Beating a dealer at his own game

[jim44]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Very new to this forum...so my opinions might be taken with a grain of salt.  I am a finance director with a large corporate dealership group that spans 14 states.  If you believe that you just wasted the time of the sales person you are being gentle.  The hour or so that you spent with the sales person with "no intention" to buy a car just starts the process of wasting the time of the floor manager at the store, the sales manager at the store, the finance manager at the store, the GM of the store and most importantly the BDC department which is paid for calling you repeatedly to make an appointment "which you probably ignore all phone calls and emails because you're better than them".  If you were truly offered the interest rate that you say with the credit scores that you have in you signature...you...my friend missed an amazing oppurtunity at a great rate!!!   "The Game" that you call what we do for a living is a proven way to take care of people in difficult situations for those that are credit challenged.  I'm not saying that there aren't dealerships out there that attempt to take advantage of those people, but a majority of them don't.  If he was showing you a certain car it was probably for a reason because some cars have special APR's that go along with them from certain lenders...if you were interest rate concerned he might have been trying to show you that car with a good interest rate even for 800 beacons, it was because the car you wanted the interest rate could of been 18% (+2% if you keep wasting dealerships time).  Not that I know your whole story, but next time be more specific with the sales person in your "time wasting" intentions and you might be surprised how well you are treated becasue repeat and referral customers are a huge part of our business!  I hope what I said didn't bother anyone and that if anyone needs dealership financing advise please feel free to message me on here!

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+1.. Well said.  There are a lot of posts on this forum  where fellow  members have had a bad experience with a dealer.  Rarely do you see posts or threads where members relate about a positive buying experience.  

I especially love posts where members extol online vehicle buying services that have their customers believe they've undersold the dealer and received deal of the lifetime. 

[lincar66]

Let's put this in perspective I have had my time wasted many times by all dealerships including this one by not having the car I told them I wanted it was not even close and no they would not have gone and found a car I would of had to order one and I would not wait that long.

In my area car sales are extremely competitive and they SCREW people all the time so if any of you want me to feel bad I DONT when I say I want nav awd and v6 no exceptions and when I get there the car has absolutely nothing then to me that's wasting my time I have bought many cars and don't think its wrong.

Anybody that knows anything about a dealership would know the salesman was not even involved in the conversation because I was just talking financing and the FM was the general manager so I'm sure he is doing just fine and didn't miss out on anything and it is that SLEEZY sell whatever tactic that bugs me when I say I want certain things I mean it. 

SALESMAN DO NOT DO FINANCING so I wasted none of his time 

[Anonymous]

good stuff, but no wonder you have a lot of iqns !! 

[ezdriver]

I've has several dealers waste a lot of my time. Salesman who knows much less about their inventory vehicle than I did. For several years now, I've been buying just pemium cars [Mercedes and Porsche] and my experience is no different than when I took my wife shopping so she could see what asking prices are for much lesser cars. Bought a CPO Mecedes and the sales guy was just so stoked about haveing a "drop in" sale that he faile to answer some of my questions. When I gave less than a top rating with the followup survey, he actually called to me claim that he did talk to me about stuff that he not. I especially hate when I ask about a specific vehicle and they waste my time telling me about their grand new service center, their free coffee, a car wash, etc [all services that make money for the dealer] while failing to respect me as a knowledgeable buyer. BTW, I have been a sales professional on 100% commission for many years ... and put my customers' experience ahead of my commission ... every time.

[Dj4Money]

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@lincar66 wrote:

I thought the same thing but he had it all ready I just had to give the okay. And if you go on true car and type in my location in mass and the prices are super low so I will get a great deal. I'm looking at 2015 awd nav v6 when I am ready and won't pay a dollar over 25k but am confident I will get it.

Also this dealership is great last time I bought a car I spent a total of 20 mins in there and was all ready no haggling there prices are always below market value

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 Wait a second... You thought you got a great deal based on?

 What others paid? What if others didn't get the great deal they thought they got?

 Do you have any idea how nebulous "invoice is" and don't you know that Trucar is in a position to help the dealer by "helping" the customer get a "good" deal? Not to be cynical but one thing that's been lost since the Internet became an important fixture in our daily lives is direct to dealer incentives. Even Costco's service promises around $500 over invoice but again what is invoice based on?

  Manufacturers have all sorts of direct to dealer incentives. They can sell the car for invoice or below and still make a profit on the hold-back for starters. By low balling your trade or receiving bonuses for qualifying with the captive lender or any lender that will kick back to the dealer. Not to mention year-end, monthly and quarterly bonuses for hitting sales targets and you have no idea what position most dealers are in.

