Crazy salesman/car purchase story

[mdm]

Originally Posted by extrashaky

People are willing to pay more money (while believing the nonsense claims that the car is already advertised at the lowest price possible) in order to avoid the perceived stress and uncertainty of negotiating.

I don't blame them. Haggling about price feels medieval.

[radroach]

I've always had good friendly from the service departments when I bring my car in to different dealerships, but recently while I was bringing the car in for service at a local dealership (not the dealership I bought from) the salesmen seemed rude towards my presence.

However as far as my buying experience for my BRZ was super easy, I called the dealership, arranged to check out the car that day, they had the car sitting outside ready for a test drive. My salesman at the dealership in Clarksville TN was fun and direct and didn't give me any BS.

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by mdm

I don't blame them. Haggling about price feels medieval.

That's why I don't haggle. I negotiate. Haggling is just quarreling over price, whereas negotiating is a science and an art. The reason haggling is stressful is that it involves no clear goals. You're just arguing with no sense of when or whether you have received a good deal. Negotiating involves setting a goal, identifying a range of acceptable outcomes and then working toward them. You know when you've gotten what you wanted, and you also know when you should walk away. Haggling is emotional, whereas negotiating is cerebral.

Several years ago I was introduced to two great books on negotiating:

You Can Negotiate Anything by Herb Cohen - This book explains negotiation strategies and tactics. When you read it, you'll start to notice tactics explained in the books being used around you all the time in everyday interactions. Although it's not specific to buying cars, you'll recognize every single tactic car salesmen use. Once you realize what they're doing, many of the tactics lose a lot of their effectiveness, and you also learn how to prepare to neutralize the others.

Winning Through Intimidation by Robert Ringer - Contrary to the title, this book is actually about avoiding being intimidated by other people. Here again, once you read the book, you'll notice people doing little stupid things to intimidate each other on a daily basis. There are a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle intimidation tactics used by car salesmen. As with the negotiation tactics, recognizing them for what they are can take away their power. In fact, sometimes recognizing that someone is trying to intimidate you actually shifts the power to you instead, because it can reveal things they don't want you to know.

I would strongly suggest both of those books to anybody about to buy a car. Knowing what's in them will take 99% of the stress out of the process and, for some people, will add a lot of fun to the whole experience.

When I bought my car, it wasn't stressful at all. I did my research on the supply in the area and went in knowing what I expected to pay. I didn't have a trade. I already had financing in place. So their regular schemes weren't available to them.

When I made it clear I wanted to buy a car (and after we had dispensed with the trade and financing nonsense), the salesman made an offer. I countered. Then we agreed. I was willing to pay more. I think I could have actually gotten it for less. But the final result was in my acceptable range with no drama or stress at all.

Or I could have gone across town and paid $1700 more for an FR-S, knowing full well I had been cheated but pretending that I got the "best price" because the dealership told me I did. To me, that would have been more stressful, always suspecting that I got screwed.

[Stephen W.]

I spoke with sales people (men and women) at several dealerships when the Release Series 2.0 was first announced. As mentioned, this lot are clueless. Several didn’t even know about the Release Series 1.0 let alone 2.0. Great advertisement for the dealer’s employees Toyota/Scion product knowledge, eh?
Anyway, when the announcement came that Scion was done and that only a couple of the models would carry over into the Toyota brand I started getting phone calls. Each sales person wanted to make sure I knew that the FR-S RS 2.0 was going to become a highly sot after collector's item and that if I wanted one I had to act right then! I was polite enough to wait until I was off the phone before I broke out in laughter.
Then last week I find two messages left on my home phone from one of the nice guys who actual took the time to listen to my questions. He was honest enough to tell me when he didn’t know an answer and genuine enough to seek them out. So he was all excited to tell about the unbelievable deals on the FR-S right now. They just got word that they were to blow out the remaining Scions at unheard of discount prices and that I should give him a call. The second message was him telling me that he’d forgot to mention that he could get me a RS 2.0 at, well… a price he could only tell me in person.
So the next day after work I stopped in to find out about this great price. There were RED TAG deal signs all over the place. But, he sheepishly said that they only had one FR-S auto and he knew I wanted a manual. I reminded him of his message that he could get a FR-S RS 2.0 and I asked what was the great price to which he said; well that isn’t on the list. WHAT???? Thanks, I’ll be going now.
It just so happened that I was in another city on Friday and stopped into the dealer there. WOW, in the showroom was a FR-S RS 2.0 with a big red RED TAG DAYS deal tag on the windshield. I asked the salesman what the deal was and he told me there wasn’t one. I asked; Then why the HUGE sales tag on the windshield? His reply was that it was just advertising for the IM’s and TC’s left in inventory. I asked him about the $1000 dollars cash back and the .99% financing that I’d read about? His reply was, the cash back is only for students and isn’t on the FR-S models and that .99% is on 24 month lease deals only.
What a crock of excrement!

