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Stories from the Sales Frontlines
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No one cares about your shtuff like you do.
70-80% of it is pretty easy, and the success rate of diagnostics of intermittent issues/hard stuff from the dealer is pretty low as well. Also, in my experience, major repairs from the dealership took more than once visit to complete and correct (Japanese and domestic models).
I kind of enjoy it, its like solving a puzzle. The Contour threw a CEL for catalyst operating below efficiency (bad cat) and bank 2 lean. Autozone said O2 sensor (surprise surprise) and it turned out to be a $7 hose. The bad hose created a vacuum leak that made the car run really rich even though it thought it was lean, and it was dumping so much gas in, the cat couldn't keep up. This was done at home in about an hour with a code reader and a model specific internet forum.
I think the older cars are actually worse. Trouble shooting 80s Volvos and Audis was the most challenging thing I've done so far.
I'm also an engineer and automotive enthusiast so I realize I'm not typical.
Sold a guy a left over LR3 service loaner. Great car no problems till a couple of weeks later the check engine light popped on. Not a big deal the guy just dropped if off so they could see what was wrong.
Testbook says O2 sensor on the drivers side is bad. Replaced 02 sensor light goes out and the computer says everything is good. Tech takes it on a test drive and everything is good. Give the vehicle back to the customer and he is happy. A few days later the light comes on again...
Uh oh.
Computer says it is same problem but the tech knows the chances of getting two bad 02 sensors back to back in the same spot is incredibly high. Check out all the wiring on the driver's side and can't see any problems. Calls up Tech support to see if they have any ideas they tell him to just keep doing what he is doing.
He keeps checking out the wiring and starts looking on the passenger's side even though the computer tells him the problem is on the drive's side. He replaces the passenger's side O2 sensor just to see what happens. Light goes off YEAH but why was the computer saying it was Driver's side???
:confuse:
Takes the truck for a test drive light comes on again... :sick:
Takes an even closer look at the wiring on the passenger's side and finds a wire way back near the firewall that is pinched against the chassis and grounding out. Replaces the wiring harness there and boom problem solved.
Some how that wire grounding to the chassis was screwing the computer all up and making it think the problem was in a completly different area.
That was a year and a half ago and that LR3 has had no problems since.
Buy that guy a cup of coffee on me, and tell him that if he moves to AZ, he should make himself known on Edmunds.
Nice to know that sometimes one really does get what one pays for, given that high line service departments are notoriously expensive.
Stuff like this happens ALL the time.
Thats why it is so difficult to do your own repair work on a modern car.
---to British cars :P
In 15 years of driving and repairing cars, I have yet to debug a short circuit on a vehicle that didn't have a hacked wiring harness (and I knew what I was getting into) or was involved in a moderate to severe collision.
I have also yet to find an 02 sensor being the actual problem.
Like I said, I'm an auto enthusiast and an engineer by training, I have no problems debugging something and determining a root cause for failure. Its challenging, but also rewarding, and there are a number of resources available to help.
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2015 Kia Soul, 2021 Subaru Forester (kirstie_h), 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 (mr. kirstie_h)
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I think the whole forum needs to be renamed, "Stories from the Sales Frontlines, or Anything Else On Your Mind"
Exactly. You are WAY outside the bell curve as far as technical skills are concerned. You are a statistical anomaly, an outlier, not a member of the regular population.
I would have probably ended up at your level if I hadn't bailed out of engineering at the beginning of my Junior year.
99.5 percent of the population do not have your skill set or if they don't don't have the desire to do the work.
This just proves that when you care and want to do a good job you will.
Back in the 70’s when I needed new tires, I checked prices and K-mart was the best price but I was a little concerned since they weren’t a full fledged tire shop but since the price was much better for the Michelin’s I wanted, I decided to give them a shot.
A young guy just out of an automotive school mounted and balanced the tires. Spin balancing was becoming very popular about then. I struck up a conversation with this young guy and he was more than glad to show me how their spin balancer worked. He showed me how the lights would go on and off as he manually rotated the tire to determine where to place the weights on the inside and outside of the rim. He then showed me, after spinning the tire, that the needle was within the marks that were considered ‘acceptable’ but said, “I can do better than that” and he moved the weights and put the needle dead center within the tolerance band. Then to show me how sensitive this balancer was, he put the stick-on tire label on the tread and spun the tire again to show me it would now show an out of balance condition with this small label applied to the tire. I never had any problems with that balancing job
About 8 months later I went back to K-Mart for the 5K mile rebalancing and asked for this guy again by name (I wrote his name on my receipt) but the service manager said he wasn’t there anymore but acknowledge, “that kid was good, I wish we could have kept him but he got a better offer at a car dealer”.
