Consumerist reader Chris decided to take advantage of GM’s please-buy-a-car Employee Discount sale that we wrote about yesterday, so he headed off to two different dealerships in the NY/NJ area. What he found were deserted showrooms with salesmen who ignored him or argued with him over the existence of specific models he’d looked at online. He adds, “tonight I’m off to Toyota for some hard numbers on a Corolla and Camry.”
“Why GM cant sell cars: What employee pricing cant fix” [www.schiffner.com]
(Photo: spcummings)
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@yikz: That’s the best way to handle car shopping IMO. Have everything ready before you walk in. They tend to hate the fact that they can’t haggle with you.
I remember reading a story on AOL a few years back. Someone had “gone undercover” as a car salesman and showed just how evil it could be.
I concur, no such thing as a 2008 LTZ 4cyl.
@shadowkahn: That’s the thing- here they can’t ban dissent because it proves the point.
Anyway, I don’t think GM could sell me a Cobalt at 14.5k. I’d rather buy the Corolla at 16.5k. I get to enjoy a superior car with better resale value. 2k is definitely worth it. Good job making crap cars for my parents when I was younger, GM. If you gave me a car, I’d sell it to some poor sap and just buy another Japanese car.
I recently had a good cop/bad cop experience with two Nissan dealerships. (I won’t relate the whole story — it’s probably only of interest if you live in the Twin Cities: [thestew.badmouth.net] .) The manufacturer isn’t to blame, and in my case it wasn’t even the salespeople who were the problem — it was the sales manager at one of the dealerships. The experience was so bad, I was surprised when I was treated really well at another dealership — well enough that I bought a car in just under 20 minutes.
If you want to avoid the tricks used by dealerships, check this site out: [www.carbuyingtips.com] . I’ve used the advice (totally free) from there twice when buying cars and have saved nearly $8K on combined MSRPs of about $48K.
@canuckistani: lol, you win!
The first time I bought a new car (back in 1994), I knew I wanted a Dodge Neon. The salesman at the first dealership I went to treated me so badly I was ready to give up–no offer of a test drive, funky numbers in the financing, and he left me and my Dad sitting in his office alone for over half an hour without even an offer of a drink. I went to a different dealership where, within minutes of walking onto the lot, a salesman approached with keys in his hand offering me a test drive. He didn’t even ask for my ID before handing me the keys. He wanted to sell me a car and I bought from him.
After 13 years with that car, I bought a Toyota last December (nothing American that looked good could beat the price and MPG of a Yaris). When I walked in, I was immediately approached by a salesperson eager to help me.
If I’m going to be a few thousand dollars at a place, they darn well better be eager and appreciative to get my money.
@Comms: I could potentially get in trouble for this, but it should be said. I’ve done “Service Evaluations” for three different car dealerships in my area.
I’m told how to dress (Business Casual), what to ask about (Specific Models, options, questions), and given a “checklist” of things expected to happen (with my appropriate responses) during my visit. This is all orchestrated by the manufacturers, and meant to test the effectiveness of their sales training by presenting the “perfect customer”. Obtaining an ‘excellent’ evaluation should be a cakewalk.
All three of my recent visits were a nightmare because the salespeople were either poorly trained or just didn’t care enough to want to “close a sale”.
More than one of “us” are sent to each dealership, and they do not know when we are coming, only that we are. Visits are scheduled roughly every two months, and we’re rotated out so we don’t visit the same place more than once every 6 months. “We” can infer that a dealership with a higher number of visits scheduled has some kind of issue the manufacturer wants to confirm or ensure is corrected.
So some manufacturers are very aware how a given dealership treats potential customers.
@Norislolz: You make a great point…no matter how much quality they build into their cars now, they still have to sell to a generation of car buyers with memories of their parents’ GM cars falling apart and rusting in the driveway after 50,000 miles. I know because I’m one of them.
@Rabbi Dave: My first car was a Honda Civic and I went through hell with their dealers, to the point I swore I’d never buy a Honda/Acura product again. I’ve also talked to others who have had nasty Honda dealership experiences. However, I take your word for it that you don’t hear as many Honda horror stories.
