Car dealership shenanigans with our $10,000 new car questcustomer adventures, travel, finance — by TDavid @ 10:21 am PST
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Over the weekend we hit a few more car dealerships in our search for a $10,000 new car with air conditioning and had a disturbing encounter at a nearby Chevrolet dealership. Readers that are car salesmen, listen up. We walked the Chevy lot and found this red Chevrolet Aveo 5 with a sticker price of a little over $10,000. It was small, fuel efficient, had good headroom and met our new car buying qualifications except one: no air conditioning.
The salesman was on us like a laser sight the second we stepped foot on the lot. He seemed like a nice enough guy and when my wife and I told him our needs he seemed to understand and promised to give us a sheet with just the numbers. I was thinking that by adding air conditioning we’d only be looking at $750-1000 USD to the price. That would take us to around $11,000, but they had a $500 rebate so we’d be back around $10,500. Not exactly $10,000 or under, but we’re not completely firm on being at/under $10,000.
What happened instead was the salesman suggested we take a test drive and have a chance to win $1,000 in their scratch and win contest. I looked at my wife and she nodded approval. We went for the drive and the Aveo 5 rides pretty nice. On our way back to the dealership the salesman asked if we’d stop at the store so he could go in and buy some water. He offered to buy both of us some water too but we politely declined. I told my wife, “I doubt the guy’s thirsty, he just wants us to talk about buying this car.”
He came back and then we drove back to the dealership. He showed us the scratch ticket but never actually gave it to us. Instead, he went off to “check with his manager” who was running up the price for the car with air conditioning added. A couple minutes later he returned to the round table and started to show us a package with a price that was over $15,000. I stopped him short of going into the close by pointing out that the price was way out of what it should be.
The salesman seemed confused. We’d put him off the track by returning to the price. I took out my notebook with the carsdirect.com price I’d already looked up and showed him our research. He went away and then his manager returned and tried to put a hard sell on us for the $15,000 car we didn’t want.
“You wouldn’t want us to sell you a car at $1,000-2,000 loss, would you?”
Starting to get annoyed, I replied: “Umm, excuse me but I know air conditioning being added to a car doesn’t cost $5,000. We started looking at a car that was just under $10,000 and now you’re showing us a car that cost $15,000. That’s not what we are interested in.”
Almost immediately he said, “Oh, maybe we’re not looking at the same car.”
By now my slime meter had reached red alert. The whole time we were gone test driving the car, the manager who was running the numbers for our convenience didn’t know what car we were looking at? It was just an honest mistake that we were being shown a more expensive car loaded with features we said we weren’t interested in? Riiiiight.
Outside while looking at the car I pointed to the sticker on the car and said: “You mean I can’t buy this car right now — without the air conditioning — for $10,500 as it shows?”
“Yes, I’ll sell you this car for that price.”
“Then why does it cost so much to add air conditioning? It shouldn’t cost any more than $1,000 to add that.”
“I’ll sell you this car with air conditioning for $11,500 if you buy it today. Will you?”
At that point I explained to him we had a new problem: honesty and karma. We originally looked at a car that met all our specs except for air conditioning and asked a simple question: how much would they sell that car with air conditioning. It took almost an hour to get to that question and it was with the caveat that we buy it today. No.
Realizing his sale had gone south, he tried to just exit the deal and shake my hand. I backed away and we walked off. Maybe rude on my part not shaking the manager’s hand but I didn’t like what it seemed like they were trying to pull and I don’t shake hands with snakes.
Back home last night I returned to carsdirect.com and learned that by putting in different zip codes in state we could actually find the Chevrolet Aveo 5 car for as low as $9,700 (Camas zip code). Also learned that Edmunds.com has a true rating service that puts the price at $9,782. So far this looks like our most encouraging prospect, but that local Chevy dealership completely ruined any chance of getting the sale simply by not listening to the buyer’s needs.
Oh, and we never did get to play the scratch ticket after taking the test drive. Another deception!
Sales 101: listen first, act second. If that dealership had come back with a price with the car we were interested in plus a reasonable cost to add the air conditioning, we would have thought harder about doing business with them. Forget about that now. Throw a dart at the map and any Chevy dealer looks more appealing.
