Seen in some newspaper article or other Somewhere On Teh Intarwebz (SOTI):
…a.k.a. the “You Don’t Say!” department.
That said, I once made a used-car salesman so angry that he challenged me to a fight outside the showroom. Connie just looked at him, then looked at me and said: “Just don’t kill him, okay?”
Challenge was withdrawn.
A GOOD dealership wants customer retention and will therefore not try to screw over their customers.
Sadly many of them (especially used car lots) aren’t good, they’re fly by night cowboys.
Years and years ago, in the 1970’s I was trying to purchase a new Chevrolet, I had done my homework and knew the price I should be able to get on a specific model. My wife and I did the meet and greet crap with the salesman, looked the car over and did a short drive in it and then we settled down to do the bicker/dicker crap to buy the car.
The salesman asked me to write the price I was willing to pay on a piece of paper that was folded over so I low balled the price because I wanted some room to come up to the price I was willing to pay. This asshole salesman looked at my price and got red in the face and started yelling at me, he was loud and attracted a lot of attention telling me that I did not want to allow him to make any profit on the deal and I was trying to steal the car. Then he accused me not caring if he was able to feed his family and pay his bills and I thought that was some real silly shit. My response was just as loud as his when I told him that if he could not make a living selling cars he needed to get a better job so he could take care of his family. We traded a few more words as we walked out of the dealership with him following behind us and I turned around at the door and rather loudly told him that he was the one trying to make a car purchase a personal attack on me.
The next week I had a friend who knew the owner of a dealership in another town so I called the owner, I told him about my experience at the other dealership and then I told him that if he would give me a good low price on the car, one time price without the bull shit I would drive down and buy it. His price was a couple hundred dollars above my low target price and that was good enough for me to make the deal.
My daddy was an expert at getting good prices and in the old days he bought a new Oldsmobile every year, drove it for a year and then it went to my mom when he got the next car. That was in the good old days 1960’s – 70’s when you could write off a lot of the auto expense on your taxes and those old American made cars were only good for 75 to 85 thousand miles and then their value was pretty much gone. I also knew enough to get my own loan pre-approved from a bank before I started shopping for car so I didn’t have to get screwed on the backend of a car deal, I went in ready to write a check for the car when we reached the right number and never told the dealer I was going to do that ahead of time.
Damn, the good old days and now we take care of our cars and keep them for a long, long time. My wife’s Toyota 4-Runner we purchased new in 1999 and with 110 thousand miles it is still running very well and looks fine. My 15 year old
F-150 has 140 thousand miles and being old and retired I don’t put over 4K miles on it each year and I don’t think I will need to get another as long as I have the maintenance performed on it each year. I purchased both vehicles from nice dealerships with my request for a one time low price or I walk.
I’ve simplified the car buying process for myself. I find the car I want, determine how much I want to pay for it, find at least 3 dealers who have it on the lot, then I write out 3 checks, all for the same amount, one to each dealer.
I tell the first salesperson I see, “this is the car I want, this is how much I’m willing to pay for it. Do you want this check or do you want me to move on to the next dealer”? Typically, I’ll hear “This isn’t how we sell cars.” My response is, “well, that’s how I buy them.” They take it or they don’t.
And no fucking about with the F&I guy or the “dealer installed accessories” sales pitch. Call me when it’s gassed up and tagged and I’ll come pick it up.
The first dealer on my last new car lost the sale because the GM insisted I sit through the sales pitch for the wheel and tire/undercoating warranty. I simply asked for my check back, tore it up in front of them, and went to the dealer crosstown.
Ain’t nobody got time for that shit.