@Norislolz:
You know what’s really ironic about “buy American?” Most GM and Ford cars are assembled out of the country in places like Mexico and Toyota and Nissan (and I’ll bet Honda too, but I don’t know for sure) are for the most part built right here in the good ol’ USA.
I always think that that is hilarious.
Cheers!
@shadowkahn: One of the things that is killing GM, and the other car manufacturers in the country, are the unions. I’ll bet I’ll get slammed for saying this, but with the unions, you don’t have to produce a good product to get a commensurate reward. Not that I’m a proponent of slave labor, and certainly American industry is rife with Dilbert-esque or Enron-esque management (I’m shocked many companies in this country remain in business), but the labor costs are so high that they have to cut corners elsewhere.
I went into an Audi dealership a few years ago to buy a new TT. I had a 3-series BMW at the time, and wanted to trade it in. The dealership was about an hour away from my home, and I went there on a Saturday. I stood in the showroom for a good long time with no one offering to help. Finally I tracked someone down who reluctantly agreed to talk with me.
I told him what I wanted, I had already picked it out, and they had it on their lot. He asked me if I had a trade, and I said yes and pointed to my Bimmer. He goes “Yeah, the guy who values our trades isn’t here today…you’ll have to come back on Monday”. I explained how it wasn’t convenient for me to come back on Monday because of the distance, and I was there now. He told me in his increasingly dismissive manner that ‘sorry, nothing I can do, better call ahead next time’. I said “fine, can I at least get the financial paperwork going so that’s ready by the time I come back?” Guess what-the finance guy wasn’t there, but he ‘supposed’ they could fax it to me.
I waited 3 days for a fax that never came. I called him back, he had no idea who I was or that I had ever talked to him. I called his manager and told him that I was desperately trying to buy a car, but this person didn’t seem to want to sell one to me. He blew me off and said that if I wanted to buy a car so much I should come in and not just bother people over the phone.
Needless to say, I did not buy a car from them (but not for my lack of trying). So, GM isn’t the only company that suffers from this. In fact, just last year I pulled into a Lexus dealership to look at the new IS250. The sales guy looked at my car and said “is that your Audi?” I answered yes. He said “Oh…well, these cars probably aren’t for someone like you then” and walked away.
@ Botticelli711: OMG, aren’t you afraid you’ll now be banned?
@yikz: Interestingly enough, I also have had great experiences at the Ford dealership in Nashville I’ve been to. I’ve bought two Rangers and an Escape from them over the last several years and every time I’ve beat the other sales prices around town. I’ve had three problems mechanically with all of the autos, and two were in accidents (one while it was parked!yay!). In every instance I just handed them the keys and said “call me when it’s fixed- where’s my rental”.
They can have my car money.
I guess we both got lucky?
@atypicalxian: If you had a company under such a stranglehold where you forced them to pay you $20+ an hour for unskilled labor, you’d fight tooth and nail for it when someone tells you that you have to “share” in the 2 billion dollar yearly loss.
Of course, UAW doesn’t budge and now Chrysler is the “0.5″ in the Big 2.5. I wonder what’ll happen to my old hometown when the Chrysler plant eventually goes under. Oh well, companies start and companies end. That’s how it goes. It’s not the American consumer’s job to prop up a company producing goods that people don’t want to buy. Employees suffer because of poor management, but those employees had a hand in making a lame product.
I’ve mostly lived in small towns with a single dealer for each type (or really a Ford/Mercury, Chevy, Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep) dealer. I think one can expect a good experience from these smaller dealers because one unsatisfied, determined, noisy customer can be poison for them.
The economy is making for some odd mashups. Now we have here a Ford/Mercury/Dodge/Jeep dealer. More oddly, I think they sell more Dodge trucks than Fords.
So my suggestion is to check with some of the smaller town dealers – just don’t let them know you’re not local.
Salesman apathy, though, at the GM dealers makes me wonder if they are just not interested in moving the cars at employee pricing.
I was in the service department paying for a service for my pickup. I told the service adviser that I had a terrible idea – I wanted a new truck. Who should I talk to?
He leaned over and said quietly, “Talk to the girl.”
