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Stories from the Sales Frontlines
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:mad:
They sure look like real trucks to me. Why do you say they are not real trucks? The Sequoia and even the 4runner will eat the Exploder for lunch any day.
Mack
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
The Explorer is a fine vehicle, to be sure, but I must agree with Mack on this one. Toyotas are just indestructible and tough. In my younger and far dumber days, I had an Escort, which I crashed (front end) and it was totalled. Later in life, I had an accident (deer strike) with my Corolla (which I still have). The damage looked similar, both cars were about the same age, but the Toyota frame was stronger and did not suffer significant damage. I still drive that car (or, at least, I will when I can walk again due to my knee surgery) and it is as tough as nails.
That all being said, if I were to look at SUVs, I would definitely look at the Explorer and the 4Runner (and then probably buy a Santa Fe) :P
At least Mr. and Mrs. Gridell were not hurt, and neither was explorerx4's family - that's the important thing here.
Any stories about people's actions during this kind of event?
More humor is another out-lying regional dealership has an auction scheduled for used. You can check listings online!!! And that leaves you time to check Kelley Blue Book, NADA, and "Edmonds" values.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
You waited so long to complete the story that even you don't remember Jim Gridell! :P
Richard
Don't know who kdyhx is, but kyfdx was just a visiting host in this discussion. His powers are somewhat limited.
"The Tidester" is the head cheese here. You will heed an bow down to his authority... or suffer the same fate that was bestowed upon madmanoo.
i.e So, it ends with moo again. Why am I always the one getting yanked?
Answer: The trouble makers posts are always red flagged. :P
Which brings me to a short sales story from Saturday.
An elderly couple pulls up in an 04 Sienna. I wait for them to get out and as they start walking towards me I ask if they are here to see anyone in particular. "We're here to see Jessie." the old timer tells me in a gruff and grumpy manner. "Jessie?" I ask "Yes, the sales manager." he replies. "Ok, come on in and I'll let him know you are here. What is your name sir?" I ask. "Gridell" he replies, "Jim Gridell".
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
And no extra fees, right? Sorry, but I'm in Florida and it's turing in to a So. Cal. snake pit here.
I just wish they could make decent O2 sensors. I've had to raplce on on my son's 04 Taco with 40K miles and a friend just had to replace one on their 04 4-Runner with 67K miles.. Both repairs were to the tune of $350-$380 each.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Trust me. I'm used to it.
On a sidenote, what am I missing? I keep seeing tons of posts deleted and I can't follow the line of thought on the forum. Duke posted something and I'm not sure where it came from.
-moo
After participating in the recent spate of "guess that tune", I've come to the conclusion that every single one of you are older than I am
After forcing my son to listen to Van Morrison, Zep, Who, and other more esoteric relics for years, he's getting his come-uppance. I'm now a full-fledged "Goo Goo Dolls" fan based on his own personal listening habits ("Flaming Lips"? I originally thought he was going to have me listen to a soundtrack from a porn movie). But, my son considers the goo-goos an old group. I just added them to my i-pod as "new music".
Back to cars, saw my first Challenger in the flesh (in the "metal"?). Orange, of course. Sitting in front of somebody's house, with a "For Sale" sign on it. How long could the lucky owner have possibly had it? I didn't even know they'd hit the streets, yet.
Sign said "First offer of $50,000 puts this dream car in your garage".
Ummmm....I'll pass.....not in my lifetime!
That is the norm and you are not alone.
Wife loves her car, doesn't want a new one yet. So, still cheaper than buying new.
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
MODERATOR /ADMINISTRATOR
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)
Review your vehicle
I just looked up Nissan's statistics on what people are comparing Nissan to.
First on the list was Toyota
Second on the list was Honda
Third on the list was Ford
I thought it was interesting enough to share that with you :surprise:
Hope you have 100% penetration and are making reserve on everyone!!!
GP
Nope, I tried that and they said just the 3yr/36K mile warranty :mad:
Duke posted something and I'm not sure where it came from.
