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Stories from the Sales Frontlines
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There are a few that do pay strictly salary but those are rare.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
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2015 Kia Soul, 2021 Subaru Forester (kirstie_h), 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 (mr. kirstie_h)
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Some dealers will quote a price minus the destination charge. Then they spring it on the customers after the deal is done.
That's partly your fault you know, for not coming to a mutual agreement on what constitutes an 'out the door' price. Give those dastardly dealers an inch...........
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Believe me, I am very aware whether or not the destination fee is added to the quote. But I will bet plenty of folks are not. It is very deceptive
Some websites list the dealer price of the vehicle and in big letters clearly state that freight is included in the price and others do not mention it at all. I wonder how many people go to the dealer that has a lower price listed online but end up paying more in the long run because freight was not included..
Don't even get me started on newspaper ads... My favorite ad running right now is a local Nissan dealer that offers a $99 monthly lease on ANY Nissan vehicle.. What they don't tell you is that you have to put $5-6K down on the car to lease a 350Z for 27 months...
There was one in the local paper made up to look like a news story about them selling cars for $99 down and $99/month. Had to read through almost the whole thing before you came to the words "wholesale cars".
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
She never read the fine print which, to their credit existed, said "after rebate, military rebate, customer loyalty rebate and I think also 'not all models'".
So, if I was active or retired military, currently driving a Hyundai, and wanted a base accent, I'd have been in luck.
And, of course, the offer was only good if you paid full MSRP plus ADM for any 2005 or 2006 Subaru in stock.
After all that, I figured I'd have to give them around $12000 to take my Honda Passport and sell me a Subaru at around $6000 over invoice!
...They are NOTHING but trouble especially as they get a lot of miles on them.
The largest aftermarket warranty company in the US will NOT sell a warranty on one for ANY price.
They used to but no matter how much they charged, they still got burned.
Is this true what isell said in post #2353 ? If I missed your reply please disregard this post, otherwise, please tell us what's going on with these high-priced wheels ?
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
I am presuming you mean 2000-2005. Giving the conditions they would give me zero for my Hyundai since I am 135+k on the odometer. Then above that pay over sticker? Are they kidding?
I am not sure what happened but all of a sudden I started getting those "pre approved financing on any new or used car in stock up to $XX,XXX.XX" promotions in the mail. My dog even got one a while back. :confuse:
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
He liked the car well enough that he would buy one. The deal was that he wanted a 3 year lease, 15,000 miles a year, 0 down and no trade. He gave me his card and asked me to fax him our numbers by 6pm that evening and he would make a decision in the morning. He made it clear it was once chance, he didn't want any 'phone calls, assume best credit and he wouldn't be contacting the losers. Apparently he gave the other dealers (Lexus, BMW, Caddy, Jag and MB) the same instructions. Within 20 minutes of turning up on the lot he was gone.
I spoke to my SM about it and he decided we'd write up a pretty strong deal. I put it all together and faxed it through around 4:30pm.
Got the call the next morning. I got the sale, not because of the deal but because I was the ONLY one who had actually done as he asked. He asked for all the paperwork to be prepared and the car to be made ready. Lucky for me we had an identical car to mine in stock or I would have been walking home. He came in that afternoon. Signed the papers, looked over the car, shook my hand and was off. Probably 45 minutes in total. I got a 100% survey from him, a glowing letter to my GM and at least 4 referrals that I sold to, including his wife and son.
I just wanted to balance out a bad customer story with a good one!
One Sunday morning, two ladies of a certain alternative lifestyle turned up, driving a Toyota that had seen better days. They were both dressed pretty scruffily but so what? So do I when I'm not working. Went out and introduced myself, asked them what they were looking for, tok them on a tour of the lot to see what we had and picked out a nice silver G35 sedan.
After the test drive, they told me about their other experiences that morning. The Lexus guys ignored them completely. Jaguar showed them a used Pontiac and a Saturn, both trades for under $6K. BMW asked them to leave the premises.
Anyway, it came to negotiation time and there was none. They were happy to pay full sticker (they offered, I didn't ask for it) because of the way I treated them. It turned out that one of them was the senior partner for the largest law firm in town. Needless to say, that deal led to another 100% survey, a good few referrals and a very nice letter to the GM.
Anyway seems to me that a senior partner would have understood how much appearance counts in business and legal transactions.
Perhaps, but a couple of dealers lost sales because of their sartorial prejudices.
tidester, host
The sales guys talk about qualifying people and one of the tools they have to use is appearance. If that partner had shown up on a busier day, would he have worked with her if there had been a couple of guys in suits browsing the lot?
Beleive me, I can look extremely grungy sometimes
And if she was the senior partner in a law firm, ready to be on the lookout for any sorts of prejudice in the selling process.
It doesn't sound like it from the story. Besides don't these places have signs that say "We reserve the right to refuse service..."
I don't think she would have had the same experience if she was shopping a regular car (Nissan, Toyota, GM et al). She was shopping the high line stuff and there is an element of snobbery at that level.