The “girl” turned out to be older than me and named “Betsy.” She handed me a business “card” too big to fit in my wallet. We didn’t make a deal that day, but three days later she called and said, “I think we just got your truck.”
Yep, they did, and I bought it.
The other thing that stands out to me was the salesmen who told me “You don’t want that.” I thought it was awfully presumptuous of him to tell me what *I* did not want. In the end, he ordered it for me, and I drove that truck for 11 years. Since then, he’s inherited the dealership.
Both were dealers in towns of less than 25,000 folks.
I went to Toyota and Chevrolet yesterday and the guy at Chevy said he could try to order the car I was looking for (only to test drive, so I declined). The salesman at Toyota argued with me over the existence of a base model 4 door Yaris.
So I think it depends on the person and not the brand. Generalizing to Chevrolet in general is probably unfair, but the particular dealership should not be visited. (On a slightly related note, Chevy’s have low customer satisfaction).
@Dyscord: Here’s the article, from Edmunds. Absolutely fabulous article. Well worth the long read.
[www.edmunds.com]
@SinisterMatt: The irony of that is delicious. “Buy American! Get a Toyota!”
@InfiniTrent: You totally rock. It is indeed worth the read and I was a little annoyed when I lost track of it. I recommend it to everyone as it gives insight into the whole car salesman profession
@SinisterMatt: Ohio and Alabama:
[en.wikipedia.org]
@Comms: Totally agree. I read consumerist and Gizmodo religiously. I also love cell phones, to the point of knowing a ton about the companies, plans, pricing and future phones that have yet to be released. I also tend to do a ton of research about any semi-major to major purchase in my life, be it for a phone to a suit to a car, whatever.
Biggest pet peeve is when I walk into a specialty store and the salespeople can only tell me verbatim what’s on the card behind the product, or maybe, if you’re lucky, what’s on the website. I start asking deeper questions, about manufacturing dates, upgrades, aftermarket type things, and you get this blank stare. Try going into a Verizon store and asking about the Open Handset Alliance, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
Major things surrounding the immediate sale of an item need to be known by a salesperson. Otherwise, all they are is a boob trying to collect commission for filling out paperwork.
@Botticelli711: Our rules are lined out very clearly. Among them: don’t hijack threads with offtopic negativity about the site.
I don’t understand this entire idea of the dealership doesn’t want to sell cars.
Look at the issue this way. EVERYBODY wants to be paid for the least amount of work. EVERYBODY. A car dealership is the same way. Of course they want to sell cars. They also want to make easy money. Why work hard if you can make more money working easy?
Look at the issue from the perspective of the service department. We all know about the new car from hell: the car that the front bumper and left fender must be removed before the oil dipstick can be viewed, the car that has 3 14″ rims with 5 mounting bolts and 1 15″ rim with 7 mounting bolts, the car that cannot travel in reverse if the grade is more than +1%. Yea, that car. The service department absolutely hates that car because of the number of consumer complaints resulting from the poor design or repeated repairs that will never be fixed properly. And no matter how popular that car may be with the new car buying public, the carsellingjerks are going to be told to discourage the sales of that car… no matter what.
At the front end of the business are the carsellingjerks. To be honest they LIKE my neighbor. There are 3, absolutely identical cars in his driveway. He buys them in sets of 3 (his, wife, daughter) at one time. In terms of profit and work for the dealership this is an easy sale, because even if the guy is an aggressive pricing jerk and negotiates every last penny of the sales contract for 14 straight hours… at the end of the day the carsellingjerk has sold 3 cars versus doing the same level of work only selling 1 car.
Car dealers like simple sales that will result in good (easy) work for the service department and few customer complaints. We all like working conditions like that.
So given the choice of simple easy sales versus work your arse off sales, what choice do you think you would accept?
BTW, I read the complaints about standing and waiting for a salesdude to approach the customer. Let me guess…. Hippie, Yippie, tightwad, 17 year old skipping school, scum of the earth with a strong case of the farts or a beater car with one door and the trunk lid missing is wanting to test drive a new car versus the hottest babe you have ever seen? Guess who is going to get serviced and who will not? Yes, appearances count. Beyond appearances is perceived value and difficulty. Some people just look cheap or tightwads, carry a notebook and calculator along with the chip on their shoulder or whatever their problem is. Of course they are going to have problems. As soon as you walk or drive onto the lot the carsellingjerks are sizing you up and trying to determine if something better might come along any time soon to justify leaving you with Elmer the EntryLevel carsellingjerk.