That is the norm and you are not alone.
Ditto.
Once in band camp, I was walking down a grassy knoll.. oops! Wrong story!
When I got into the car biz I started at a domestic store. The one with the shiny black bow on the emblem. Everything you may have heard of in regards to the car biz happened here. Customers would lie to, and customers would lie too!
So the store decided to have a "Slasher" sale to drum up some business. They run an ad in the local rag advertising hundreds of new and clean pre-owned vehicles. It read something like this:
"Attention Happy Roads! Due to the tremendous response to our new car tent sale, we have hundreds of pre-owned low mileage vehicles we took in on trade.! Honda, Lexus, Acura, Toyota, Nissan, you name it we have it! The deals will be so good you may have to camp out overnight for this even. We have vehicles starting at $299.00* Please stop by our location at 231234 Military Road and fill out a registration form to ensure you get to pick the best of the crop. We'll seee you heeeeere!"
Me and a buddy of mine called Buddy read the announcement in disbelief.
"Tremendous response to our new car tent sale?" both of us said it in unity,, and laughed.
Later that day we were instructed on what to do to prepare for the grand sale. We where supposed to fill out some registration cards which looked like innocent registration cards. Name, number, address, place of employment, monthly income, etc,etc,,,;)
The first victim,, I mean customer of the day came in looking for an Acura Legend for $299.00. We told her that car would not be in until Sunday and asked if she had another choice. "Yeah, a Lexus would be fine too."
So you can imagine how the rest of the day went. We had hundreds of people come in to "register" to get a chance at that mystical $299.00* vehicle.
Next day was a Saturday and I was anxiously waiting for a phone call from someone that wanted to hire me to sell at their dealer group. I had a customer that I was getting nowhere with when the phone rings and the receptionist tells me I have a call.
"This is Mack, how can I help?" I asked. "Mack! this is Richi Cardone. How are you?"
he asked. "I'm working a deal right now, how about you?" I reply. "How would you like to start working for us monday morning?" he asks. "I would be delighted!!" I respond. I get up and get one of the other salespeople and tell him: "Here you, finish this up will ya?" I tell him. "Where are you going?" he asks. "I'm going to a better dealership and a better product. I can't stand this place anymore with all their lies and deceit. And that's just the customers. Management is a different story." I grabbed my jacket and headed out to my car.
Monday morning I called my buddy Buddy to find out how their "Slasher" sale had gone.
"Oh man, you should be happy you left this weekend. It's was a total disaster and a madhouse. You know those "registration" forms they made us fill out?" he asks.
"Yeah, what about them?" I ask intrigued. "Those were actually mini=credit apps." he says. "Jack was in the back office pulling those people's credit." he tells me. ."No EXCREMENT!" I respond in disbelief.
"Yep, that's what he was doing all the time. And that's not all. The best is yet to come" he tells me. "The sale actually began on Sunday. All the people that registered came in and they were given a balloon to tie around their wrist. The balloons were color coded. Green balloon+credit, can buy anything they want. Yellow balloon, So so but still good buyers. And the last one was a red balloon meaning those people had horrible credit, bankruptcy, and lots of late payments" he continued. So you can guess all the saleman were after the customers with green balloons." he finished.
"Wow. Unbelievable. So did they sell many cars?" I asked.
"Not really, maybe 5 the whole weekend. I had a customer come up to me for help. She had a red balloon and said no one would help her" he replied. "And how about you? did you sell anything?" I asked. "No, I'm doing lot patrol now. Like it better too, and no long hours."
The End.
:shades:
* price is plus tax, title, registration, and $299.00 processing fee. Only one at this price. See store representative for additional information.
Usually when a dealer spends a ton of dough on advertising a huge sale, and the results are dismal, the General Manager gives crap to everyone Monday morning.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
i can't buy a toyota because if you want to have a 4x4 with 3 rows you need to buy a sequoia(too big), 4runner is the right size, but only seats 5.
