The "Shady Dealership Techniques" Thread

It’s all who you know :wink:

:tup: To making all the right decisions.

I’ve never had a bad experience. I just walk in knowing how much I can afford to pay per month, let the salesmen show me a few cars in my price range, then play hard ball. I always have them jumping through hoops, giving me free stuff like oil changes and darien lake tickets just to get me to buy their car. Once I even got them to put 4 new tires on the car! That was a screaming deal. My payment only went up $10/month.

auction direct has figured out a really good shell game as you saw. If you think many dealerships will let anybody be a car salesmen, auction direct takes this to a new level.

They only plus I give them is they let me take cars without having to ride along.

Truth. There is a mortgage thread on this, but you did the right thing. I financed for 30 years, but I pay almost no interest. I was in the same situation where they offered me about 150K over what I would even consider logical for my age and income.

Anyhow back to STEALERSHIPS!!

---------- Post added at 04:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:38 PM ----------

LOL you are an ass. :choda:

Yeah, I drove A LOT of cars.

These are typical sales games but don’t hold true everywhere. Don’t ever worry about matching trade value and/or new vehicle price, all they are doing is moving the money around to make you feel like you’re getting a good deal. My competitors do it all the time because a lot of people aren’t very swift and aren’t good with big purchases. My benefit is that i flip trades to a third party, but i just give my customers an invoice from the third party buying their trade if they want it. LOOK AT THE NET PRICE, THAT IS THE DEAL YOU’RE GETTING! I can offer you $1,000,000 for your trade, but I’m going to charge you $1,150,000 for your new rig. It’s pretty simple, but for the typical car purchase, most buyers get overwhelmed with numbers.

Once you (well, I) point this out to a buyer, they will see the logic and know our competitor is taking them for a ride.

Dealership Service Department = Medical insurance (in terms of billing)

Dealership Sales Department = Government Defense Contract Bidding (in terms of how much things “cost”)

^I like it

Oh absolutely, I am in a numbers game of a sales job myself, but I am just a middleman between a manufacturer and a customer. I dig on both ends to make my %. It is the same with the dealership and I completely understand that. What I was saying with paddock is that they were low on the trad and high on the invoice. They were hitting me from both sides and since I was carrying my own financing I was looking at net total and not payment. Anyone that shops based on payment and not net total are probably getting the deal that they deserve.

So if they know you then you get a deal…and if you don’t, Paddock will take advantage of you? I know where I won’t buy a vehicle. Great sales pitch…

It’s all about how you play their game.

gotcha. all i can say there is salesmen gotta eat too! obviously you can always counter an offer and see if the other side will budge. sometimes you hit a home run, sometime you have to compromise. at the end of the day, coffee is for closers only :slight_smile:

They gave me a deal better than all the other chevy dealers. And I got a 1000 dollars off because my wifes father works at gm :slight_smile: All dealerships try and screw you, end of story.

By the time I set foot in a physical dealership, unless I need a test drive, the deal is already done and I’m just there to sign papers. Nice thing about buying new is the cars are a commodity and you can focus solely on price.

“Shady” salesman will play dumb and deny deny deny. “Was this car in an accident?” " Oh, I don’t know anything about that" when the crappy orange peel COMPLETE repaint was visible to me from a mile away. Carfax told me what I already knew. On the next car that passed my inspection, they offered 2 new tires (to replace 4 equally bald tires on an AWD Subaru), and after picking it up, it turns out they put 4 new tires on, but they NEVER BALANCED THEM. Because they didn’t want to pay to do it. The tires were later balanced, but after the salesman ran errands in it all day and emptied the tank. Yeah, it wasn’t my car- I would have ran far away after the first shady car they offered. It’s been a great car otherwise. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the dealer that sells Subarus on Main in Akron, but if you know, let me know so I can warn people. Don’t pay dealer prices for a used car unless they have a great warranty and/or are very reputable. You’d be better off buying the same car from a private seller.

My Xterra was the last 6MT in the northeast. I negotiated with all 3 dealerships in Buffalo on the same car in Pennsylvania. West Herr wasn’t interested in my numbers. The guy at Vision wrote his numbers on the back of his card. His price was pretty good to begin with so I went to Mike Barney and said “Here. Beat this.”

Subaru I just got a salesman at West Herr to put his offers in writing and kept forwarding his emails to the broad at Northtown. “Well he can do this, and he can give me this, and…”

Guys, this thread is about actual insight and not about how sweet you are or the deal you’ve cut. We’re trying to collect information others can actually use.

I think saying all dealerships are trying to screw you may be a bit harsh. They are all trying to survive and maybe even dare I say profit? Their motivation is not to screw you.

<<< I sell cars for a living and it’s scary hearing how other dealerships work.