 Consumers are so scared/concerned with the car sale process that they will go to anybody offering relief. To rely so heavily on Trucar puts you in the same position as not knowing; you only know what they tell you.

 You can make an educated guesses, like Invoice is around 15% of MSRP. But again you don't know if the car maker is putting $1,000 dealer incentive on the hood of a particular model or model with a certain option package. Rebates are not the only indicator; rebates are offered on popular cars and slow selling cars. Usually on popular cars to get the title of most sales for their class or increase market share. If Chevy and Ford sell every truck they build why would they offer all the rebates and incentives they do?

  Nissan and Hyundai use rebates to increase market share. BMW offers "consumer incentives" to stay ahead of Audi.

 Honda owners like to be smug about the fact that Honda generally doesn't use rebates, but they do use direct to dealer incentives and most Honda owners are none the wiser, again smug they paid MSRP or maybe for a few hundred off sticker.

 I can sort-of relate to being at the dealer for hours. But in reality, I've never been at a dealer more than two hours. Why? I buy whenever the mood strikes, I don't wait for certain days. More often than not it's a weekday so the dealership is dead early in the evening. I may have just gotten off work and my paycheck has hit the bank.

 But if your like most Americans, you are worn out by day's end and you'll wait until the weekend. Well truth be told, don't 100 million Americans have the same exact idea you had? Why do dealers require the majority of their sales force t work on Saturday? If you believe the dealers aren't dumb then why do so many people play right into your hands? Most people talk to much is one problem, always voicing a concern, especiall about nonsense like safety. No car is unsafe, this isn't the 1970's.

 If you pay MSRP for any body on frame truck you have a screw loose. Those are the cheapest vehicles for OEM's to make, they put so much money on the hood they can knock $10,000 off the sticker and still make a good profit. This is also the case for luxury marks as well, the rich tend not to dicker they pay whatever the number is on the window sticker, in cash in some cases and are in-out in 30 mins, but most by CPO, shhhh you didn't see that.

 They tend to bargain with domestic makers, I find that interesting....

 Since people are testing the waters, try this one -

 Take whatever your lowest Trucar price is in your area and knock 10% off the price and submit that to a couple of local dealers via email and see who balks or is willing to take that deal or even beat it.

[ezdriver]

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@Dj4Money wrote:

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@lincar66 wrote:

I thought the same thing but he had it all ready I just had to give the okay. And if you go on true car and type in my location in mass and the prices are super low so I will get a great deal. I'm looking at 2015 awd nav v6 when I am ready and won't pay a dollar over 25k but am confident I will get it.

Also this dealership is great last time I bought a car I spent a total of 20 mins in there and was all ready no haggling there prices are always below market value

---

 Wait a second... You thought you got a great deal based on?

 What others paid? What if others didn't get the great deal they thought they got?

 Do you have any idea how nebulous "invoice is" and don't you know that Trucar is in a position to help the dealer by "helping" the customer get a "good" deal? Not to be cynical but one thing that's been lost since the Internet became an important fixture in our daily lives is direct to dealer incentives. Even Costco's service promises around $500 over invoice but again what is invoice based on?

  Manufacturers have all sorts of direct to dealer incentives. They can sell the car for invoice or below and still make a profit on the hold-back for starters. By low balling your trade or receiving bonuses for qualifying with the captive lender or any lender that will kick back to the dealer. Not to mention year-end, monthly and quarterly bonuses for hitting sales targets and you have no idea what position most dealers are in.

 Consumers are so scared/concerned with the car sale process that they will go to anybody offering relief. To rely so heavily on Trucar puts you in the same position as not knowing; you only know what they tell you.

 You can make an educated guesses, like Invoice is around 15% of MSRP. But again you don't know if the car maker is putting $1,000 dealer incentive on the hood of a particular model or model with a certain option package. Rebates are not the only indicator; rebates are offered on popular cars and slow selling cars. Usually on popular cars to get the title of most sales for their class or increase market share. If Chevy and Ford sell every truck they build why would they offer all the rebates and incentives they do?

  Nissan and Hyundai use rebates to increase market share. BMW offers "consumer incentives" to stay ahead of Audi.

 Honda owners like to be smug about the fact that Honda generally doesn't use rebates, but they do use direct to dealer incentives and most Honda owners are none the wiser, again smug they paid MSRP or maybe for a few hundred off sticker.

 I can sort-of relate to being at the dealer for hours. But in reality, I've never been at a dealer more than two hours. Why? I buy whenever the mood strikes, I don't wait for certain days. More often than not it's a weekday so the dealership is dead early in the evening. I may have just gotten off work and my paycheck has hit the bank.

