Car Buying Woes I wonder if Car Sales is the most despised profession? If it's not, it should be.

Monday, August 19, 2002
This is my price and I'm sticking to it. Who would've thought that we would find a car salesman who didn't want the sale?

I accompanied Joyce to a certain unnamed car dealership which primarily sells a certain make of popular import cars. Her poor car died suddenly after 11 years of good service and finding herself car-less, she unexpectedly found herself in the market for a new car. Being that she had a good experience with her recently deceased car, she decided to go with the same make of car. Unfortunately for her, everyone else (and their brother) has decided to buy this car, too. After test driving it and its little brother (a sub-compact), it was time to sit down in the salesman's office and wheel and deal. Or so we thought. 

The salesman commented about how the particular model that Joyce was interested in (let's call it the "C" for liability's sake) was out of stock. Nothing on the lot except for a white one -- which Joyce definitely did not want. He said that the backordered cars would probably come in sometime next month. No clue on when next month. It could be the 1st. It could be the 30th. He didn't know.

So to feel him out to see if he would bend on the price he quoted us earlier, I said, "So I guess that means you'll be able to give Joyce a nice discount since she'll have to wait so long for the car to come in..."

Suddenly, this nice, seemingly mild-mannered old man's disposition shifted ever so slightly. I sensed a little attitude creep in -- perhaps even a little arrogance; almost hidden by his disarming, squinty smile. He replied quickly without missing a beat, "Oh, no. We don't give discounts. People are lining up, waiting for these cars to come in. We have no reason to give discounts."

In other words, he was closing the book on any further talk of negotiations. 

Since Joyce needed the car right away and she couldn't wait for the "C" to come in possibly sometime next month, she inquired about the sub-compact, the "E." I advised her earlier that she should try and get the "E" for $11,000 if possible; $12,000 was still reasonable, but nothing more than $13,000 fully loaded out the door. (MSRP was a little over $13,000.)

He quoted her $14,500. For a sub-compact! Are you nuts!? I nearly fell over in shock when I realized that he was serious.

Joyce tried one last attempt to see if he would give her a better price on the "E," which he claimed they had a plentiful supply on the lot. In fact, he said that the "C" outsells the "E" by 20 to 1. So one would think according to the rules of supply and demand that he would be more reasonable when it came to the "E" in which supply was high and demand was low. Right? 

Wrong.

"Can you come down to maybe $12,500?" Joyce asked.

No. Period. No bargaining. He kept saying how the price he gave her ($14,500!?!?!?!) was such a low price that his sales manager would be upset at him for giving her such a bargain. Car sales mumbo jumbo. By this time, I was thoroughly turned off.

I leaned over and whispered to Joyce, "I think you should shop around. I'll take you to the Honda dealer."

So when Joyce said that she'll be shopping around, he turned on the apathetic mode: "Good. Don't buy. I won't force you."

Yeah, he won't force you to do anything. But he won't work with you either. This is the first car salesman that I've come across that couldn't care less whether you walked out the door or not.

And walk is what we did. 

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