He drove the next delivery date in Dayton and picked out the Caddy at a downtown dealer where they understand coveralls clean can mean a working person with money.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
...They are NOTHING but trouble especially as they get a lot of miles on them.
The largest aftermarket warranty company in the US will NOT sell a warranty on one for ANY price.
They used to but no matter how much they charged, they still got burned.
Is this true what isell said in post #2353 ? If I missed your reply please disregard this post, otherwise, please tell us what's going on with these high-priced wheels ?
jmonroe
Ok I will work on this now. This is going to be a long post and will go all over the place. The only aftermarket warranty we sell is the CNA branded warranty. We typicaly sell the Land Rover Assured warranty instead though as it mirrors the Land Rover factory warranty.
Like just about all of the other british auto makes Land Rover always suffered from severe under capitlization. You need money to make a quality product and they were always struggling for money. The early Land Rovers, the one you always see driving around the outback in Austraila or africa, were very simple vehicles. They were more like tractors then cars and were easy to fix with the simpliest hand tools. The major design of these series vehicles did not change much over 50 plus years.
Take a look at the pictures of the 1997 Defender and the 1959 series II Land Rover in my carspace section. There are a lof similarties between those vehicles and they actually still use some of the same parts on the Defender that were used on the 1959 Rover.
Now you are probably wondering where I am going with this brief discussion of rover history. Where I am going is parts and how parts supliers can hold a fiancialy weak company hostage.
Most auto makers do not make the parts they use to build their vehicles. Many of the parts are made by third party companies and the auto maker has to hold that company accountable for parts quality.
Rover did not have the necessary capital to hold its part supliers accountable for quaility parts. As land rover was kicked from parent company to parent company over the years it lost more and more control over its parts supliers.
By the time the 1990's rolled around Rover was on the brink of banckruptcy. BMW bought the entire company for 1.2 billion dollars.
BMW basicly let the rover car division fall apart. It finally went under completly a little while ago.
As you probably know BMW revived the MINI car division as its new premium/FWD based car division.
BMW used Land Rover as a jump start into the SUV market. It was cheaper to take the four wheel drive technology that Land Rover had spend almost 50 years developing then for BMW to develop it on its own.
BMW did start to fix some other Rovers problems but for the most part they were just getting into the SUV market for cheap. The one great thing BMW did was design the current generation Mark III Range Rover. They did a pretty good job and the guy that headed up the design team eventually left BMW to finish the Range Rover when Ford purchased just the Land Rover part of Rover Cars from BMW.
Ford started back up where BMW left off to fix the two biggest problems that Land Rover had with a huge infusion of cash.
Problem one:
Very bad parts. Ford instituted new controls of Land Rover's parts supliers. In the past when bad parts came to rover they did not have the contract strength to give the bad parts back.
They just got put on the vehicles and the vehicle got to the customer with bad parts. Then when those bad parts failed they were replaced with more bad parts.
Ford set it up so that if bad parts came in the parts suplier was actually responsible for fixing it. Wow what a novel idea. Huge monetary penalties would be put on companies that supply inferior parts. Screw up too many times and the company lost the contract. Ford had the finacial clout to actually back up their threats.
Problem 2:
The labor Unions.
If you think the UAW is bad they are nothing like the British Unions. At the height of the problems with the labor unions workers would delibrately put parts on the wrong way.
Rovers would come into the dealership and within just a few thousand miles they would blow a motor. The motor would get pulled and their would be a big smiley face painted on the block.
Things in the engine would be assemblied so that they would last just long enough to make it through quality control checks.
You can't compare Land Rover products of today to vehicles made even two years ago. The product line has been completly changed. Even the Mark III Range Rover has an entirely new driveline and improved electronic systems as well.
Once the LR2 comes out next year Land Rover will finally have a complete product line in the US again that is completly modern on all new platforms. You can't compare Reliablity studies from CR or other long term studies because none of the current models even existed four years ago.
I understand what you're saying, and it may well be that they have turned the corner, but the public has been told that same untrue thing regarding Volkswagen and Mercedes quality control and GM product competitiveness. Just playing devil's advocate.
This was certainly true pre-1986 or so. Certainly, I saw some pretty appalling things going on. I remember being advised by a shift manager at the Ford plant in Dagenham, England, not to take any female employees to the assembly areas because he couldn't gaurantee their safety.
Union power was pretty much gone but the late 1980's pretty much thanks to Maggie.
"Ford set it up so that if bad parts came in the parts supplier was actually responsible for fixing it. Wow what a novel idea. Huge monetary penalties would be put on companies that supply inferior parts. Screw up too many times and the company lost the contract. Ford had the financial clout to actually back up their threats."
