Buying a car

[Tom Sawyer]

When anyone offers you $4,000 for anything you can drag tow, or drive into their lot, the buyer needs to be a little leery IMO.

Well I went to this place. We wont mention any names and was looking at a car. In the window was written No Hassle price $13995.

I went in and said lets write this up. The salesman asked a few questions. like.: Will you finance with us ----No.
paying cash.
Got a Trade? ---------No just want the car, paying cash.

Him: did you see the original sale price of the car before the sale price. ---

Me Yes $19,995

Him :Since you dont have a trade we can take that $4,000 off the price making it $15995.

Me:Wait the tag says $13,995.

Him: Yes but we usually get trade-ins worth at least $1,000 to us.

Me: I dont have a trade.

Him: Well what are you willing to pay over the 13995 Price

Me: Nothing ----Its your price you made it ---No hassle.

Him: Let me check with the manager

Him: we can let you have it for $14995

Me : You can go #### in your hat too----: as I walk out the door

Disclaimer :
Any resemblance to the story to actual persons or businesses is strictly Coincidental but lets just say I didnt make this up. I also wont be going back to buy a car here. Suggest you think twice too.

 

[FancyBelle]

Good for you!

 

[Cockdiesel]

Sounds like a Ford dealership down in St. Mary's I once visited...

 

[JTross]

Sounds like a Ford dealership down in St. Mary's I once visited...

Same here too!

 

[mAlice]

Sounds like a Ford dealership down in St. Mary's I once visited...

Sounds like a Chrysler dealer in the park I once visited, too.

 

[Chasey_Lane]

When anyone offers you $4,000 for anything you can drag tow, or drive into their lot, the buyer needs to be a little leery IMO.

Well I went to this place. We wont mention any names and was looking at a car. In the window was written No Hassle price $13995.

I went in and said lets write this up. The salesman asked a few questions. like.: Will you finance with us ----No.
paying cash.
Got a Trade? ---------No just want the car, paying cash.

Him: did you see the original sale price of the car before the sale price. ---

Me Yes $19,995

Him :Since you dont have a trade we can take that $4,000 off the price making it $15995.

Me:Wait the tag says $13,995.

Him: Yes but we usually get trade-ins worth at least $1,000 to us.

Me: I dont have a trade.

Him: Well what are you willing to pay over the 13995 Price

Me: Nothing ----Its your price you made it ---No hassle.

Him: Let me check with the manager

Him: we can let you have it for $14995

Me : You can go #### in your hat too----: as I walk out the door

Disclaimer :
Any resemblance to the story to actual persons or businesses is strictly Coincidental but lets just say I didnt make this up. I also wont be going back to buy a car here. Suggest you think twice too.

Great post! Now we can rest at night knowing none of us will purchase a vehicle from this scammer of a dealership.

 

[Dupontster]

A while back I looked at a car for my Mom and they offered the $4000.00 off the top of the used car they had...I checked KKB on the car and their price was exactly $4000.00 lower than Leonardtown Ford...I mean the dealers...

 

[aps45819]

A while back I looked at a car for my Mom and they offered the $4000.00 off the top of the used car they had...I checked KKB on the car and their price was exactly $4000.00 lower than Leonardtown Ford...I mean the dealers...

I went on their used lot ONCE and they immediately told me they could knock $4k off the tag price because of their $4k trade in offer. Didn't seem to be an honest way to run a business, so I walked.

 

[willie]

Explain why you won't mention the name? If you're making this story up, Tom Sawyer might get sued but I doubt it will be you.

 

[alex]

Shouldn't they reported to the Consumer Protection Agency for the state? I thought that the price on the item was what they had to charge you. Isn't that a bait and switch. Sounds very illegal to me.

 

[Charles]

Sounds like a Chrysler dealer in the park I once visited, too.

The original Chrysler-Dodge dealer next door to Aldrich was the crookedest (is that a word) dealer to ever do business in LP.

 

[Kyle]

I've bought two trucks by negotiating over the web with in-area and out-of-area dealers and done ok.

The only way to get anywhere is to play them off of one another until they get off the price... or get lucky enough to find the hungriest salesman/dealership you can.

One of my former bosses bought a loaded Dualy-Deisel F-350 for 12k cheaper than the best price he could get around here.

He bought it in Alabama and spent a weekend going down there to pick it up and take care of the paperwork. Only thing that had to be done here was tags.

 

[Bruzilla]

Speaking as a former car salesman, used car prices are highly arbitrary. Dealers get their used car stocks from three sources: auctions, trades with other dealerships, and trade ins. Whenever a dealership takes a vehicle in trade they assess it to see if it's worth keeping. If it's going to need more than $2,000 or so put into it it'll get sent off to an auction for sale to another dealership (usually a "We Finance Everyone" place that won't put much money into the car and sell it with a lot of issues). At a minimum the high-end dealership will need to get the car safety inspected, put new tires on it, touch up the paint, etc. The object of the dealership is to get the car for the lowest price possible, and sell it for the highest price possible. KBB and other used car values are really meaningless.

I remember several times when the Used Car Sales manager had gone out to a used car that was on the lot and would put those big windshield number decals on a car saying the "sale" price was $12999 and reduce the old "sale" price from say $14999. If I got a call from someone who saw the car in the paper or on the internet for $14999 I would go back out to the car and replace the "2" sticker with a "4" sticker to put the car back at $14999. That gave me an extra $200 of bargaining room with the customer.

