I have done battle with a demon. I have fought long and hard, and have at last emerged from the Coliseum, victorious. What manner of evil being was this? It was the much-feared sales manager of a local car dealership here on the Seacoast of New Hampshire... I will leave them anonymous, although they don't deserve it and so I've planted a pretty strong hint to their identity.
Now don't get me wrong: I know my title implies that all car salesman are evil. That's really not true. In fact, there are several that I know who are down-right nice guys. And, because I've been working in a sales-related job for several years now and know many tricks of the trade, I got a very good deal from this particular transaction. Actually, the sales guy involved wasn't that bad... it was his Sales Manager that irritated me. Of course, the inability for any car salesman to do anything without "checking with the sales manager" meant he was involved during the whole tedious three-day negotiation process. But it still irked me to the point where I felt the need to rant about it online. The following sales tactics were used against me, despite the fact that I said up front that I knew these tricks and did not want them to try to pull them on me... man, people just don't listen:
- "You'll only pay this much a Month": I don't give a crap what I would pay each month. At least, not initially. I want to know what a car can do, and HOW MUCH IT COSTS. How much a car costs does not equal how much you pay a month, and vice-versa. Get the price down as low as it can, evaluate my trade-in, and I'll know if the car is reasonably priced and then make a decision on whether I want to finance it at all. Once I know that, I'll talk about financing. And only then. But I had to ask no less than SIX TIMES (6!!) before the paper with the casually scrawled list of monthly payments was removed and I got a "best and final offer" on the car's actual price. Unbelievable.
- "With this down-payment, you'll only pay...": This is a subset of the above gripe. They try to pass off your down-payment like it's a dealer discount. Newsflash: You pay the dow-payment, not them.
- "I'm sorry were you in a hurry?": This is the worst trick in the book and any car salesman who uses it should go straight to Hell, pausing only long enough for me to bitch-slap him or her across the brow with a reverse-crescent kick. Basically, the sales guy gets his or her hands on your car keys. It's usually so they can test-drive your trade-in, so there isn't any way you can actually avoid giving them your keys. Once they have your keys, you can't leave until they give the keys back. I was late to an appointment because this fat jerk had my keys, even though I repeatedly mentioned that I had a appointment to be at... an appointment to which I was ultimately very very late to attend.
- "I'm pretty sure that model has that feature": This one is simple: You're not sure? That's funny, I thought it was your job to know these things. Go check. usually, "not sure" means "no, it doesn't but I'm hoping you let it go because I want to sell you this car under false assumptions because I am EVIL."
- "Finance charges to rival a home mortgage": I don't know why a bank would charge me $2000 to close on a brand new house, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, but for some reason the same bank wants $3000 to close on an $11,000 car loan. Hmmm... is the slimy sales manager trying to get some of his losses back by over-charging me for a loan origination? Quite frankly, I think this should be illegal. [EDIT: To be fair, this happened at a different dealership, long ago. I was watching for it this time, and nipped it in the bud by researching the credit rates and terms ahead of time.]
The Outcome:
I didn't fall for any of these tricks (at least I don't think I did), and I actually almost turned down the really good deal on this particular car because of the whole "not giving me my keys back" thing. But the end result is a 2001 Passat Sedan, with almost every option available and a VW Certification (2 year/24K mile warranty), for $14,000. No that does not include a down-payment or a trade. My trade got almost exactly what Edmunds said it was worth, and I got a decent interest rate (which I should, because I have good credit and it's a certified vehicle). So did I win? Probably not completely... I'm sure they got me somehow... but the prize is that I get to drive around in the heated-seat, 170-horsepower comfort of this:
