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Stories from the Sales Frontlines
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I have noticed that to be more common now days. The other night I was watching an episode of Without A Trace and my wife instantly noticed the 3 500' in the first scene. Then they referred by name a couple times to Ford Expedition.
As far as the whole grammar thing goes, I could care less on a message board. Its not like formal proposals are being written here.
Yamaha and Honda might beg to differ!
(Honda Motorcycles, that is...)
And Saab
KBB has the dealer price for an '06 Mazda6s sport hatch at like 20k, but in Aug, they were less than that when they were new. The same with the dealer trying to sell the MazdaSpeed6 at 27k (which Edmunds says is good deal, even though the car was less than that new). The Saab 9-2x is another example.
I know the car sells for what the market will bring, but in my mind, the cost should be something like what it sold for * 0.85 or so for a 1 year old car, .75 for a 2 year old car, .7 for a 3 year old car and then it starts to trail off.
Is there logic somewhere?
If so, you are likely to suffer from the inconsistencies you've noticed. BUT IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE, you wish to scream.
Well, here it is: It doesn't. Car buying is, for most people, an emotional decision. So demand, and therefore prices, will change with the wind.
Just because you could have (and probably SHOULD have) bought a car for a song when it was new does not necessarily make it cheap when it's used.
The 9-2x is a great example. The Civic Si hatch of a few years ago is another... some lucky stiffs got theirs for $15 and change, and you couldn't buy a nice '02 with low miles for much less today. It's disgusting, I know.
KBB retail, by the way, are complete sucker prices.. if you read their small print, it's basically a suggested dealer asking price. Forget it.
I find Edmunds private-party price to be a reasonable goal to shoot for for bread-and-butter cars. At any rate, lots and lots of cars are best bought new. Unfortunately.
Is there logic somewhere?
Not really. Maybe it's time for another plug for my little Honda analysis: http://www.msu.edu/~steine13/cars.html
-Mathias
HUKED ON FONUKS WURKED FUR ME.
I have a friend who has one that says:
BAD SPELLERS OF THE WORLD UNTIE!
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
It is hightly fluid and no book, website, or guide is ever going to be 100%, or even 60% accurate.
Simply put, the is NO logic.
It is hightly fluid and no book, website, or guide is ever going to be 100%, or even 60% accurate.
Simply put, the is NO logic. "
Kinda like the stock market..........
I think it's a very good comparison. Long term share prices are quite logical and very much attached to company's performance and prospects, but short term they can be erratic, totally unjustified and plain idiotic both above and below the "real" (or "fair") value.
Used car "book" prices are also good representation of secular trends in pricing and are very good reference for what they represent (KBB it is an average asking price, Edmunds it may be closer to a transaction price), but a particular car at particular place at particular time may be totally out of whack.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
Yamaha and Honda might beg to differ!
(Honda Motorcycles, that is...)
And Saab
And Ford UK. :shades:
I took a break from the car business and am ready to go back in, but I'm not sure whether I want to go Mazda or BMW. I drive a Mazda, but BMW is mythic for holding gross. (I live in Southern California.)
I was in the business for two years: one year on the line at Nissan in a TO store, six months in internet department at Acura (which is quasi high line if you ask me), and six months again with the first employer but in the internet department this second time around. The hours and the mooches burned me out.
I've recharged and refocused. Anyone working or worked for BMW and able to give me the comparative pros and cons of going high line?
Thanks.
The second thing is selling a brand you believe in. I could never work in a foreign store just because of the way I was raised and my support of the domestic. As a matter of fact My heart could never be in it 100% any place other then a Ford store, and believe me, I have/am riding out the bad times because I know the worm will turn. My wife having a great job does not hurt though.
If Vinny lives in NY he is probably counting on our vote buying politicos to bail him out with taxpayer money.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
Yamaha and Honda might beg to differ!
(Honda Motorcycles, that is...)
And Saab
And Ford UK.
And GM US. It was called the "Quad-4." Looks like your customers were more "with the times" than you, boomcheck! :P
True, but that's no reason to contribute to the stupidation of a nation. (I know that's not a word. :P ) We do have younglings that read these boards as well.
Surely you don't really mean that?
The Quad4 was an inline 4 cylinder with 4 valves per cylinder.
Plus, I have friends that work in bimmer stores.
To succeed in a BMW store, you have to have alot of horsepower. People just don't come in and flop.
You need to be savvy and aggressive and there usually isn't a closer ot TO system to fall back on.
If you are good, you can make a very good living selling bimmers.
If you aren't good, you'll get blown out.
Highline stores don't tend to tolerate average performers for very long.
Regardless, you are going to have to put in ALOT of hours, esp since you will be living off floor ups.
Mass market stores tend to get more traffic, than highline.
Highline traffic tends to be more qualified to buy, but much more choosy about what they buy.
Personally, I'd go highline if you can.
In the old days, your limited experience in the business wouldn't get you in the door at a BMW dealership.
However, there has been a real erosion of talented, qualified salespeople over the last few years, so if you look polished, interview well, and have a good head on your shoulders, your lack of experience probably won't matter as much.
Surely you don't really mean that?
No thats what I meant. I could care less but I choose not to/too/two. If not I would have put I couldn't/could not care less
In that case we need to start communicating in youngling speak.
i.e Hay I need sum 411 on a hooptey, I want 20"s and a system r any uv u up 4 it. Got 2 go now brb ttyl SNAP!!!
Lemme google it up...
Okay. After a cursory look, there's not much mentioning the piston layout other than on Wikipedia saying it's an inline 4. (And we all know wikipedia is the authority on information.) I did see a link to something on Craig's List for a Quad-4 V6! :surprise:
Any commiserators?