My wife called the dealer experience “stressful.” The search continues.
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I had a very similar experience(s), at least as far as the ’slime meter’ anyway. They expect you to be a sucker, and to their defense I’m sure enough people are stupid enough to fall for it that it makes it worth their time to lose a few smarter people and mop the floor with the suckers.
If you haven’t seen http://www.carbuyingtips.com/ it is worth checking out. The reason they wanted you to go for a test drive was most likely so they could get your ID, photocopy it and pass it to someone who could look up your credit info to prepare them with how to sell you the car when you got back. The site is loaded with other similar information to give your already capable slime meter a fine tuning. Good luck!
Comment by Rob — March 5, 2007 @ 10:50 am PST
Actually Rob, I never gave them my ID and the salesman left me and my wife alone in the car while he was in the store. If we were car thieves we could have driven away with the only thing they had on us was his memory of what we looked like. But of course we aren’t car thieves so they were safe. And I did give them my business card when we got back before he came back with that $15,000+ quote because I honestly believed they would give me a quote on the car we just drove plus the air conditioning. Doh!
So now they could call my business number and follow up, but I doubt they are that brave. If they do, they probably won’t like what I have to tell them.
I’ll check out carbuyingtips.com though, thanks
Comment by TDavid — March 5, 2007 @ 11:35 am PST
I’ve seen them all. If you want to see really slimy tactics, send your wife out by herself. I’ve seen them all:
- taking your current cars’ keys so they can “evaluate” it for trade in value. As long as they have your keys you can’t leave.
- not being able to show you the original invoice because its a weekend and that is in the “business office” (duh it’s the age of computers!)
– (this is my favorite) the salesman is showing me a used Lexus, telling me what a great car it is and how CLEAN and wonderful it is with leather and all, when right in front of us the white leather is obviously filthy, the carpet is stained, the backseat obviously had kids in it who spilled their snacks, etc. It was so bad I didn’t even want to sit in it!!! He couldn’t even tell me that they had not had a chance to detail it yet. Then he just couldn’t understand why in the world I didn’t want to take it for a drive.
I tell you, if there is any way you can deal with the fleet sales guys do it. We have a friend who was in fleet sales and once we told him what model, options, etc., he would source it through his fleet buddies (no matter what dealer) and price it and put us in touch. We’d go and drive it, pay for it and it was a done deal. NO SLIMY SALES TACTICS. It’s wonderful. Unfortunately he is now training salesmen.
Comment by Sue — March 5, 2007 @ 11:50 am PST
Good job not getting skinned by doing some research up front.
When we were in the market several years ago, we did a lot of web research first on all the available features and the incentives to dealers. Then we got e-mail addresses from the manufacturer for all dealerships in the state. We calculated exactly what we wanted to pay for the exact features we wanted (right down to color) and sent an e-mail to every dealership. Most responded “you’re crazy” or the equivalent. But we got two dealerships to talk seriously with us, and both of them booked the sale as done at the end of the month of June. That only increased our bargaining power on July 1 by effectively putting both of them in a reverse auction to save the sale. We ended up having to drive three hours to get the car, but we paid less than we originally expected to — and the car was great.
Comment by Sterling Camden — March 5, 2007 @ 2:39 pm PST
Thanks for sharing, Sue. Since my wife doesn’t drive (by choice) she wouldn’t be shopping for a car, but if they are doing that to women (and I’m sure they are) that’s just despicable.
Here’s the strange thing, Sterling, I signed up to get a quote back from dealers — with telephone number — last night and nobody has called me yet.
Where are the dealers working the internet leads?
Comment by TDavid — March 5, 2007 @ 4:07 pm PST
Yeah, we got a lot of “no response” to our queries, too. We were living in CA at the time, and I think we pinged over 100 dealerships just to get two that were willing to deal. There are just too many suckers out there for most dealerships to waste their time with someone who knows what they’re doing.
Comment by Sterling Camden — March 5, 2007 @ 4:12 pm PST
What a shame. It’s no wonder people hate going to car dealerships and the salesmen in the biz have a bad rap
I know there are good, honest hard working car salesmen but admittedly my faith is being shaken.
