Inside look at selling cars.

Car Salesman Confidential: Non-Confrontational Buying

Very interesting blog if you've ever wondered what car salesmen and women have to deal with when selling cars. While customers often feel they're getting ripped off (and with good reason), the on the flipside of the coin, the car salespeople often have a lot of pressure riding on them to sell sell sell, and preferably not lose any or too much money in the process.

I never realized how tough it can be, and the high turnover rate. Two salesmen I met when shopping for a Prius a while back don't seem to be working at the dealerships I visited, including the one that sold me one.

This isn't to say that they're all saints out looking for our best interests at heart, and the author does mention there are sleazebags out there who do fit the stereotypical car salesman out to steal your wallet. But most of them are just regular people trying to make a living at a difficult place.

But it certainly does paint them in a different light now that I've seen a little bit of what they do and have to deal with, not just with customers, but from their managers as well.

 

While I generally take the view that car dealerships are looking to grab your legs, turn you over and shake money out of you, at the same time I also kind of hate how some people will also play games with them.

Case in point, a few years back, I took my sister to a Toyota dealership to look at a used camry. She test drove it, and then went inside to do the haggling. Despite them dropping their asking price repeatedly, she kept refusing to buy. Finally the salesman asked why she wouldn't buy, and she showed him on her smartphone another dealership offering the same year camry for an even lower price. His manager then approved him to go below that price, and she still said no. The salesman was nearly in tears, and I felt really bad for him, because he was just doing his job.

When I asked her about it later, she said she didn't like the colors they had and therefore had no intention to buy at all. I told her she should have just told them she was test driving, so as not to have wasted thirty minutes of our time, as well as the poor salesman, who I hope didn't get fired because of this. I really thought she was going to buy it when we went in.

As for closure on that story, in case you're wondering, she bought a camry at a different dealership even further away (about a 40 minute drive on the freeway, vs the 15 min street driving at the first dealership), and didn't haggle the price at all, so ended up paying more (I think it was at least $1500) than if she had simply bought the one she haggled for and put up with the color. She got a coupon for a free oil change, but I think that was all she got.

Now I'm not saying that dealerships don't try to con people at some things, especially the stuff the F&I person tries to sell, such as the extended warranty. But after what my sister did, I definitely wouldn't waste a salesperson's time by haggling if I have no intention of buying a car whatsoever even if they meet my price demand.

And reading the stuff on there will definitely make it easier whenever I do need another vehicle. I know I don't want them to screw me (too badly anyway), but at the same time I won't go in with an unrealistic offer either, like demanding they sell a new car with an MSRP of $25k for $17k. I'll look at the invoice and use that as a starting point. Hopefully the dealership will too, and we can reach an agreeable price without all the headaches.

 

Yeah, color doesn't bother me at all, so long as it's not a really odd one, like yellow-green or neon purple. My mom told me not to get a red car, because of the myth that red cars get pulled over more by cops. Though I did get pulled over in my civic, which was red, he let me go with a warning, and I think I was just unlucky because everyone else was driving 70 on the freeway that morning. Was late to my first class at college, but at least I didn't have to pay a speeding ticket.

I never got pulled over in my red Prius c, though I think it's because I drove just slightly over the speed limit, and more often than not, a lot slower (pulse & glide, though only if no one was right behind me).

Of course, in the case of the c, it was because that was all they had left. I wanted the blue one I saw on the dealer's website, but they sold it to a guy the day before, who then showed up while I was there buying the red one. And while I liked the white c they had, I didn't want to deal with how it would look when salt and snow get on it in the wintertime. Not that any car looks pretty with that stuff, but on a white car it really stands out.