I’ve run into similar situations before with young people in various fields of work and came to the conclusion long ago that just because a person is young doesn’t always mean they aren’t capable they’re just young and given that they care about their profession is what really counts.
I know this was sort of off-topic but we’re a bit slow today.
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
People think that because they are a certain way, or have certain abilities everyone else does too.
I've seen factory engineers w/ Mercedes and Volvo try to debug a car and end up shaking their heads sometimes.
Heck, even Toyota now has issues that are proving hard to correct for the Factory people.
I know an awful lot about cars too, and I wouldn't waste my time trying to debug one.
My time is worth more than that.
It was easy with air tools and a lift. Now I wouldn't bother even though I have access to a shop at the dealership I still wouldn't do that myself. I would most likely pay one of the techs here to do it for me. They could do it faster then I ever could so I wouldn't waste a whole night tearing my car apart.
Then it will go back to the tire place to have a control arm replaced under warranty and to be re-aligned.
The dealership by my folks house tried unsuccessfully for 10 (after which my folks gave up) years to get the rear door to consistently open from the outside. I have to have 20 repair orders with it written on there to fix the rear door. It took me and a crummy Haynes manual about 45 minutes.
Some techs are better than others, but as I said, no one cares about your shtuff like you do.
I've been reading these forums for a while and finally decided to join. Can't wait to hear your responses.
Get ready to be amazed. The majority here could care less if you slapped there wife and kicked there dog. As long as you are $100 lower then the last guy, you win
Start reading from post #8
link title
i don't have a dog, but if i did, i'd let the dog eat you, but only after my wife put you on the street. :shades:
---
but seriously, we are nice and polite here. civilized and all. :surprise:
i think your generalization is a poor one. because people here are interested in cars, i highly doubt they'd be grinders. not the regulars anyway.
the salesperson is our friend.
I don't. When I asked that very question in another thread the answers were that they could care less as long as the price is lowest.
Its no big deal, any half way decent sales person knows he has a shopper 10 minutes after greeting him. You just act polite, give him a price and let him go. Don't wrap allot of time up. If you get lucky there is about a 5% chance you will see them again. A 50% chance if you are the only one in the area with that particular unit.
Its just the nature of the business.
Now here's a concept, maybe Edmunds should periodically ask their population of readers/contributors to fill out a survey.
I'd like to think vehicle geeks (sellers, buyers, modders, fans, etc) hang out here, and people looking for answers sure.
But trying to learn to be the most effective grinder? Do you think that true? Where's the forum / thread where they are learning to do that?
That said, I pay more attention to the service dept. if I intend to get my car serviced there. The service manager at the dealership where I bought my car transferred to another dealer; I followed him and get both my Nissans serviced at the new dealer now. (The old dealer went out of the Nissan business, so it's not like I'm taking money away from him.)
Don't know if I'll buy a car from the new guys when the time comes or not. So far I've had one salesman show me a couple cars while I had our Maxima (with nearly 100,000 miles) in for an oil change. Didn't see anything to make me want to give up the old car - maybe we'll wait 'til 150,000 miles or more.
1) I agree with user777. We're not all cut-throat grinders. I would never buy from a sales rep who treated me in an immature or unprofessional manner, no matter how much savings he promised.
I often assist friends and co-workers with new car purchases. I know two fleet managers working at different local Honda dealerships. Unless there is an inventory issue, I always refer my friends to lower-volume Dealer "A", who I know will provide a more casual purchase experience than high-volume Dealer "B", even though "B" will likely save my friend $100-$200.
2) I bet you would NOT be able to label me after spending 10 minutes with me. For my last car purchase, I spent little time with the sales rep. I asked a few short questions. The test drive was short. Afterward, I brought up a couple questions regarding pricing, and then I left. The sales rep probably figured he wouldn't see me again. Although I didn't show any emotion at the time, I really did like the car, and I liked him (and his store) as a sales rep. Two days later I returned to purchase it, without visiting any other dealers. The final price negotiation probably took 5 minutes, tops.
