...And dealers wonder why they're so hated!

Uhm, no.
The advertised price was, in fact, absurdly fair. I'd been researching these things for months, and it was a case of being everything we wanted in a stick shift model (tougher to sell, for them, in suburban Baltimore). I only paid $1100 more for a 4x4 with goodies than the 4x2 strippo model we also were looking at. Price paid was almost exactly kbb private party value, which is unheard of when buying from a stealer.

But, I can see how you assumed I got ripped, because normally that would apply when paying an ad price.

Part of the reason I feel is actually a valid management of the sale process. Whether it's a legitimate reason or not, the customer rarely enjoys seeing the price go up, and sometimes if you shoot straight, and lay all the cards on the table in the order they come, you end up having to tell the buyer that the net cost to him/her just went up, bcs for example, their loan payoff had to be worked into the conversation. Now, some customers can swallow that easily, and recognize the truth. Others will just get emotional. I'm not saying *I* like to be treated like an idiot, but it's sometimes just not worth being honest, when the net result is a lost sale, where instead you leave yourself the option of coming back to say "yes, the loan payoff hurts you, but I talked w/ our manager, and he's willing to eat some profit to help you." You, as a company, don't have that option of being helpful if all you are is a low-margin fixed price operation. Of course, it bites both ways, but really...what's the *prudent* decision for a sales team? Best not to leave *all* the cards on the table at first? Best to shoot straight? tough call. And I can totally see the sales side of the situation too...it's not like the customer is looking out for your interest. If you go unprofitable, and die...it's not like your customer *really* cares. Take the car somewhere else for service. Nobody's looking out for the dealer except the dealer.

The dealer I bought my car from, laid the cards on the table straight. When he said "I'm going to have to tack on $400 to send a driver 650miles away to pick it up," I knew that was a straight call. I took alot of variables off the table, so it was pretty much just cost of car, cost of financing, and any transactional costs like that. I liked that experience. The guy worked his ass off to find me the *exact* features I wanted. I think it's all a judgement call how you handle the customers...what experience fits the bill.

write a check for a vehicle and ask them if they want the money.

answer yes: you can have it if you complete the paper trail in 10 minutes or less . no, I won't sign anything, or accept any additional packages, for anything, besides the title or application for title.

answer no: thank you, drive off

you don't even have to get out of your own car until it's time to drive one, or both cars, away. works great.

why do people make a big dramatic thing out of it?

Um, a couple of times the dealer has offered better financing than our credit union. So we gave our credit union their check back. If we had just handed our check to the dealer and driven off we would have paid more.

In other words it it isn't the end of the world to hear what the sales staff can do. That isn't to say I haven't walked out on old school sales people or blacklisted an old school dealership. I don't like being treated like an idiot.

I am simply saying you might be screwing yourself by not listening to the sales people. Even when I am paying cash for our annual work truck purchase I will hear a good sales person out. It has paid off a couple of times with a better vehicle or deal.

The price they PAID for the car is the price they PAID for the car (and they NEVER really tell you that). If they have to make $1000 on the sale and you owe $1000 to the bank on your trade, they may be able to help you by selling it to you for $2000 over what they paid, rolling it all in the financing and getting you out the door with the car you want.

I'm an engineer, not a car salesman so I have no dog in this fight. The only person your negotiation strategy really hurts is you.

The problem is I didn't want, or need, their financing, and whether we were going to have further discussions about THEIR car hinged on if they told me the asking price of their car. Period. I stand by my position that there is zero value in not answering my question at all, and forging ahead to their question, which is what do I owe on my car. Not only is it counter to my goal, which is to obtain information to decide if their car is in my price range to begin with, but it is rude.

My strategy has not hurt me yet. My record for used vehicle purchase after a test drive is about 3 minutes. I bought a Tahoe for several thousand under asking price, and paid a fair book price for it. Also purchased a used RV in a similar fashion, paid a fair price for both seller (dealer) and buyer, saved multiple thousands below their asking price, and the negotiation was about 5 minutes. The sales guy even said "man, when you said you were ready to buy if the numbers worked you weren't kidding". I wasn't, and I don't. I do not waste the time of sales people. I prefer they not waste my time, and I do not stand for high pressure or predatory practices.

Failing to answer my fair question was both...

Barry

Man, you're angry about this.

Do what I do: buy used from a private party. As I posted earlier, this whole negotiation bullshit is why I will probably never buy a new car. The most expensive car I have ever bought was my current Chrysler Town & Country: $8500. I found it on CL, just a bit over 100K, very nice inside and out and never had a spilled Happy Meal in it (art student who needed the space to transport and lock up her projects).

If somebody GAVE me $25K to buy a new car, I would buy another sub $10K used minivan and a $15K used Bimota.

No... not angry. I type very directly.

We can agree to disagree, but the dude I spoke with was not a sales professional, he was a sales puke. Most likely selling people cars at stupid high interest rates, raping them on price and anything else he was able. Thus, our transaction was done before it started.

Reasonable sales folks, love doing business with them. As I said, my manner of purchasing has not hurt me a bit. I drive the transaction since it is my money, not the sales people. If they don't like that, they can sell to someone else. It's just that simple. No skin off my nose.

