Would you be a SC if...

[mjr]

Not sure if this goes here, or somewhere else, but...

Let's say you wanted to buy a car.

Now, car dealerships, and the car buying process are real pains in the rear, and it can take you hours just at one dealership. I heard on the radio the other day, the average time spent at one dealership is five and a half hours. Not to mention that sometimes at dealerships, as soon as you get out of your car, you're circled by a sales guy like a vulture circling carrion.

With that in mind, would it be sucky to go to a dealership with some sort of stopwatch/timer, and basically tell the sales guy "You have two hours. Go."

And if you also tell them "None of this 'I need to talk to my manager' crap".

Or allow them one trip to the manager, but deduct five minutes.

I know for the last car I purchased back in 2005, it was numerous emails, two trips to the dealership, and several hours over the course of about 2 or 3 days just to get the car.

I'm not saying I would actually do any of this. I'm not really planning on buying a car anytime soon.

[Aislin]

The financing alone takes hours. I got my last car in 3:45. I came pre-approved and they still managed to futz things up. We negotiated then I showed them the paperwork that entitled me to a discount thru their loyalty program and they still were asses as they didn't honor their free set tires promise and I had to fight them on every little warranty issue and the Onstar was screwed up. Personally never buying a Chevy again. My old camero was a peach. The cobalt is a pos.

[mikoyan29]

I have the Ford Supplier Plan, so my price was set when I bought my Focus. My financing was pre-approved, so I just stepped in the Dealer and told them what I wanted. They had to do a couple things but I was pretty much on my way.

[mjr]

The financing alone takes hours.

But why? If you were pre-approved, why couldn't they just get your info, plug it in, and get a number back? If the number is above X, good...

That should take what? 10-15 minutes, tops?

[drunkenwildmage]

Most of them still want to try to get you on their financing. The Dealer makes money off that also, so they want get you over to that. I'm in the process of looking at cars right now, and event thought I have basicly have a loan in place, and even after I tell them I get predenial notices in the mail, I still have to spent 15 - 20 mins fighting the Dealer financing pitch.

[Aislin]

My Chevy dealership here in town is full of morons? Seriously. There was no reason or logic behind it. They kept trying to find me other financing. Which was stupid and messed with my credit score. They came out o the office and told me my rate was going to be 17% and I lost it. I had been pre-approved at 5%. They had to back peddle pretty fast and call a few places to striaghten the mess they made.

[mjr]

My Chevy dealership here in town is full of morons? Seriously. There was no reason or logic behind it. They kept trying to find me other financing. Which was stupid and messed with my credit score. They came out o the office and told me my rate was going to be 17% and I lost it. I had been pre-approved at 5%. They had to back peddle pretty fast and call a few places to striaghten the mess they made.

I don't know if a lot of car dealerships realize this, but in my opinion, the buyer has the power in a lot of cases. Especially if the car is more of an "I want to" rather than an "I need to".

In other words, if you're in a position where you can say, "I want to buy a car", that puts more of the onus on the sales guy rather than forcing your hand. It's much easier to walk away like that. That said, you're almost always in a position to walk away.

True Story #1: I have a friend who walked away, and was then chased down by the manager, who then did the original deal my friend asked for. Apparently, my friend had told the sales guy that if he (the sales guy) had to "go talk to the manager" that he (my friend) would leave. Well, lo and behold, Mr. Sales Guy says he has to go talk to the manager. My friend starts walking across the lot back to his vehicle. He actually got to his vehicle and was about to get in when the manager comes running up to him asking why he was leaving "mad". My friend told the guy he wasn't leaving mad, he was just leaving because he told the sales guy that if he had to go talk to the manager, he was going to leave. The manager convinced him to come back into the dealership, but only after my friend basically said "We're not walking back up there" and the manager said, "I'll just pick you up here and drive you up, then." And he dealt with the manager directly, who gave him the original deal he wanted.

True story #2: I was out helping my dad find a new car. We actually had a salesman walk away from us! My dad was looking at buying a new car, and he didn't like the mileage on the cars the guy was showing him, so the guy just basically shook his hand, said "Have a nice day", and walked off!