Comment by TDavid — March 5, 2007 @ 4:14 pm PST
It may be a smidge more $$$ than you wanted to go, but have you looked at the Honda Fit? It’s getting top-notch safety & fuel economy ratings and, well, frankly, I place a bit more trust in the Honda brand overall than I do Chevrolet - although I do like the 5-door Aveo hatchback.
I’ve had nothing but good experiences with my ‘03 Honda Element.
Comment by Rob O. — March 6, 2007 @ 5:12 am PST
Thanks for the suggestion Rob O, we are considering the Honda Fit and the Toyota Yaris as well.
Comment by TDavid — March 6, 2007 @ 9:08 am PST
I like the looks of the Yaris, but the ratings aren’t great… Seems like either the Fit or Aveo are a better-rated choice.
Myself, I’d love to try a Smart Car!
Comment by Rob O. — March 6, 2007 @ 4:44 pm PST
My best friend is a Car Salesman so I generally go to him when I’m looking for a car. Even so, I rue going to the dealership as even he gets a little pushy when he smells the scent of the prey.
Seems to be the nature of the beast, maybe it’s time to start looking harder at eBay, carsdirect, and other used car sale sites.
Comment by thatedeguy — March 7, 2007 @ 6:56 pm PST
Since you are looking for a new car, I suggest you to do all the price negotiations over email. Show up only to test drive. This has proven to be a sure and hassle free technique for me. I summarized my new car buying tips when I wrote about it in January [see signature for link]
Comment by yan — March 8, 2007 @ 5:21 pm PST
Not sure I’d want to deal through email for a purchase this size, yan, but looks like otherwise some interesting tips there, thanks.
Comment by TDavid — March 8, 2007 @ 5:29 pm PST
New car is a new car and you won’t tell two same models apart. Once you decide on the model — just bargain for the best price online (over email). What exactly are your concerns?
Comment by yan — March 9, 2007 @ 1:32 pm PST
My concerns, yan? I already don’t trust many people online. I’ve seen all sorts of crazy things online in the 10+ years I’ve been building and running websites. When it comes to financial stuff, I prefer to deal with people directly, in person.
I’m not saying there aren’t good, honest people online — of course there are — but I prefer to deal (or haggle in the email case) with transactions over a certain dollar amount more directly, and $10,000+ is in that range where I want to deal with someone other than over email. Face to face, phone call, and/or some combination of both is preferable. Yes, this might waste more of my valuable time, but I like dealing with people and email is a bit too faceless for larger transactions.
Just my 2 1/2 rusted pennies.
Comment by TDavid — March 9, 2007 @ 5:47 pm PST
I can imagine my parents talk this way, not someone running a popular blog. The world has changed. Just think about it.
There are easy ways to know you write to a dealership representative, if this is an issue. The person you write to is not “someone online”, he/she is there at your local dealership in flesh.
Don’t make any commitments, don’t give out any financial info about yourself, just bargain the price and make the date/time for the appointment. Then print out the email with a quote and bring with you.
I just don’t have the guts to sit at the desk face to face with the guys who are pros at selling cars. Some enjoy it, I hate it. There are other better things I’d rather do.
Comment by yan — March 9, 2007 @ 9:35 pm PST
I agree with online bartering of price. I utterly hate feeling pressured over an extra $100 or so. ANd its such a huge waste of time. I say: i want x, what will you give it to me for? ..
one guy gave me a price via web, when i went to go in to the dealer the other salesguy (the guy on web left for the day) wanted to argue that they dont sell them for that low. I said, well xxx says you do, and you will. and that 1 in front all prepped is mine.
He started commenting, i zipped up my checkbook and grabbed my keys, then the next thing out of his mouth was “well we can do it just this once”
another perk is in another transaction, i got the dlr to drop down 20% just by forgetting to check my email or spend the time to reply.
emails great for price negotiations…you can always inspect it and find things that werent pointed out and leave.
good comment about the keys btw, i will never do that
Comment by in mn — April 14, 2007 @ 2:48 am PST
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