I Hate Car Dealers

I don't take anything from a car dealer personally, but it's incredible what they try. I've been shopping for a car for a while, and have finally settled on something. It's pretty good car for the price and the features -- better features than most in its price range. So, I'd been dealing with a salesman, and then for grins I did the "get me a quote" on the internet. One dealer a bit far away from me comes back with a quote that's pretty good. He manages to catch me on the phone, he talks to me and he sends me a precise quote. He throws in the one extra I require and when I say "send me the sticker on the car" he does. However I go back to the salesman I've been dealing with today. His dealership had e-mailed me a similar quote to the guy far away. I had discussed this with the salesman, who knew I had an offer. I go in to get an estimate for the trade in. After dinking around for almost two hours (after a certain point, I let the Boy trash the place), the 'manager' comes over with a paper with some numbers. Not only is is a lowball trade in (REALLY off), the price he wants for the car is $3k HIGHER than what their own dealership had e-mailed me. The salesman knew that the internet department had made me an offer. The manager says "do you have that e-mail"? and I say "it's from your own dealership. I'm not keeping your records. Now, I have this e-mail here from your competitor with a sticker and a firm out the door price". So I get up, ask for my car key back and walk out the door. It takes about four minutes for me to get the Boy in his seat. Of course the poor salesman comes running back out with a counter offer, which is still higher than the one from the faraway dealer. I pulled out the e-mail again and said "go back and tell your manager that if they want to lose a sale for $400, that's fine. Also tell him that women aren't idiots" . We start driving back and my cell phone rings. I let my friend answer it. She relays the message that they're now $250 under the faraway dealer. I tell them to e-mail me the offer. They don't want to do that, but my friend keeps repeating "here's the deal -- e-mail what you just said".

When I get home, the e-mail is in from the manager, which says "here's the price but only if you come in today". So I send him back the following note: "I would not be able to come back today -- there's no way for me to come back by six and the bank is closed. I will let you know tomorrow. If you're unable to keep this deal, I can get the very similar deal from the other dealer who hasn't played games with me." Why am I not remotely concerned that this deal won't be there tomorrow? I'll probably take it, as having done my research, it is a very good price for the car. I'll take my old car to Carmax. They'll at least give me Kelly Blue Book trade-in for it (which is $600 more than this dealer was offering).

Someone once said that if you walk way happy from a car purchase you paid too much. Well, I think I'm actually getting a good deal here because I'm peeved. I"m not really going to shop this deal around more, because it's pretty damn good and I don't have time to dink around with this. And if all the cars disappear (there's always a decent shot that should I call faraway dealer back and agree to the sale, that car will be "sold" and there will be another one for more money), I still have a still-running, all paid up car.

I don't blame the car maker -- this is just what they all do. Boy I wish Saturn was still around. I suspect I could find something good enough and just pay the price. No haggle. In this case, I blame the manager who wanted to play "big man" and didn't even bother to check what his salesman already knew and what his own dealership had already offered and start from such a bad place that it was the easiest decision in the world to just stand up and walk out.