As you said, private party is an easy route, and that has been most of my moto purchases. Cars, generally end up buying from a dealer, just worked out that way.

Happy Turkey Day !

Barry

When was the last time you did this?

I do the same thing but in the reverse order, I get pre-qualified for the loan and then I go to the dealership. I tell the salesweasel I only want two things from him, the price of the new car and what they give me for my trade-in. When they ask about financing, monthly payments and my payoff I just tell them two get me the "two" things I asked for. I have my trade-in value and price I am willing to pay for the new car already worked out. After they make the first offer I give them my numbers and walk out if they do not get reasonably close to them.

Aren't you a ray of sunshine.

As it happens, we've purchased a '12, '13 &'14 at my local HD dealership. When I got the '14, I expected to get butt raped on the price, since the bike was high demand & shiny new. I bought all three from the same sales guy and in fact decided to buy the '14 Ultra Limited from him too, even though his dealership price was a bit higher than the alternative.

He was appreciative.

Because Harley had some 1.9% financing, I decided to use their money for about $8K rather than my own.

So, I'm signing paperwork in the finance dept and I notice the interest rate is 9.9% rather than the 1.9% we discussed. Ummm. Why? Dude answers that he's seen rates come back as high as 21% and anyway, look at the monthly payment, it's cheap. He wasn't going to do anything until I got up.

OK, I'm a nice guy, the sales manager has already made my experience less than perfect on this transaction & I figure they should be treating me nicely and all, given all the bikes I've bought from them and the fact I'm paying a couple hundred more than I need to for this bike already.

He makes a big play of phoning Harley to see if he can get me the lower rate, which of course he can in an instant, because my credit is perfect and I have no debt other than a small mortgage.

I'm sure I'll buy another Harley at some point, but not from there. The sales guy apologized, but it's not his fault. I should have walked out.

Bike is nice, so I'm ok. The service dept is great. Just never expected the finance manager to be so sleazy.

I sold BMW cars for a while. While we would try to get a good price for our cars and would steer customers to BMW financing, we would never be dishonest and sleazy with a customer.

I see the finance manager is a service writer now, so maybe they figured it out.

Jeez, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a rant.

I work with HVAC mechanics and lots of them have stories about the private companies they used to work for. Their performance ratings and bonuses were dependent upon how much money they generated on service calls. They think it is funny to charge little old ladies $400 for a $90 condenser fan motor and $50 for a $10 capacitor when the problem was a bad contactor.

This is what used to do as well. And like Barry, if they weren't willing to do those for me without going in to needing to fill out a bunch of paperwork and asking about payoff, current monthly payments, desired monthly payments, and all that crap, I'd get up and walk out. They want you to spend as much time as possible there before answering your questions so you feel invested in the deal already. If they couldn't have those two numbers to me within ten minutes, it was on to the next one.
Now, I don't even bother going in to the dealerships until I have gotten those numbers from the internet sales guy. This last purchase, the salesman I ended up buying from told me that my potential trade being a high mileage, not their brand vehicle, I would be better off selling it myself, or even to carmax than trading it in there. The other dealers all gave me a decent trade in value online, pending an in person inspection of course, then dropped it significantly once there. I sold it in a week on craigslist, emailed the dealer, finalized the deal, and finally talked to him on the phone a half hour before I went to pick it up. He had the car ready to go, the visit to the finance guy was quick and painless as the salesman had told him in advance what kind of buyer I was . I was out the door in less than 40 minutes, and most of that time was the sales guy showing us how features on the car worked, and syncing the wifes phone to it. It was the first time I ever left a dealer in a good mood.

Donkey Hotey practices what he preaches, buying rare vehicles at incredible prices from gullible fools, then refusing to sell them back even when he doesn't ride them for years on end. Sigh.

3 years ago, time before that, 9 years ago, time before that, 13 years or so I think.

cars are boring shit boxes, the purchase process reflects my interest level in them. paint it red, pour 3000 hp into it, chrome out the wheel wells and make a seat out of tits.... whuuuuuuutever ...it's about as exciting as whatever day taxes are due, to buy another car.


now motorcycles.... fuck that's like a four hour hard on and sleepless nights for the wife ! fuck ya let's buy a bike!


(you guessed it, there's a 22r warming up outside. borrrrrring)

ahhh, no that is not negotiating.

Don't know about a "service" but Costco has a program with Kawasaki.

Coffee...keyboard.....

Since most buyers are "payment buyers", it's hard for a salesman to switch gears and just sell a car. As everyone has noted, most buyers don't care about anything other than what thier monthly payment will be, so the auto industry has adjusted to that reality. That makes it frustrating for buyers with no trade, who don't want financing, and who actually want to look at/read the paperwork.


A funny flip side to this discussion is a friend of mine who owns a small used car lot. He specializes in Mercurys and Lincolns, does not finance, and only takes trades for cars he wants and can resell on his lot. Odd business model, but he's semi-retired and only wants to sell what he likes.

One of his biggest frustrations everyday is trying to switch buyers from thier question of "what's the payment on this car" to what the sales price is, since he doesn't finance. He has some great stories. Lots of buyers are tragically, completely clueless about money and purchasing automobiles!!!