So, let's say that someone trades in a really nice low-milage car for $7,000, and the used car values resources say the car is worth $15,000. The dealership puts $1,000 into new tires and fixing some minor flaws, then lists the car for $18,000. An "informed" buyer comes in and likes the car, but gets all irate by saying the KBB value for the car is $15,000. If the salesman is any good he'll try to convince the buyer that the car is so nice that it's worth $18,000. If he can't do that the sales manager can drop the price to the $15,000 mark so the buyer think's he's made out. If the buyer buys at $15,000 the dealership makes $7,000 off the sale. If the buyer has a trade, then the value of the trade is just gravy for the dealership. Even if they offer $4,000 "push, pull, or tow" they'll still make $3,000 off the sale provided the sales manager drops the initial $3,000 off the price. More likely the sales manager would offer the buyer $4,000 for their POS trade (that the buyer usually knows is a POS), which drops the price of the car from $18,000 to $14,000, or $1,000 below KBB, so the dealership makes $6,000 and the buyer thinks he's gotten over on the dealership. And if the buyer finances through the dealership the profit is even higher.

One of the biggest mistakes I saw buyers make was doing what Tom Sawyer did, i.e., getting all upset at a counter offer and walking out the door. Price negotiations are a two-way street, and when a buyer gets all ticked off and walks out there's really nothing the dealership can do. Each dealership has a minimum price that they can sell any car for, but they're going to do their best to stay well above that. The buyer wants to pay the minimum price possible. When one side refuses to discuss price then you can never get to a price that both sides find acceptable. The buyers who got the best deals were not the ones who fell for bogus "no haggle" prices, but the ones who sat down and went through several offers and counter offers.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

You are probably correct. I probably could have stayed there and finally bought that car for the price advertised after threats and negotiations.I expect honest discourse, not cheap tricks that skirt legality . I have nothing against honest haggling ,thats always expected, but to try to raise the price above what is placed in the window is in my opinion a boatload of BS. I wont be going back ,I wont be sending friends.

 

[willie]

You are probably correct. I probably could have stayed there and finally bought that car for the price advertised after threats and negotiations.I expect honest discourse, not cheap tricks that skirt legality . I have nothing against honest haggling ,thats always expected, but to try to raise the price above what is placed in the window is in my opinion a boatload of BS. I wont be going back ,I wont be sending friends.

You were correct (except for not naming names). If the whole transaction went the way you said, the dealer is trying to cheat you. What else would he be capable of? What is a warranty from a cheater worth? Sounds like the type of dealer that would sell a Katrina car. His method was not honest price haggling.

 

[Bruzilla]

I doubt the dealer was cheating him. I'm sure that if he had looked closer he would have seen that the "no haggle" price is based on some sort of trade, with acceptable credit (WAC), or some other condition. Car buyers tend to only read the BIG words in ads and signs and skip over the fine print. Buyers who do not read the fine print do not equal dealers who are cheating. I was always amazed at how ignorant so many car buyers are. They read those bite lines in ads and have no clue what they really mean. For example:

"We're accepting all credit applications!!!" This does not mean that they will approve all credit applications, it means they'll accept them from you.

"We'll pay off your trade no matter how much you owe!!!" This is true of any dealer as the dealer cannot retitle the car and sell it until any existing liens are paid off. But the dealership isn't going to pay off the car, you are. The remaining balance, minus trade-in value, will be rolled into your new financed amount.

"Upside Down customers welcome!!!" Upside-down customers are those who owe more for their car than it's worth. These people are a major PITA, especially if they owe a lot more than the trade-in is worth. This means that they are going to have to finance the cost of the enw car plus another big chunk of change to pay off the trade, which can sometimes double the monthly payment. But they are welcome.

"No payments until XXXX!!!" These are common near the end of the year. People think that they are getting out of making some payments but they aren't. All the finance people do is recalculate the payments to reflect the abbreviated term. So say you get a loan that would have you paying $400 a month for 60 months, but you buy the car in September and no payments are due until January the next year (three month grace period). The financers will just recalculate the payments to $421 or so. You're paying the exact same amount.

The best thing I ever heard a salesman tell a customer who was trying to chew a price down too far was "that sign on the front of our building says "Ford" not "Goodwill". Car dealers are in business to make money, not to give cars away, so customers need to realize that while they're wanting the best deal possible in most cases the dealership is going to have to make some money off the deal.

 

[kwillia]

So Bru... what's your take on a "dealer friend" who says... "I can sell it to you for 200 over invoice"...

 

[willie]

Bru, you're probably right. I'm sure if Tom Sawyer had of looked real hard he would have found the small print somewhere, afterall, when someone says 'No Hassle', no one should take that literally. It's really a shame that used car dealers have such a negative reputation, must be a conspiracy. There's an Eastern Motors lot on 301 now, maybe that will help clean up the used car image.

 

[Toxick]

I was always amazed at how ignorant so many car buyers are. They read those bite lines in ads and have no clue what they really mean.

And I'm always amazed at how dishonest salesmen are when they try to SOUND like they're making an incredible offer when they're really not.


And of course, I have to be amazed at how stupid it is to attribute ignorace to people who show interest in sensationalized sleazy advertizing.

 

[cattitude]

So Bru... what's your take on a "dealer friend" who says... "I can sell it to you for 200 over invoice"...

My son was a car salesman. He explained the WHOLE process. I got a lot of good deals as did other family members and a few friends.

Now, we deal with his former boss, the sales manager, and we continue to get great deals.

They make money on all deals, be it with the financing package, the extended warranties, etc.

You have to educate yourself.