I'll help.....but only if you let me "gift" the receptionist.... :P
I know in '76 Chevy made a Vega Cosworth that was an I4 FI 16v DOHC, but I don't know how much that counts against the Quad4's bragging rights.
It was a 16V I4, hence the name.
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2015 Kia Soul, 2021 Subaru Forester (kirstie_h), 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 (mr. kirstie_h)
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tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper
And yes, even though there were V4s before, and might be V4s avaialbe on motorcycles, my point was that they don't come in modern passenger cars.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Good luck !!!
Grammar and the Peeves that Pet It
You all started it, not me.
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I still remember fondly the good ol' days -- vinyl 12" record albums; FM stations playing interesting music; three networks broadcasting quality TV shows; and people actually talking on phones.
I guess I've become one of those grumpy middle-aged dudes!
one young guy commented that it's too much work to pull an album out of a sleve and put in on the table and land the stylus.
hmmm, he's not likely to enjoy picking up a paper either. a least not yet...
i have this theory - that as you grow older and slow down, you begin to notice the pleasure of the tactile. you know, actually handling or building things. maybe working with extremely low-tech tools.
that's what these youngsters need to do, they need to manipulate or build something physically real instead of virtually in the computer world.
i can see the next entertainment "reality" show comming to a station for grown-ups... young people are provided tools and raw materials to build a shelter or vessel to leave the island.
do they know how to work a tape measure? can they cut a piece of lumber with a saw?
that would be a trip to watch.
this is sad but true. last night i helped numerous 8 and 9 year olds fold paper airplanes. some of them had never picked up paper and folded it before.
i remember freaking out a youngster once by making a cup to drink water out of a piece of paper...
You can boil water in it over a naked flame as well. That should freak him out even more.
I agree that today's kids aren't very 'hands on', but I think that the problem goes back to their parents generation as well.
Today's kids aren't likely to find the tools in the garage or shed to allow them to experiment in wood or metal.
Going back a couple of generations to when I was young, most kid's fathers would either fix the car themselves, or build shop projects etc. That practical knowledge would often be passed on from father to son, but I think that these days things are very different.
Indeed they are! Cars are incredibly more complex these days. I think even MacGyver would be stumped!
tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper
in some cases, diagnosis and repair by swapping major components. :lemon:
in some cases, diagnosis and repair by swapping major components.
First, if some guy wants to charge me x-bazilion dollars for a part, he better be sure its going to fix the problem.
Second, its not so hard, the internal combustion engine still needs air, fuel and spark at the appropriate times. Backyard mechanics need a $100 code reader to stay in the game, and the internet has enough make/model specific forums to help guide though the codes and what they really mean. That code reader helps determine where the problem is coming from and helps the tech to isolate it (although it often presents a symptom...cylinder bank 1 lean...etc) and then the tech has to debug.
Its just different. We were working on a metal bumper (pre'74 or so) MGB and we couldn't get the "upgraded" carbs to run right. The crotchety old guy down the street saw us struggling and after some commentary, had the thing running great in about 45 minutes.
All is not lost, but I also think a lot of kids would rather install a neon light kit and MP3 player on their vehicle than performance equipment.
As any Euro car mechanic if he thinks so.
Cars have gotten too complicated and it takes a great deal of expertise to correctly diagnose and repair a modern car.
there is still alot of proprietary info that the code readers are no good for.
now i suppose the vechicle manufacturers run special classes on diagnosis and repair, and a reward for being a good tech (i would hope) is that you get to attend this specialized training to be even more valuable to the store.
there is still alot of proprietary info that the code readers are no good for.
It takes some time and an good method for debugging. It's not any harder than it was before, the car just uses more information to make decisions. The trick is to find what piece of information is missing, and then either correct that sensor, or the condition identified by that sensor.
The better code readers have modules for make-specific vehicle codes based on that manufacturer's message set. Alternatively, they just pull the letter and number and you google for the vehicle specific code.
This is a backyard mechanic, not a dealership professional, as I would expect they would have better training and more resources available to them. As my buddy the propulsion specialist likes to say, "it ain't rocket science." :P
My disagreement comes from experience.
Back in the day when cars had maybe 1 microprocessor and an o2 sensor, it was relatively easy.
Today, with multiple processors, sensors, fiber optic networks and more software than some pc's it aint easy.
Heaven help you if something is not or incorrectly diagnosed or, worse yet, the ECU itself hangs up. Then it's not "difficult", it's impossible to fix. I'm pretty sure every mechanic has a story or three about fairly new cars with terrible, intermittent problems that nobody seems to be able to fix.
Personally, I've been pretty lucky. Even my '96 Millenia -- first year of mandatory OBD-II, very complex car, lots of electricals -- didn't give me any problems, and it had over 160k on the clock. Of course, I only had it six months or so... but I was concerned when I bought it.
-Mathias
If one has mechanical and electronic aptitude, and training, plus the tools, more often than not, the repair will be done better by the owner than by a shop. Buy authentic factory shop manuals - they're worth their weight in gold.
I've taught my son and daughter the ins and outs of preventive and corrective auto maintenance, and even if they don't "turn their own wrenches," they will be better off for it.
Exactly why I let someone who knows what they're doing (hopefully) work on my car. There are just so many more parts, systems, and sensors now that I'm more likely to make things worse than better. Add in vehicle and use specific tools and my total lack of training and I refuse to do it.
The total extent of work I've done on my current car is to replace both headlight assemblies. Made out of crappy plastic that turned nearly white. Dealer wanted $600 to replace them. Bought some used on ebay for $150 and spent 10 minutes swapping them out.