We have a full disclosure worksheet that shows, price, trade values, taxes , doc fees etc

No matter what the payment is the best price always comes down to the bottom line , Aka how much your financing

Dealerships are payment driven because most consumers only care how much there payment is every month

We disclose everything as far as price, kbb etc but that doesn’t mean I don’t go right to the payment and try to stay far away from trade value etc

JUST BECAUSE KBB SAYS YOUR VEHICLE IS WORTH SOMETHING DOES NOT MEAN IT’S TRUE!!! Example, go look at a 2011 Tacoma sport, then run kbb on a 2010 certified sport with 12000 miles and you will see they are saying the certified is worth as much if not more than the new one

Unfortunately trades can be the biggest hang up with purchasing a vehicle, it’s used and only worth what someone is willing to pay and unfortunately there isn’t a Kelly from kbb who will pay that price

“buyers are liars” if you as a customer lie, do you expect the salesman to be honest? I am always very upfront, and its my profession to help you get into a vehicle you can afford

A good quick rule of thumb is every $1000 you finance is about $20 a month

So if you come in and want a 200 payment and want to look at a 30,000 car it’s my job to try and direct you to a vehicle that suits your budget

Never ever finance over 72 months

Dealerships can only hold ( make extra money off finance rate) 2.5 points in pa, idk about new York though

I will add to this later when I’m on a computer

It really will help you, the buyer, to research the going rate for your trade in as well as how much you can actually afford. If you have a general idea what you can afford that helps but if you know you cannot spend more than $270 a month in financing it will really cut through all the paperwork to be upfront about it. Plus, make them an offer before they can put in their “deal.”

A decent down payment is always a good option. I would suggest $1,000 as a minimum for anything sub $15k. In my experience, I have seen a lot of dealers want $3-5k as a minimum.

My last deal was on a 2004 Ranger Edge 4.0 V6 5spd (~40k) Listed at $13,499. I had a 1994 Ford F-150 I6-5Spd with roughly 174k. After my test drive it was pretty clear I was taking it home that day. So I told him; “I want this truck. I have $3k for a down payment. If you give me $1,000 on trade and can offer me a payment under $250 a month we have a deal.”

Financing was around 6.25-6.5% at the time. At $250/mo that was leaving me in the $12k range. Meaning, they would have to knock off around $1,500 off the price of the truck. I should point out that this was at a dealer, West Herr. Had this been a Used Lot dealer they would have definitely turned me down. But, bigger dealers are about moving cars/trucks QUICKLY. Anything under a few thousand isn’t really going to break the deal from a negotiating stand point, again IMO.

The salesman was pretty much speechless but said “I don’t think I can get you $1,000 on your trade.” I replied “Well I have $3,000 in my pocket that says you will…” and then placed the stack of hundreds on the middle of his desk. He laughed and then excused himself to go talk with his boss. I’ll admit, that truck was ROUGH. But, it ran like a tank and I was pretty sure at auction they could get at least that. So again, IMO, it was fair.

I waited in his office for around 10 minutes and when he came back he was all smiles. They accepted my offer and I drove home my truck. Two things to point out:

  1. I knew exactly what I wanted in a Truck (I got lucky to find it too) and exactly how much money I was going to spend. If they didn’t like it I would have left. Why settle on a deal that will only give you buyers remorse?

  2. Although I got my price on the truck I wanted, and the payment I wanted, I feel that they still made a good bit of money on the truck through the warranty. With the reduced price on the truck they easily made their money back as I would probably never need to use it. I felt it was a fair investment. Turns out, I used their first free oil change and have never needed to go back…oh well.

Did I do everything right? Probably not, but I got what I wanted and have no regrets. I have purchased 3 out of 3 vehicles (V and V, Ken Barrett, and West Herr) from dealers in this method and it seems to work well. I have also sold many cars in this same fashion. If you have a fair offer or a fair deal you really will cut the bullshit out. So, research it.

Maybe NYSpeed dealers can prove/disprove my method.

Hope this helps.

I usually walk into the dealership with cash and just ask who wants to go a to m.

Seriously though if you get played at a dealership you’re a weak minded individual.

  1. Dealers are in business to make money.
  2. Dealers make money off financing.
  3. Dealers will try to pressure you into buying right now so you don’t think about the purchase.
  4. Dealers make the new car seem super nice, like you need it and you’ll feel great about it.
  5. Dealers will act like they are doing you a favor.

If dealers try bull shititng me I’ll straight up leave…you CAN LEAVE a dealer ship any time you want! Don’t stick around because you’ve been there xxx amount of time already.

Why do cars have so many options?! So you can’t compare prices on exact vehicles from dealer to dealer. Durh