[Aethian]

What I get is about 10 or so years ago I had all the money saved up to buy a ore owned car. I had done hours of looking online to find what I wanted in my price range, looked through kbb, knew the price points that I could barter on, and still had to get up from the dealers desk because he just couldn't fathom me not wanting to finance. And without financing I couldn't get the price I wanted. So I told him I hoped he enjoyed talking his way out of any commission from me and left.

The next day I went down there again, talked to someone different with the first guy in the room, and the second guy made the sale. Even got a extra 250 out of me when he was able to provide a maintenance done list.

[mjr]

The next day I went down there again, talked to someone different with the first guy in the room, and the second guy made the sale. Even got a extra 250 out of me when he was able to provide a maintenance done list.

Sweet!

I wonder what would happen if someone said, "I need to go talk to my manager" and the customer said, while sticking out their hand for a handshake, "Ok, well I guess our business here is done then. We'll be gone by the time you get back."

[Crossbow]

I'm even worse than that, and my last saleswoman never thought I was an SC. She loved me. Made her job easier...

Other salespeople, maybe not so much.

I do all my rsearch ahead of time. By the time I get to the dealership, I've already narrowed my choices down to 3 or 4 cars and what options I want. Trip one: test drive. I hit all of the models I want, and if it means multiple delaerships, fine. Once I've decided on which car, I deal with my bank for financing, and research packages (so I get the options I want) and costs. Then it's time for trip two. I walk in and say "I want car X with option package Y in color Z. How soon can you get it?" As long as it's not a long wait (anything over about 4 days, if they have to bring it in from out of state), I take a piece of paper and write down a number and hand it to the salesperson. that's how much I'm willing to pay out the door including tax, title, etc. I make sure the amount still turns a profit for the dealership (the nicer they were during test drives, the high the margin), but I am NOT flexible on this number. If they say no, or really hem and haw, I get up and go elsewhere. (Only had to do that once.)

Is this being an SC? Maybe. But I've had several salespeople tell me that my offer is fair and that they like having a knowledgable customer. I can see where some wouldn't, of course...

[Greenday]

I really didn't have much trouble at the dealership I bought my Mustang from. The salesman I spoke with knew a lot about muscle cars so talking to him was easy. He didn't pressure me into buying anything the first day. He knew exactly where I was at.

Went to a couple other Ford dealerships. At the second Ford dealership we went to, I dealt with this women who didn't know ANYTHING about Mustangs, nor did anyone else at the store apparently. Went to the third one, the guy knew a little bit about Mustangs, but they were awful liars. I spoke with him and his manager and they said that no one in the area has 2013s yet (this was in May 2012) and that the closest one was in Philly, over an hour away. When I told him I had just test driven a 2013 at another dealership just a couple miles away, he called me a liar by saying that it wasn't possible.

So naturally, the first place that didn't try to mess me around, was upfront about everything, and got me approved for financing (Put $10k down so I imagine that helped) despite not having ANY credit was the place that got the sale.

[mjr]

Ha! There's actually a dealership promising "New Car Purchase in Two Hours".

It's actually kinda sad that they actually feel the need to use this as marketing...

http://www.toyotaofgrapevine.com/tex...ta-promise.htm

And the more amusing thing is that it apparently only applies to the "Internet Department".

[AccountingDrone]

Back in 1996 Rob was out to sea, we needed a replacement car and so our roomie of the time Bruce and I went shopping one lovely Wednesday about 2 pm.

Rolled into the local Ford dealership. I walk up to some musclebound frat boy type. I say that *I* want to buy a car. He immediately starts trying to sell Bruce a car. He tells the guy that 'she' is the one buying the car, he is only providing the transportation to get me to a dealership. Guy still trys to sell Bruce the car. We leave.

Lather, rinse, repeat for Chevrolet, Toyota and Subaru dealerships.

Only dealership that talked to *me* when we walked in was the VW dealership.

Half an hour later, white '96 Golf and I left the dealership.

[mjr]

Half an hour later, white '96 Golf and I left the dealership.

Half an hour!?!?

How did you manage to pull that off??

[EricKei]

Ugh. I'm preparing to buy a used car in the next few months, myself >_> Good tips ^_^