[FingerDiddle]

February this year I went and had a look at a mid 2015 GT grey (stripped down FRS style but without interior padding and silver accents) ex demo with 2+ks, I was just looking at the colour and spec really but a portly salesman guaranteed me they would finance me it for under 29k aud (GT is new around 33k).
My interest was of course piqued, as it was closing time when I looked I gave them my number to call me the next day.
Next day I get the call from a douchey sounding salesman telling me the lowest they can do is 32k.
I told him good luck finding someone else to ripoff.

I last checked out of interest in may, still there with over 10ks on it.

[nextcar]

When I was shopping for my car, I test drove a used BRZ Limited at my local Toyota/Scion dealer...

He helpfully explained that the Subaru BRZ was different than the FRS because in the Subaru the engine spins the opposite direction for more power.

[mrderp]

Last January, I went to a few local subaru dealers (Canada) to get some information on the BRZ Hyperblue availability.
"The Hyperwhat? Huh no it's not coming to Canada..." was the message.

Ended up buying a barely used whiteout FR-S Monogram a few weeks later.

Guess what Subaru Canada announced 3 months after I bought the car? The Hikari edition. (Hyperblue + STi strut brace).

Not a crazy story, but an annoying one.

[zc06_kisstherain]

I usually stop at one dealership for test drive. then negotiate price through e-mail but most of them asking me to see in person to give price i want. i go then they say oh we cant do that and this because blah blah blah....lol hate dealership..

[FR-S 264]

Originally Posted by nextcar

When I was shopping for my car, I test drove a used BRZ Limited at my local Toyota/Scion dealer...

He helpfully explained that the Subaru BRZ was different than the the FRS because in the Subaru the engine spins the opposite direction for more power.

That is only true in the Southern Hemisphere!

[FX86]

when i went shopping for the fr-s ..i told the sales straight up saying i spoke to other dealerships already and they promised me they would beat your price so give me your best numbers

sales rep was like oh sh!t man we can't compete with that and i said well just give me your best numbers and if i like we will proceed...they ended up giving me ridiculous numbers and i left and went to the other dealerships

it's a game you need to play with them

[Karl07]

Originally Posted by FX86

when i went shopping for the fr-s ..i told the sales straight up saying i spoke to other dealerships already and they promised me they would beat your price so give me your best numbers

sales rep was like oh sh!t man we can't compete with that and i said well just give me your best numbers and if i like we will proceed...they ended up giving me ridiculous numbers and i left and went to the other dealerships

it's a game you need to play with them

Question...DID you actually talk to other dealers first?
When I was in retail I found that to be the most despicable buyers technique. I have no problem with anyone doing the rounds, but lying is ridiculous at any time.
If someone said that to me, I would just tell them rrp and leave it at that, not caring if the person was for real because "any price will be beaten" anyway so why care?
If someone said "hey I'm just looking for the best price and I'm going to do the rounds or I've done the rounds" then I would give them what I could, and then tell them if they found a better price to let me know and I'd see if I could match.
But the way I see it, is if I'm happy with a price presented to me, I'll take it. Simple as that.

I am a car salesperson and I take pride in not playing "games" with customers. I build rapport on honesty and knowledge. If I say something about the price...it's the truth. If I say something as a fact for the car/engine/power/availability...it's a fact.

And people love it.

[Stephen W.]

Not “Twins” specific but salesman related.
Last summer the wife decided she wanted to trade her 2011 STi Sport Tech hatch in on a left over 2015 STi Sport Tech sedan. Her reasoning being that she’d get a discount on the “soon to be one model year old” sedan plus better trade-in value for her hatch.