And was this power ever misused. I worked as the QA manager for a company that produced weatherstrips at the time of Ford's Q1 program among other things. One day I got a 'phone call from the incoming parts manager at the Ford plant in Halewood, Liverpool (where they make Jag X-Types now). Our latest delivery was all rubbish and if I didn't get their pronto to fix it we'd never get another Ford contract again. I grab a trusty sidekick and hit the road to Liverpool. Five hours later I was standing in the middle of a load of boxes in the parts section looking at piles of faulty weatherstrips made by our competitor. I point this out to the guy who chewed me out. His response? "Well, if their not yours get out of here and stop wasting my time." Funny, we never had these problems with any of the European Ford plants.
Anyway, my company made a strategic decision to go after business with the new Toyota, Nissan and Honda plants opening in the U.K. at the time and we ditched Ford ASAP.
Personally, I found that the standards,quality and expectations of the German car companies especially was just years ahead of the British and American firms. Engineering wise, the Germans knew exactly what they were doing and expected their suppliers to do the same. Working with the engineers from MB, VW and BMW was always an absolute pleasure compared to the guys from Ford, Vauxhall and Rover. Those were the days.
Sorry for hi-jacking your post to reminisce a little, Brit.
Conversely, many of those who don't "have it" will try to make believe they do by dressing to the nines.
Thanks for the answer,
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
Decided to dump my much moved, but very trouble prone old MGB GT (which served me well through college...and taught me a lot about do-it-yourself car repair). Due to owning a brittish mark for so long and subsequently knowing their "quirks", I was a bit partial to them.
Decided to look at the new (at the time) ROVER sedan, which was nearly identical to the recently introduced Acura Legend. The Rover had the same drivetrain and many of the same body panels as the Legend, but had a bit more "lux" built into it.
I should have been wary when I went to the only place selling the Rover, and found they were also selling Yugos and Saabs in the same dealership. A simple test drive showed that the Rover was garbage. Didn't buy it (thankfully). Just goes to show, you can have the best materials in the world, but if you can't screw it together correctly, it will be a miserable car.
That Rover sedan didn't last more than a few years in the marketplace. Acura, on the other hand, is still here and doing well.
my dad is a general contractor. drives a beat up nissan frontier truck (before that had a basic dakota, a chevy s-10, and a ford ranger). the frontier is the first 4x4 automatic of the group.
anyways, he desides he wants to invest some money, so he goes to the td waterhouse offices and when he gets up there, the secretary asks "sir, are you lost?" my dad was just getting out of work and looked very dirty, sweaty, and stuff. he said he was looking to invest some money. the secretary at the desk said "well sir, you have to at least be able to invest $500". he goes, "will $250k suffice?"
from then on out, he was always greeted by a standing secretary with "good morning mr. xxxxxx"
like that corny old saying goes...never judge a book by its cover...
-thene
This kind of crap goes on way too much. If it were me, the 'standing secretary' would have been at another investment firm.
I just wouldn't have stuck around that place !!
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
Well he managed to finally get him to agree to buy a car on terms that really were very reasonable for both sides and now that the delivery day is here he is not happy with anything.
I guess this is his final negotation tactic to just be unhappy with everything, grumble and complain about everything from the condition of the vehicle to the way the paperwork is being presented probaby hoping someone will give him something else free or lower the price some more.
I think in a few minutes he is just going to walk out and nod take the vehicle.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
Those were his exact words after I had only met him only about 15 minutes before.
I got an e-mail price proposal from a customer offering $1,000 below net (invoice-holdback-mfg. bonus for units) on......wait for it.....
Honda Fit. I let him know the situation with the cars and that we are not charging a premium to get one and that we would happily order one. His response was that they are not selling well, dealers near him have month old units and that he knows about the rebate from Honda.
This job would be fantastic if it wasn't for the customers sometimes
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Sounds like the 216. It won the "What Car?" (a U.K. motoring magazine) car of the year award in '86 I think. I had one as a company car. It was total garbage. The trim fell off, the windows leaked, changing gear was like stirring a spoon in a pot of porridge. I was never so glad to get out of that thing and into a Ford Escort!
$1,678 is more then fair for the cleanup of a Fit, right? :P
I was test driving a Jetta with some clients and the drive was finishing up. As we are stopped waiting to turn into the driveway in front of the showroom, we are rear-ended by a guy going about 15 miles per hour.
I figured no huge deal, everyone is okay, no bleeding or broken glass. I turn around to look at the guy and he signals that he is going to turn into the parking lot. We start to pull in and he takes off.
So no it is a hit and run. Luckily another salesperson was standing outside waiting for an appointment and saw the accident. He also got the plate number for the guy.
Customer then says that he likes the car and offers 50% of MSRP on a the car.
I asked where he came up with that number and he replied:
"this car has been in an accident and I don't think it is worth anything now."
When I pointed out the 20 other Silver Jetta GLS's we had, he said his offer was firm because Jettas get in accidents.
I still see him driving his old car, I wonder if he will ever replace it.
But in this case I will support a $2,000 Doc fee, $750 for Armour All on the wheels and a $2,500 just because your an @#$%$ surcharge.
Or just sell him the car for what he wants but then sell him the keys for $5,000.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D