude, at my dealership, we’d have competitions to see if we could get customers to get into the trunk. Sales fact: if a customer gets in the trunk of a car, the deal is closed, start counting your commission. But mine was clearly very different from yours. We never mocked up BS invoices. ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-car-buying-strategy/516732/43 "2009-11-10T04:27:34Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Dude, at my dealership, we’d have competitions to see if we could get customers to get into the trunk. Sales fact: if a customer gets in the trunk of a car, the deal is closed, start counting your commission. But mine was clearly very different from yours. We never mocked up BS invoices. Did you, by chance, work in the DC area? ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-car-buying-strategy/516732/44 "2009-11-10T04:34:22Z")
No sir. I worked at a dealership in the Cerritos Auto Square. It’s the huge row of uber-chain dealerships in California. ---
**Author:** ![Blisters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Blisters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blisters)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-car-buying-strategy/516732/45 "2009-11-10T06:23:01Z")
My first new car we bought like this: We sent a fax to every Honda dealership within a twenty mile radius saying we’d pay X much for the car (a civic, if you care) and that we’d come down that day and pay cash. No one responded until the last day of the month…we got a call and bought it that day. I told my father in law this and was like, “Wow! isn’t that funny? Last day of the month?” and he looked at me like I was seven and explained about commission… :smack: I do love my Honda… I loved my Toyota too _though that was a 1978 Corolla, and it was time for an upgrade…what with the baby and all_ ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-car-buying-strategy/516732/46 "2009-11-10T07:04:06Z")
Not to buy one if at all possible. ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-car-buying-strategy/516732/47 "2009-11-10T17:54:26Z")
> [@Blisters](#): > > No one responded until the last day of the month…we got a call and bought it that day. I told my father in law this and was like, “Wow! isn’t that funny? Last day of the month?” and he looked at me like I was seven and explained about commission… :smack: That was probably less about commission and more about stores not being sure they’d hit the dealercash incentive. If you’ve sold 29 cars, and the incentive level to go from 500/car to 750/car is 30, you’d sell the next car at a net loss individually, because the store would end up getting an extra 7,500 out of the deal. ETA: Or your number could’ve been low enough that they couldn’t make it until they **knew** they were going to hit the dealercash. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-car-buying-strategy/516732/48 "2009-11-10T20:11:59Z")
> [@Desert\_Nomad](#): > > Not to buy one if at all possible. You can’t possibly have lived in Dubai without a car! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-car-buying-strategy/516732.md?page=2)