We went to our dealer on a Saturday in August. They had a 2015 WRB STi sitting out front. However, the store was closed. No signs, no notice of why just nobody around. So we left.
The following Tuesday I stopped in and learned they are closed every Saturday in August. Nice to let the public know, eh? Also, the STi was sitting around the side of the building waiting to be picked up having just been dealer traded. The wife didn’t find another 2015 STi’s close so she decided to wait for a 2016.
In the mean time she had done her own appraisal on her trade. A little back story needed here. The wife has been in the business for over 30 years. She’s worked in the shop, sold on the floor, been a sales manager, a Finance and Insurance (Business) manager, comptroller and service rep. Suffice it to say, she knows her shit. Still, she had the used car manager at her dealership (Ford) go over her car top to bottom. His numbers were spot on to hers.
Armed with this she made an appointment to meet with the salesman who sold her the STi hatch. He knows her, knows she’s in the business and that she has access to the same knowledge bank, black book value sites and recondition cost stats as he does. All she asked was that he give her a fair trade-in value and she’d sign the papers.
Well, he didn’t. He called her car average when it was clean to extra clean with below average mileage. He wanted to do a full brake job; including rotors when all it needed was front pads and so on it went. Plus, he deducting full price and full labour rates for what he claimed the car needed for reconditioning.
But the kicker, the real deal breaker was when he also deducted the cost of the 96k service from her trade value. He explained he didn’t think it was fair to sell a used car to a person whose first service would be such a big expense. Mind you, the car only had 87k and she had just had a service done three days prior so, it wouldn’t need another for at least 6K. She let him know that she was not happy and would buy elsewhere then stomp out.
When we got home he’d left a message on the machine plus sent an email. The phone calls and the emails went back and forth all afternoon. In the end they dropped $2000 off the 2016 MSRP and the wife agreed to have the brakes done. BUT, they refused to change the value they first gave for her trade-in. Instead they kept dropping the MRSP $500 at a time. That’s just playing with numbers. Neither the salesman nor the owner would admit they messed up on the trade value. BUT THEN! The salesman screwed it totally demanding that we bring the car back in so they could measure the rotors. They still maintained the rotors had to be changed.
The next morning we drove to the first dealer west of us. I had the name of a salesman who was supposed to be trustworthy. She told him what she wanted and how much she was willing to pay including her trade. His used car salesman was blown away by her trade and gave her the price she know it was worth. It took four weeks to locate and deliver her new 2016 STi. They didn’t even wash her trade-in; just put it on the lot as driven in. They asked $2000 more than I thought they would and it sold within 5 days.
Local dealer lost out on a new car sale, a used car sale any referral business we might have sent them as well as our service business.
Like Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman, “You wouldn't serve me. You work on commission right? Big mistake. Big. Huge!”

[Teseo]

"Buy the car, and you can bang me"

[FX86]

Originally Posted by Karl07

Question...DID you actually talk to other dealers first?
When I was in retail I found that to be the most despicable buyers technique. I have no problem with anyone doing the rounds, but lying is ridiculous at any time.
If someone said that to me, I would just tell them rrp and leave it at that, not caring if the person was for real because "any price will be beaten" anyway so why care?
If someone said "hey I'm just looking for the best price and I'm going to do the rounds or I've done the rounds" then I would give them what I could, and then tell them if they found a better price to let me know and I'd see if I could match.
But the way I see it, is if I'm happy with a price presented to me, I'll take it. Simple as that.

I am a car salesperson and I take pride in not playing "games" with customers. I build rapport on honesty and knowledge. If I say something about the price...it's the truth. If I say something as a fact for the car/engine/power/availability...it's a fact.

And people love it.

yes i actually spoke to the dealers so i did "make the rounds looking for the best price"...why would i lie if i was actually serious about buying the car they had on the lot that i test drove?..and right when he gave him his crazy numbers i stepped outside and made a call to the others dealers saying, "hey they gave me this are you going to keep your word and beat the price?" and they said yes

i went back and told the guy they would give me this price..can you beat it and give me something better and he wouldn't budge so i left and went to the other dealership where i'm cool with the sales rep and bought numerous other cars from him..i wanted to see my options but this dealer wanted to charge me monthly payments similar to a 370Z

not all sales reps are honest and try to screw the customer so we all think of them as sales sharks...the other sales consultants ruined it for the good guys like you..like i said it's a game you need to play with them..i'm not going to be bullsh!ting around when money is involved