That's easy, you just have to hit it hard enough
based on what happened to my vehicle, i don't understand how a 35-45k vehicle can get totalled driving off the lot.
That's easy, you just have to hit it hard enough
Or
Thank God for air bags.
Man, that hits home. Past Sunday I took my kids to the pool at the local community center, and instead of waiting for them there, I went to the local Toyota dealer to check out the flavor of the day, Corolla. A young kid ups me, and we go for a test drive. After the test drive he asks me if I want to write it up, to which I agreed if they appraise my trade in.
They let me sit there waiting for half an hour, and then SM comes over, drops off the first pencil and tells me they are willing to discount the car by $1000. The purchase order shows the discounted price plus $200 for the floor mats (that were itemized on the sticker) + Tx + tl + Fr + Pr. The trade-in amount was $2000 below the Black Book average condition. The SM runs away, and the salesman stays. I ask the salesman what those acronyms with plus sign next to them mean. Tx is for tax, tl is for title ($200), Pr is the processing fee ($399) and Fr is for freight ($690)! I told him that the freight is included in MSRP, so where is the discount. His reply, “No, destination is included in the MSRP, freight is not.” When the SM comes back 30 minutes later, he tells me: “How about we give you a couple hundred more for your trade in?” At this point I was about to blow. I told him: “I understand that you want to sell the car at MSRP, but you don’t have lie to do it. In addition, if you are going to ask MSRP have some decency and offer fair market value for the trade-in.”
TO BE CONTINUED
Kia tried that on me last week. Both Kia stores stated I hadn't included destination/freight in my offer, when I showed that I had they changed the subject.
It's almost senseless to neogitate by discount, or so much under invoice. They can always hit you with high doc. fees or the dealer add ons. Better to just make an out the door offer, based on invoice of car (plus or minus), tax, title, lisence, and $100 for doc. fee/miscellaneous. Our $250 under invoice price the internet salesmen gave us, ended up being $600 over invoice.
the priority is us getting the kids through 4 years of higher education.
I don't have the warranty booklet for the 04 Tacoma in front of me as my son is out of state, but I checked my wife's 04 Highlander and it does state 3yr/36k miles for the emissions control systems.
It can when Richard makes up the story.
At my old Honda store our demo Odyssey EX-L w DVD got totalled going into a water filled ditch while on a test drive.
Strange things do happen.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
It does not happen often, but I have been taken for a fool on rare occasions and it could happen again.
The kid might be legitimate, but I’m reserving judgment.
What cars are you selling kingofthering?
g'night
:)_
:shades:
When we saw she was ok we went into the pond to help her out. And of course me being the joker that I am said to her: "I know you were running late for your appointment but our sevice department is now closed. Since you're here anyway why don't we look at a new Camry. Looks like yours is all wet."
She was not amused.
:confuse:
Koi prices
Koi pics
If you had experience there, just curious, how did you handle customers like us (most of us), who dont want to do payment deals, who have done their homework, who knwo the back end F&I "pack" fees, etc?
Would you let "our kind" walk if we came in with such knowledge in hand? What about guys like me who would make one offer, and one offer only? How about people who didn't want the "added wheels, customized cladding, etc (known as "chopper editions"?)?
You are SO good. Thanks for finding that for me. I was working from memory. I had the wrong model, but at least the story is finished.
Richard
I've noticed that as well. When we see a strange post, perhaps the Hosts should put an edit note that says "This is in response to a deleted post." On the other hand, we do have many strange posts. :P
Richard
I'm sorry, but we no longer accept those here. :P
Richard
Shoot, when I was 20, I had a Buick that was only three years younger than me!
MODERATOR /ADMINISTRATOR
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)
Review your vehicle
What?! And ruin the flavor of this forum? Surely, you jest. :P
Richard
Still mad at jip for putting such a creepy vision in my minds eye. :P
masochist.
;P
j/k
'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
But can we still call you Shirley, Steeler's Wheel?
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)