This is not just a problem at car dealers. Real estate brokers do it. Bankers do it. To some degree everybody does it. Hells Bells, the girl behind the counter at McD’s does it when she eagerily waits on the broad should stud over the mother with 3 screaming toddlers.
@jamesdenver: Thanks for pointing that out. Sad to see the direction in which the site seems to be heading.
@Rabbi Dave: Dude!! I love your site.. I send all my friends there to find a car when they’re looking for one.
Why can’t we have the option to buy cars the way we can order laptops from a manufacturer direct? While I very much enjoy buying things I know nothing about with the assistance of a salesperson, I also like having the option of manufacturer direct purchases for products which I already know with 100% certainty what I want and need.
Just showing up at the dealership to buy a car is not really a good idea. Research, research, then research some more. Then, either send out an e-mail to a few dealerships requesting quotes on the specific model you want with all the specific features… or, use a blind bidding service like the one offered on Edmunds.com.
The dealerships will cut each other’s throats to sell you a car and when their competition is right there in front of them, will give you their best possible price. And you more than likely won’t have to deal with a standard issue, creepy salesperson. The dealerships I have seen have someone who is a little more professional, more business like, handle their internet sales.
I think it would be interesting to see GM start random “secret” inspection of their dealers. They might be surprised just how much the dealerships are hurting them.
I have never owned a new car… In fact I have yet to own something newer than an ’88. I want my first new car purchase to be memorable for GOOD reasons and not for the BAD. I strongly feel that GM’s dealers make it difficult to have a pleasant experience. While parent companies can not always control what happens in retail outlets its important for them to remember that the “face man” is the one in the retail store and NOT in the commercials/ads.
Of the 3 dealerships in town (Chrysler, GM, and Ford) I have noticed they have almost no vehicles on the lot. The vehicles they do have are very small cars or fleet/commercial trucks and pretty much nothing in the middle. Not much choice at all.
As bad as I dislike Dell, I think car makers are going to have to switch to something like a regional “dealership” where they have one or two of a particular model for test drive purposes only. The actual “sale” will be done over the net. About 2 weeks later you then have a nice shiny car delivered to your doorstep (or available for pickup if you wish).
@Jamus, I think that a model where you could deal directly with corporate would not only increase customer satisfaction, but would also decrease the bottom line of each vehicle. It would allow the manufacturers to product the exact number of cars required as opposed to making thousands and then forcing consumers to take a trim they don’t necessarily want.
@Norislolz: funny thing about that is that the “american cars” have off-shored their manufacturing while Toyota has opened plants in America
@snowburnt: Yeah, those damned Canadians stealing our work.
My first new car experience was very similar (albeit 20 years ago). I was active duty military and had the money to buy a new truck. I went to a Jeep dealer in Ellsworth, ME. I asked about a vehicle, pricing and financing. I was dead serious about buying and would’ve signed papers that day. Instead I wasn’t taken seriously and was given some financing paperwork to take home and come back later. Any salesman knows not to let the sale walk away. The issue I had was I didn’t have a car and was relying on friends to drive me to the dealer which was 30 miles away.
I bought a Toyota instead.
One more…I tried to buy a new Ford once. When I asked about a test drive, they said I could, but the car couldn’t leave the dealer parking lot……Bought another Toyota.
Funny, a local Toyota dealer is completely the opposite of the GM “drag someone to the car you want” montra.
I pulled in in my wifes car, they literally opened the door while the car was still running (and barely in park). They are so high-pressure, rush rush rush its nuts. They *hated* me because I started off by telling them I refused to buy something that day, and I only wanted to test drive. At that point they could care less, so it took 4 tries to convince them that a 4 cylinder Camry is completely different than a 6 cylinder Solara. After I finally got to test drive it (hated it, BTW, compared to the Accord coupe at the time), they started forcing numbers. That was fun, when they asked me what they could do to get me in the car THAT DAY, I first said “I told you I wont buy today”, then they kept pushing so I asked for 50% off, they walked me out the door.