 But if your like most Americans, you are worn out by day's end and you'll wait until the weekend. Well truth be told, don't 100 million Americans have the same exact idea you had? Why do dealers require the majority of their sales force t work on Saturday? If you believe the dealers aren't dumb then why do so many people play right into your hands? Most people talk to much is one problem, always voicing a concern, especiall about nonsense like safety. No car is unsafe, this isn't the 1970's.

 If you pay MSRP for any body on frame truck you have a screw loose. Those are the cheapest vehicles for OEM's to make, they put so much money on the hood they can knock $10,000 off the sticker and still make a good profit. This is also the case for luxury marks as well, the rich tend not to dicker they pay whatever the number is on the window sticker, in cash in some cases and are in-out in 30 mins, but most by CPO, shhhh you didn't see that.

 They tend to bargain with domestic makers, I find that interesting....

 Since people are testing the waters, try this one -

 Take whatever your lowest Trucar price is in your area and knock 10% off the price and submit that to a couple of local dealers via email and see who balks or is willing to take that deal or even beat it.

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I love this post! Thank you for taking the time to lay out such a well-structured post. I appreciate that.

[Anonymous]

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@ezdriver wrote:

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@Dj4Money wrote:

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@lincar66 wrote:

I thought the same thing but he had it all ready I just had to give the okay. And if you go on true car and type in my location in mass and the prices are super low so I will get a great deal. I'm looking at 2015 awd nav v6 when I am ready and won't pay a dollar over 25k but am confident I will get it.

Also this dealership is great last time I bought a car I spent a total of 20 mins in there and was all ready no haggling there prices are always below market value

---

 Wait a second... You thought you got a great deal based on?

 What others paid? What if others didn't get the great deal they thought they got?

 Do you have any idea how nebulous "invoice is" and don't you know that Trucar is in a position to help the dealer by "helping" the customer get a "good" deal? Not to be cynical but one thing that's been lost since the Internet became an important fixture in our daily lives is direct to dealer incentives. Even Costco's service promises around $500 over invoice but again what is invoice based on?

  Manufacturers have all sorts of direct to dealer incentives. They can sell the car for invoice or below and still make a profit on the hold-back for starters. By low balling your trade or receiving bonuses for qualifying with the captive lender or any lender that will kick back to the dealer. Not to mention year-end, monthly and quarterly bonuses for hitting sales targets and you have no idea what position most dealers are in.

 Consumers are so scared/concerned with the car sale process that they will go to anybody offering relief. To rely so heavily on Trucar puts you in the same position as not knowing; you only know what they tell you.

 You can make an educated guesses, like Invoice is around 15% of MSRP. But again you don't know if the car maker is putting $1,000 dealer incentive on the hood of a particular model or model with a certain option package. Rebates are not the only indicator; rebates are offered on popular cars and slow selling cars. Usually on popular cars to get the title of most sales for their class or increase market share. If Chevy and Ford sell every truck they build why would they offer all the rebates and incentives they do?

  Nissan and Hyundai use rebates to increase market share. BMW offers "consumer incentives" to stay ahead of Audi.

 Honda owners like to be smug about the fact that Honda generally doesn't use rebates, but they do use direct to dealer incentives and most Honda owners are none the wiser, again smug they paid MSRP or maybe for a few hundred off sticker.

 I can sort-of relate to being at the dealer for hours. But in reality, I've never been at a dealer more than two hours. Why? I buy whenever the mood strikes, I don't wait for certain days. More often than not it's a weekday so the dealership is dead early in the evening. I may have just gotten off work and my paycheck has hit the bank.

 But if your like most Americans, you are worn out by day's end and you'll wait until the weekend. Well truth be told, don't 100 million Americans have the same exact idea you had? Why do dealers require the majority of their sales force t work on Saturday? If you believe the dealers aren't dumb then why do so many people play right into your hands? Most people talk to much is one problem, always voicing a concern, especiall about nonsense like safety. No car is unsafe, this isn't the 1970's.

 If you pay MSRP for any body on frame truck you have a screw loose. Those are the cheapest vehicles for OEM's to make, they put so much money on the hood they can knock $10,000 off the sticker and still make a good profit. This is also the case for luxury marks as well, the rich tend not to dicker they pay whatever the number is on the window sticker, in cash in some cases and are in-out in 30 mins, but most by CPO, shhhh you didn't see that.

 They tend to bargain with domestic makers, I find that interesting....

 Since people are testing the waters, try this one -

 Take whatever your lowest Trucar price is in your area and knock 10% off the price and submit that to a couple of local dealers via email and see who balks or is willing to take that deal or even beat it.

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I love this post! Thank you for taking the time to lay out such a well-structured post. I appreciate that.

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I second that sentiment.  Well said Dj4Money