Buying a New Car

Ugg Boot

Scum of the earth. That's the way I would describe them. Who am I talking about? Car salespeople. If you're a car salesperson, I'm talking about you. Don't give me no lip. This isn't aimed so much at independent used car salesmen. I've never had any kind of problem there. Here's what happened. Saturday was car shopping day. Keep in mind that we searched the internet and found what models we were interested in. We went to three different dealerships.

Dealership #1: Yokem Toyota, Shreveport, La. Pulled into the parking lot. Salesman spots us before we exit the car and heads our way. Wanting to look around a little bit, I didn't acknowledge his presence. I headed for the cars we had studied. Salesperson follows us to the car we're looking at and asks us what we're in the market for. We say Toyota Corolla CE in Blue. He tells us to follow him. We see that exact car and he tells us he'll grab the keys and bring the car up front for us. We wait and wait and wait. Finally, we see a white toyota corolla pull up. I don't know if you know this but white cars are the hardest to sell and have a lower resell value than any other normal colored car. He says the blue one is unavailable. No problem. We test drive the white one. Everythings going good. We ask the price. He gives us a price that's higher than we were quoted online. No problem. No budging on the price at all. Not a bad experience. The best of the day.

Dealership #2 : John Harvey Toyota, Bossier City, La. Pulled into the dealership and of course, salesman came in a near sprint. Saw a Toyota Carolla in the blue that we were looking for. We look it over and notice that it's a used car. Salesman says the new cars are in a different area and tries to aim us in that direction. We ask the price of the used one. He says to come on in and let's see. I ask again. What's the price. He does everything he can not to answer the question. He says he's not sure. I said, go find out and we'll look at it. He comes back with a price that a couple hundred dollars less than the quote we got on the brand new one an hour earlier. We talk on at how good a car this is. I ask about the price on the new ones. He's not sure. He has to go ask his mommy. He comes back and says that the new one is the same price. He thinks that someone made a mistake on the price of the used one. I tell him to get someone to tell me how much it is because there is no possible way that a 1 year old car with 30,000 miles on it is the same price as a brand new one with 0 miles on it. He asks us to come inside. We sit down at his desk. He goes all the way around the world on the pricing of the cars and I ask how they can be priced the same. Finally, he says for me to make him an offer and he'll see if they'll accept it. I said, find out what they'll take for it. After several minutes of this sort of irritated discussion, he takes my offer, which is very fair. He takes it, the waiting begins. After about half an hour, he returns from his mommy's tit and gives me the price. $500 less than the brand new one. What the hell? I ask how on earth they expect to sell a used car at that price? He asks what I'd like to pay. I tell him to come up with a better price than that. He leaves to go to his mommy again. The waiting continues for about another 30 minutes. He returns with no price change. Finally, we ask the price of a new one again. Get that price and ask what the best price is. That all depends on your credit as far as your payments go. Great. Give the credit info. The wait contiues again. After another 30 minutes, this guy can't suck his mommy's tit forever, he returns. The credit bureau is down and has been down all day. This information would have been helpful 30 minutes ago now wouldn't it. Salesman wants to talk some more. I'm done. I tell him to call when they have some information for us. Bullshit.

Dealership #3: Elkins Kia, Bossier City, La. Arrived irritated. Thought, water under the bridge. This dealership will be different. We walk to the Kia Rio that we also studied. Turns out, it's a used one with a dent in the drivers side. No problem. They'll fix it. Salesman is very nice. Best yet. Gets us the keys and we start it up. We do the test drive, everything's going good. I ask if they'll fix the dent for us. Immediately in his mind, I'm sure, the price just jumped up. We get back and he has to show us new cars. He shows us everything but a Rio. He's set on showing us a Spectra. The color choice of blue had been decided before the make or model of car. It was settled. We explained that. He asked if we liked silver. Sure, it's okay. It's not blue though. After a little while of hearing how good the Spectra is, I ask, where are the Rio's. That's what we're interested in. He said that they aren't very good cars so we don't usually keep them on the lot. Now where I work, if I told someone that the product I was selling wasn't good enough, I'd be fired. Fine, no problem. You can order us one. He gets us inside. We ask the price of the Rio. He leaves, the waiting starts. 30 minutes later, he returns with prices for the Spectra in silver. That's fine and dandy. What about the price for the Rio. He could get that for us. He once again mentioned how the Spectra got better gas mileage. About a 4 mile per gallon difference. This car was about $5,000 more than the Rio and he can't get it in blue. We ask about payments on the Rio. He explains how to figure it all out and gives us an estimate on monthly payments for the Spectra. This does me no good. We send dude to his mommy to do the credit check. I made sure to let him know that we wanted the credit check done for the Rio. He said, no problem, it'll work for both. I mentioned that I had an appointment that I had to make and I couldn't be there very much longer. He said it wouldn't take but about 5 minutes. He returns to mommy. 30 minutes later he returns to ask the status of income and quickly leaves to return to mommy's tit. He finally returns and says that they are checking the credit. We ask about the price of the Rio again. Never getting a solid answer. He says it may be up to two years before they get a blue Rio in stock. And that's what we call bullshit. He explained how good the silver specta was. He leaves for mommy's tit again. I'm so irritated that my feet can't keep still. He returns and says that they're still working on the credit thing. I've had enough. I say, call when you can help. He said she was just about through and he'll go check. I said, we'll follow you out. Then his mommy came out to meet us and was so sweet. She gave us no information of any use. We leave, having wasted 5 hours with nothing positive coming out of the experience.

I understand the whole concept of car salesmen. Never give price before the test drive. Always say you have to check with someone else on the pricing. Leave and give the party enough time to figure they're budget so they can think of ways to make the payments. Sell the consumer what you want, not what they want. Well, here's how I see it. Of the three dealerships we went to, I'll never return for any reason. I'll never send anyone there. If you want to sell me something, know what you're selling and at what price. If you have to ask someone else what the price is, I don't need to talk to you anymore, I need to talk to that guy. During the time we were alone in the dealerships, I explained it this way. New car $15,000. Used car from $4,000 to $8,000. That leaves atleast $7,000 for repairs. But I want something dependable. You can buy a $60,000 car. It could break down as you leave the lot. But it's under warranty. Have you ever had a dealship work on anything? They're usually the worst mechanics, and you usually have to return several times. Okay, I've nagged enough. Here's what it all boils down to. I can have an American classic car completely restored for the same amount of money. Resell value would stomp the price of anything, and it has something that no new car has.......Character. So car salesmen.......kiss my ass!