In contrast, for a lease back in 2004, I visited one Volvo dealer twice in one week. After the time spent with me, I was sincere about giving him my business. I'm guessing he must have thought he had me in the palms of his hands upon my second visit. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a reasonable lease deal from them, nor did I feel I was getting good responses to my questions. I ended up calling the other Volvo dealer, who provided me with detailed lease information immediately, with a better price/package. I leased the new car from the second dealer.
There are plenty of people who buy from crappy retailers, either because they had the car, or simply had given a lower price than the nice guys across town.
Obviously, if you are actively mistreated, that is one thing.
But, if you have a guy who doesn't know his product, isn't overly courteous,and doesn't listen to your needs, yet his boss give you aprice that is $500-1000 less than the nice guy, guess where you are going to buy?
Before ANY of you who aren' in the car biz say "That isn't so", please don't.
Don't waste your breath or bandwith.
It happens everyday.
(updated)
Up to $200: Yes
$200 to $400: Maybe, but only on a high-end purchase, and then I would try my best to get them to throw me a bone. (Examples: window tint; accessory; or a couple extra oil changes)
$500 or above: Never
When facing this dilemma, one should ensure the lower price quotes are "real". Take into consideration any dealer add-ons, Documentation Fees, etc. In other words, consider the full out-the-door prices. If the dealers are within 50 miles of each other, it's rare that one dealer won't come within $400 of another dealer on the exact same model.
(Hope this didn't waste any bandwith...)
I certainly wouldn't pay $1000 more because some sales guy was nice to me. That's ridiculous.
But I've honestly never seen the "nice but expensive" vs. "rude but good deal" split. I've mostly seen "rude AND expensive" and "nice and good deal."
Maybe I've just been lucky.
But I certainly won't buy at all if I don't feel that I am treated "right".
That does not count the small stuff, like "everybody pays MSRP" or "we couldn't possibly let it go for that price."
On the other hand, try to keep me there by holding my keys or other shenanigans and I'm outta there. I also haggle for "so much plus TTL", and if that's not the price in the finance office, see above. But I've never had that problem.
It's really not that nasty a process if you know what you want and do a few things to control it. I mean, really, what can they do to anyone? Of course, once you've been there for three hours, it's kinda too late...
-Mathias
I asked the question because it seems like most people post on here how to beat the dealer. In a few years A&E will be doing a special how to beat the dealership.
It's only a small percentage thta do but some do and that was all I think I was talking about.
Joel you are right too! Majority of people will go somewhere else over $100 just to say to their neighbor they beat the dealer.
I work in a region where there is about 8 dealers in a 20 mile radius. so price is a big part of the job
Yeah, if I was treated rudely, I don't think we would ever get to the point of discussing price.
But, I guess there is always the "rude but good deal" scenario possibility if the dealership is advertising a great deal on the car I want to buy. In that case, if I was treated rudely up front, I would ask management to recommend a different sales rep for me.
Some people just don't like to car shop.
Weird, huh?
are these the same people that will buy based on monthly payments and/or will extend the loan for 5 or 6 yrs? or are these the people putting like 50->75% down and paying the loan off in less than a year?
err.
Happens everyday......
what makes you think it matters how much they are putting down. People will negotiate whatever deal they can. People know what they can afford. so it doesn't matter how much they put down. As long as they are happy with the deal they got.
Question... Would it make a differance to you how much money you were putting down if you could getthe deal 100- 200 cheaper?
Don't be bothered by trolls. Such posts might be permitted in other forums (IMDB comes to mind), but our excellent hosts (as well as a majority of us -- both sales and shoppers!) will not accept it here.
I think you need to be a little more realistic in your expectations. I'm a working professional and with my salary, I would need to work about 20 hours to earn what you want to earn in what - 2 hours, 3 hours total? And that's actually just a residual "honest Joe factor" on top of whatever I might be paying to the other not-so-honest guy - just for you being nice and honest to me, as you should be anyway
But not to dicount that - I think many people would be willing to pay some for that, just not as much. I would say on a $20K- popular vehicle with decent local competition, I stop shopping if I am convinced that YOU are the "best guy in town" and the price is within $200 of what I would consider target/possible bottom line, and I would need to dedicate over 5 hours of unpleasant back-and-forth. I would increase that figure by $100 for each $5K of the price and add couple of hundred in lower competition/upmarket models (of course, if I were in the market for any).
