Car dealers and the games they play

[dirtyclevo]

i had a bloke years ago pull the old story that if he didn't sell enough cars he wouldn't be able to support his family when i was trying to get the price down on a xr6. he only had a el wagon and it was hard making ends meet, he said.

i didn't end up buying it.

anyway, i continued to look around the car yard and he knocked off for the day and i expected to see him jump in a falcon wagon he said he owned, but jumped in his Audi A8 (no. plate ROCCO) new at the time. and drove off.

the ******* cheeky bastard.

[nuthin' fancy]

Many many years ago, when dinosaurs walked the earth, I decided it was time to move on from my 2l Sigma wagon (the heaviest steering of any car I have ever driven, worse than my EA with disconnected power steering).

I looked at an immaculate XC GS wagon, 302, 4 speed, houndstoth cloth trim, twin tanks, 110,000 km. The only fault was a spot on the front bumper where the chrome has failed, the size of a 20c piece.

The salesman assured me the mileage was genuine ("I can tell the difference", he said).

I called the previous owner and asked why they sold the car.

"We had a quote of $9,000 for rust removal". And the mileage? "Speedo was broken for three years, it has done about 180,000km".

I didn't buy it.

I have a view about dealing with professional salesmen, their job is to get as much of my money as they can, my task is the opposite. At the end of the day, we either agree on the value of something or not.

[buggerlugs]

We just bought a new SR5 Hilux this week. We have been stuffed around like you would not believe for four weeks. Some of the crap that come out of the salesman's mouth beggers belief. Needless to say we will never step foot in that dealers business again. 3 months ago we bought a new CX5. In and out in 15 minutes. No bullshirt. Could not be two complete different dealings..............

[cram_it_frog]

my present car had a $8000 price on the dash but on the internet it had $7000 he refused to accept my money order

so I insisted he phone the manager of the car company some one forgot to change the price on the internet but the manager said he had to legally accept the internet price

I wonder what would have happened if I had paid full price


is the internet price only for people who are on the net i wonder

[2011G6E]

Two incidents I just recalled...one about me and another about a manager at my last job.

In 1985 I had a 1980 VC Commodore Four SL (stop laughing you mongrels). It was a great car...comfy, relatively fuel efficient (for a fair sized car with a two liter), and handled and steered well. We drove past a car yard and saw an XB GT sedan...metallic green, silver trim, white interior. 351, auto, 12 slotters. Very nice. We went into the yard and saw it had a price of $7000 on the screen.
Coincidentally sitting beside it was another four cylinder Commodore...a wagon...with a few more kilometers on it than our sedan had, and it was an auto as well. It had $6500 on the windscreen. We took the GT for a drive, and decided that we could afford to pay it off and pay V8 rego if we got a good enough deal with a small changeover price. I guessed we might get $4000 for our Commodore...we'd paid $6500 just a year before.
Sat down with dealer, and he did what people used to absolutely dread...he pulled out of his jacket pocket "The Book"...one of those little things like Glasses Guide. nowadays it's all online but of course there was no internet back then.
You used to dread the guy pulling out that book...some wouldn't even check out your car much, just check "the guide".
Guy says to us "I'll give you $1600 for your car". Sitting right outside the window was the Commodore wagon with a very visible price sign on the window. We tried to talk him up, he wouldn't budge. I pointed out the window to the wagon and he shrugged and said "That's the car game".
No sale, obviously...


The other incident was a manager I knew. He had an 80 series Landcruiser which he wanted to trade on a later model fourbie. He traded it in, and a week or so later we were reading the local paper at lunchtime and he pointed out a car advert in the dealer page. He said "That's my Cruiser...I'm sure it is". The advert said 120,000km, many extras, no beach work.
This was a revelation to the manager...as when he traded it the Cruiser had 350,000km on it (they travelled a lot), and he'd spent nearly every weekend down Coonar driving up and down the beach camping and fishing with his family...
I went and had a look, and sure enough, it was his fourbie. The dealer reassured me it was a low kilometer one, well looked after, no beach work, etc.
That same dealer closed a while later for handing out "interesting" roadworthies which tended to...erm...overlook a fair bit...

[2011G6E]

Oh, another fun one from back in the mid-1980's in the USA.

A car dealer was trying to be "fun" in his weekend advertising. He had a second hand sedan advertised for something like "1395 Bananas".
A woman turned up with 25 bananas...actual bananas...as a deposit. The guy refused to accept it, she showed him the advert, he still refused, so she said she'd see him in their equivalent of our small claims court.
The court found in her favour and told him to accept the rest of the bananas to pay for the car. Sure, she had to buy a couple of hundred bucks worth of bananas, but hey, it was a lot less than the original $1395 price...

And here's the news item...
http://blogs.lib.uconn.edu/archives/...-1395-bananas/

[BuckTooth]

One from my experience a few years back.

My sister was looking to buy her first car, had scrimped and saved $6500 and knew what she wanted. We drove down to Melbourne (750km) to look at a 98 Kia sportage....... that miraculously sold by the time we had got there. We did the run around a couple of caryards around there, not an easy task late Saturday afternoon. We happened across another yard with a 97 Forester, auto, fairly tidy but a $10K windscreen price. We had a look over the subie and after tracking down the salesman i simply said i've got $6500 cash, right here, right now. It's all yours, you let me take that forester. 30mins later we were driving home in her new car.

My own experiences. 2013, Portland Vic. Purchased a 2006 VZ wagon, after hours on a Saturday night. The salesman came back to work, straight from the beach with his 2 dogs in the car, lol. Showed me a newspaper advert for the next week with a $3000 minimum trade in. Picked it up 3 days later, happy as larry.

2014, Hamilton Vic. Test drove a 04 cruiser ute after enquiring about a new V8 cruiser. Showed them my trade in. Told them on the spot if they could either give me an extra grand for trade in, or knock another grand off the sale, it'd be contract signed there and then. Picked it up 2 days later.

You've gotta be prepared to walk away from the wrong deal, but appreciate the right one.