Obviously I will never go to that dealer ever again. But someday I might buy a Toyota……..I understand the dealers are mostly the issue and not the vehicles.
@atypicalxian:
You certainly won’t get slammed by me for that sentiment. The union pendulum has swung entirely too far in labor’s direction. Aircraft companies that can’t negotiate business deals for fear of job actions and other shennanigans. Teachers unions so powerful that teachers who know almost nothing about their subject cannot be fired. And auto unions that force high wages in times when the company needs to be sinking that money into R&D so that they can maybe figure out how Honda/Toyota manage to make good cars.
Unions are necessary to prevent management abuse, but who prevents labor abuse?
A running theme here is that people had bad experiences at lower-tier dealerships – GM, Toyotoa, etc. As a few have mentioned, you can get stellar service at a luxury dealership, even if you aren’t buying a luxury car.
Luxury dealerships often carry used cars of other brands, especially sister brands. If you want a used Accord, try an Acura dealership. Look for Toyotas at a Lexus dealership.
The staff at those dealerships know that the types of people who buy their cars will not stand for being talked down to. I’ve had far better customer service at Acura dealerships than Toyota, Honda, and Ford.
@Corporate-Shill: In most dealerships, the service department and the sales department do not influence each other. I’m not sure where you got that idea.
If the dealer has cars on their lot, that means they’ve already bought them from the factory, so of course they’re going to sell them, even if they’re a piece of crap. To not sell them would be insane.
The service department doesn’t run the show. End of story.
Where are these dealerships where the salespeople ignore you? About a year ago, I went looking around at several different cars (domestic and foreign) and could not walk onto a lot unmolested (all dealers in an urban area). This was especially frustrating as I was just in the research phase of my search and was not ready to have someone “put me in that car today” (and yes, they actually use that line). I even had one dealership (a luxury dealership) lie to me about the expiration date for an incentive program (they later called me back with a mea culpa, but I still didn’t like the attitude). I finally ended up driving an hour back to my hometown (a rural area) and bought from a small-town 9 to 5 dealership. In a relaxed setting, we found a suitable vehicle, worked out the right price, and had coffee. Check out some small town dealers – the selection’s not always the best, but my theory is they don’t have a large pool of buyers and have a lot less slack when it comes to reports of bad customer service (i.e. if you pee in the ocean, no one will notice, but if you pee in the kiddie pool, you’re getting your @$$ kicked).
@mebaman: I guess it depends on your demographic. I can’t get the attention of a car salesperson if my life depended on it. It’s the whole “looks too young” type of deal. I think all car brands have that problem, not just the domestics as this article seems to point towards.
I’ve actually tested this out 2 years ago, when my dad decided he wanted a new car; made him walk into a dealership about 10 minutes after I walked in (I was ignored the whole time). There was a salesman attached to his hip before he was 15 feet into the showroom. Meanwhile, I’d been standing at a car for a while.
Oh well I guess. With all the pricing info available on the internet these days, which dealership I buy from really doesn’t matter anymore. If I walk in and get bad service, I just leave and buy from somewhere else.
This is definitely a dealership culture problem. My last new car buy was going to be a Toyota, but after trying to get a salesperson to deal with me for over an hour on a Saturday afternoon, including 5 minutes with me sitting at the receptionists desk and writing the manager a note that I then taped over her computer screen, no one would help.
I drove up the road heading for the other Toyota dealership. As I passed the VW dealership I stopped on a whim, looked at the New Beatle TDI and bought it on the spot. 7 years later still very happy with the Beatle.
I guess I should be happy that they treated me so poorly as I ended up with a great car, but that ended a long string of Toyota purchases.
I should add I emailed the national office of Toyota to let them know what had happened. They contacted me and let me know they were sorry for the events and were happy I did find a car I was happy with. I also emailed the dealership, but they didn’t have the balls to contact me back. I still have to go their to get parts for my ’85 Landcruiser and still find the sales floor staff to be arrogant and pricks.