2018 430i Gran Coupe
2001 Prelude Type SH, 2022 Highlander XLE AWD, 2025 Camry SE AWD
Ah...another one on my side of the fence. I gather you also don't see the benefit of "getting the salesman to invest time in the deal so he won't let you get away". :surprise:
Some of us just make this car buying stuff too easy.
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
Define treated them the best and more information. If it means treating my family and myself to a Hawaiian vacation, and providing me info on all the best tourist attractions... then yes. I would pay $1,000 more.
If it means a bunch of "Yes sir Mr. Jipster", free soda and stale popcorn... then no.
If they want to get into protracted negotiation sessions in the hopes of extracting more margin from me, I'm not interested. We can all tell when this happens pretty quickly.
But, as most say, if the sales personnel are rude and unwilling, or they employ obvious delay tactics, my time in their store can be counted in minutes (and very few of them, at that), if not seconds.
At a minimum, I expect all the sales people to have good product knowledge. Of course, that's not always the case. If they don't have the product knowledge, I usually do. In that case, there's only one thing to focus on....and that's price. Just as a generaliztion, I've found those that don't have good product knowledge also seem to be the ones who try to stall, delay and employ all the tactics to get me to a higher price, too.
Those that do have superior product knowledge also tend to be the ones who know what the market is for their product. They also know, in short order, whether my price is "doable" or not.
It goes back to the whole scenario where the buyer has 5 dealers picked out to visit and the guy at the first store does all the work, benefits, features, test drive, the agonizing process of seeing if the blue one drives different then the red one, getting the brochure we pay $4.85 for, etc, etc. basically spending an hour or two with him. Then going to the next 4 lots and spending 15 minutes to get a price and on an exact model because you did all your research and test drives with the first guy.
That is why you get folks who don't want to give you a price, they want to be the last guy you visit. 90% of the time they are the ones who get the sale.
I am not being critical or sarcastic about the process, its just the way the process works. As a diligent shopper you always want to be sure the guy down isn't going to give you a better deal
1. They have no clue when to stop and what is the good deal.
2. Screamer ads tell them that at the next dealership the car will be free.
Those who actually have a clue will likely not haggle very long for couple of hundred (except of course for Bobst, who would walk away from 1 cent - in his own words). It's the other 90% who don't really know when to stop, believe every story said by their neighbor/coworker/media reporter or screamer ad about all those "below cost" deals. Then you have that slick fellow telling you over the phone or on TV he will beat every deal. Hope dies last - if you don't even know how much you should pay, you'll keep that hope alive for as long as you have patience or time.
There are success stories posted here by some internet managers who tapped into unexplored market of people with little time, but enough knowledge to recognize a good deal. They also show plenty of examples of people coming back after they visited a slick fellow claiming he would beat the deal, but he did not. So it is possible - but general population of dealers fears being shopped too much to allow for that model to proliferate - yet. My guess with even more information availability, they will cave in and move into much simpler pricing schemes, especially on popular brands - but it will take some time, as "hope dies last" - here is hope for a whale to show up and pay for a Hawaii vacation for the entire shift
2018 430i Gran Coupe
Do you all know each other or something? Because Neither one of you have posted enough for any one to be able to form an opinion.
Jipster I would be more tan happy to include a trip to Hawai for you and your family just sign right here_________
In regards to treating someone right means you came in and got all the information you were looking for and treated professionaly and in a timely manner. Also someone who showed they were going to work for you after the sale with servicing your car. Whether you needed a ride home or be picked up for the next 3-5 years that you owned the vehicle.
Now granted majority of people on this board are proffessional shoppers and I would recognise that and make sure I had the right car by showing it to you quickly and then get right to business. Business meaning paperwork...
But I appreciate the honesty here that some people would pay more $100- $200...
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Find me at kirstie_h@edmunds.com - or send a private message by clicking on my name.
2015 Kia Soul, 2021 Subaru Forester (kirstie_h), 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 (mr. kirstie_h)
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hahah you got your face ripped off buddy they saw you coming