Car Salesmen are Sneaky

May 26, 2007 ·
Filed in Random Jabber ·
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So I purchased a new (well, new to me) used car yesterday. I was way overdue for a new vehicle since my old vehicle had no air conditioning and my driver side window worked about half the time (this sucked even more because it was a two door vehicle). The whole car buying experience is just one that I would rather avoid at all costs. I can’t help but feel like I’m going to get screwed in some way or another every time I pull into a car dealership.

For the last week or so I’ve been searching online for the make and model I liked, as well as ones in my price range. This past Thursday, I found one that I liked (this is the second that I’ve checked out) so I go to the dealership and almost before I can even park my vehicle and step out to take a look at the new one, I have a sales guy on me like a vulcher on a dead carcass. So I check out the vehicle and the salesmen asks if I’d like to drive it, and I did, so we did. After the test drive, I was pretty sure this was the vehicle I wanted, so we go inside the dealership to talk it over.

Before we even start talking about the sale price of the vehicle, the salesmen is more interested in my trade in. I kept telling him that once we got a sales price squared away, we could talk about trade in value. Well, he didn’t listen and nothing would do him but to work out a trade-in value. Talking trade-in value first is one thing that you’re not suppose to do when dealing with car dealers, as they like to talk about the trade-in value so they can throw all kinds of different numbers at you and hopefully confuse you. I figured I’m smart enough to not fall for any tricks, so we talked trade-in.

Do Your Research

I had done my research and knew what my trade was worth. When the salesmen offered me was no where near what it was worth, I almost laughed. I simply told him that the price he offered me was not going to work and almost without hesitation he made another offer that not only was giving me almost exactly what my trade was worth, but also took a nice chunk off of the sale price of the vehicle. Now, I probably could have got him to come down a little more on the sale price of the vehicle but before even going to the dealership I had a price in mind that I would pay for this vehicle and after our negotiations, the final selling price of the vehicle was going to be way under what I had anticipated paying, so I was happy with it and i told him that we had a deal.

I wasn’t about to buy this vehicle without first running a vehicle history report and having it inspected by a neutral party, but the salesmen wasn’t about to let me leave either, so he tells me that his manager has said that if I don’t buy it right now, they would have to add three hundred dollars on to the total sale price. Well, I basically told him that I’d be back tomorrow to pick up the vehicle for inspection and I would anticipate purchasing the vehicle as the price we negotiated earlier (I had it in writing, so I wasn’t worried about his little counter).

So, to make a long story short, the vehicle history report came back fine, and the inspection, which took three hours and was very thorough, came back very good, with only a couple small flaws, which I would expect from a used vehicle. I went back to the dealership after the inspection and bought the vehicle for the price in which we negotiated a day earlier.

Can We Cut the Crap?

So, as for the point of this post, I realize selling cars is just business, and with any business, they are in it to make as much money as possible, but why is it that every used car dealer (and new car dealers) feel the need to be sneaky to make the sale? Just like they were trying to offer me way less for my trade to see if I would bite and when I didn’t, they immediately offered me what it was worth. It seems to me that if a car dealership wanted to build an outstanding reputation with customers, why not just cut all the sneaky sales tactics and just be honest? Is that so wrong these days, to ask for honesty in a business transaction? If a used car dealer would simply disclose to the new potential buyer, how much they gave for the car originally and told the new buyer that they have a standard mark-up of a thousand dollars on what they gave for the vehicle (on top of what it cost the dealership to fix anything on the vehicle), that would take one variable out of the equation, and now all that’s left to negotiate is the trade-in value (if there is one). Granted, in the short run, the dealership may not bring in as much money, but I having to think in the long run, their profits would greatly increase. If customers knew what they were getting into as soon as they pulled into the dealership, and didn’t have that underlying feeling that they were getting screwed in the whole deal, they would more apt to purchase the vehicle.

Are there any used car dealers following this business model?