Something that left a really bad taste in my mouth recently was the fact that on a basic Chevy full-size pickup cruise control is part of a $3,000 options package. Why isn’t such a common feature standard on everything by now? It’s like having to pay extra for headlights.
In a fit of momentary insanity, I thought about buying a Buick after they started advertising some pretty decent looking deals. I went to the dealership on a Monday afternoon after work. The receptionist greeted me and started looking for a salesperson. Ten minutes went by, three salespeople appeared to be in one office joking around, but no one came to assist. I waited another ten minutes until someone came to talk to me. I asked to look at a couple of models. I liked one and asked to take a test drive, and was informed I had to schedule test drives in advance. I told the salesman I was ready to pay and go that day, but he “couldn’t do anything for me.”
I left.
Went to a Nissan dealership on a weekend. There was one saleslady there. She dealt with the customers in the order they came in. Let us take a test drive. We came back the next day and drove off with a brand new car. No hassle.
GM seems to want you to think it’s a privilege for you to buy their car. That’s not the best sales strategy when your product is overpriced and underwhelming.
@SinisterMatt: I’m glad that someone has brought that up. Look at the back glass of a new Toyota Tundra pickup. You will see a decal that reads, “Born in Texas, built by Texans.”
@He: Nope, it’s an individual dealer thing.
Where I live, the Chevy, Pontiac and Ford dealers are good to great while nearly everything else is owned by Bob Rohrman and every one is terrible. The GMC and Caddy dealers are slightly better than Rohrman. Subarus are built here and their employees are treated like crap by the Bob Rohrman dealer and I know several people who drove to Indianapolis to buy their Subaru so that they didn’t have to deal with the local guy.
Well, I was treated poorly at the GM, Toyota/Hyundai and Mazda dealerships. The local Jeep/Toyota place was nice but just didn’t have what I wanted.
In retrospect I should have waited and bought from them (I know the salesman personally) but if he’s not retired in 6 years or so, I’ll buy my next car from him.*
*He’s probably retiring in 6 months.
It really depends on which dealership you go to. My friend works as a floor sales rep at a GM dealer and it has been a tough year. He is working until 9p tonight; if you went to the dealership he works at, then you would be sold a car.
That being said, lots of dealerships have had to cut staff (or have had staff quit) due to the low traffic. This sale may be too little too late, but it is the only way they are going to get rid of all those surplus 2008 models before the 2009 models are delivered.
I have to say that about a month ago I was shopping for a car and I was treated with the most respect from all the salesmen I was dealing with. I’m only 18 years old but I have a good job so I was looking for a luxury car. I first stopped over at my local Lexus dealer, (Lexus of Toledo) the salesman had the best attitude. I told him what car I was interested in, he ran in, grabbed the key and let me do a test drive, alone, he didn’t even have to come with me!
Afterward I went down the street to the Buick dealer (this is where GM comes in) this guy was the same as the Lexus dealer, great attitude and he offered a test drive and he let me drive off alone. At the time I was driving my first car, a 2006 Pontiac G6 that I purchased new which again the salesman was excellent… Anyway, when the guy at the Buick dealer showed me the payments and I asked him to come down a bit he basically told me that I should just save some money and that my car was only two years old I should just keep that, he said that I should clean it well and that I will like it all over again…. I was stunned, a salesman telling me NOT to buy a new car. As @describe_one said, it depends which dealership you go to, some are real jerks, and some do what is in your best interest, not theirs.
BTW: I ended up going back to the Lexus dealer and bought that
I went with my friend to a Nissan dealer to replace his old Sentra with a new Altima.
We came in my new Maxima.
We walk up and a salesman walks over to me, I am looking at a Z with my keys in my hand, and he tells me…
“Why don’t you come back when you have paid for your car, we don’t give test drives on the Z to just anybody…”
Needless to say, I walked into John, the managers office, he sold me my car, and I told him what just happened and why we were there.
He called the salesman into his office, told him to clean out his desk, and leave within 15 minutes.
He then gave my friend a great deal on his Altima.
There are asshats out there everywhere. Just like in life, you can’t always spot them until they open their mouths.
It wouldn’t surprise me if that one works at another car dealership.