Questions answered by a car salesman

[nebcarsalesman]

Hello all, I sell cars for a living and wanted to join a forum to help people when it comes to the process of purchasing a vehicle. If you have questions in regards to how to purchase a vehicle, how to handle us evil salespeople or ways to get the best deal ask away. I have downtime at work and would be happy to answer questions as honestly as possible. I'm not trying to sell anybody on here a car and will never try to solicit anybody. I know that the average consumer is usually scared, nervous, anxious and usually confused when it comes to buying a new vehicle. If I can help, let me know.

[Ray paulsen]

I am not a moderator to give you the welcome to this forum " venture is asleep at the wheel , lol " but I can tell you it's the best forum on the internet with knowleage about the auto industry, and I am sure your input will be much appreciated, welcome aboard

[Ray paulsen]

I like your post, and can relate to evil sales people and down time, but tell me in your mind what has to be changed in order for a consumer to enter a dealership and not feel that way.

I seen some good answers to this question with our moderator " venture " being best, give us your input.

[G-man422]

So how do you get the best deal then?

[nebcarsalesman]

Originally Posted by Ray paulsen

I like your post, and can relate to evil sales people and down time, but tell me in your mind what has to be changed in order for a consumer to enter a dealership and not feel that way.

I seen some good answers to this question with our moderator " venture " being best, give us your input.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that most dealerships are pretty honest for the most part. Yes, there are some bad apples out there, but I think that now is becoming the minority. One thing you will find is that if you come in and are pleasant and reasonable, dealers will respect that. Spending 2 hours haggling over $10/month on a payment tells the dealer that you are going to be difficult to work with, both now and in the future. It is usually best to have a vehicle picked out before you go, and do some research as to what kind of payment you can expect. If you drive the car, and like it, let the salesman know what you are willing to work with and give him a chance to come close. If he is reasonably close to where you want to be, try just splitting the difference instead of holding strong over a few dollars. The most time consuming part of most deals is the negotiating and stating your terms at the beginning can make this a fairly painless process. If the dealer is not willing to sell the car for a reasonable price (which you should have researched prior to coming in) then simply shake their hand, get up and start walking out. This is the quickest way to get what you want from the dealer. Also - if you spend some time working with a salesman and he is doing his job and working with you and you do decide to leave, try to remember that this is his job. The worst pet peeve is spending 3-4 hours trying to sell a car and then having a customer go to another dealership and buying a car because they sold it for $5 less per month. Dealerships love to have people come in like this because somebody else has already done the work, all they have to do is sell the car for a couple hundred less dollars and walk away smiling. Take their offer back to the original salesperson and give him a chance to try to match it.

Sorry for the lengthy post, I probably could have written much more but will try to keep my responses as close to topic as possible.

[nebcarsalesman]

Originally Posted by G-man422

So how do you get the best deal then?

Reading my previous post should give you some good ideas. Something that always seems to get brought up when buying a car is getting a "good deal". What I have found is there is no set criteria as to what a "good deal" actually is. If you buy a car that you like, you are treated with respect by the dealer and salesperson, and the payments fit in your budget then that is a good deal. People worry so much about how much profit a dealership makes, but keep in mind, without the profit the dealer can't provide a lot of the extra services that most of them have.

To give you an example:
Customer A is looking at a used truck, which we are selling for $35,000. Truck is valued at right around $35,000 however we own the vehicle for only about $25,000. I sold the truck for $34,995 which was a profit of $10,000 for us. Customer A was happy though, because he bought the truck for a reasonable price and the payments were affordable for him. This was a "good deal" even though the dealership ended up making quite a bit of money from it.

Second example:
Customer B is looking at a new small sedan. Price of the vehicle is $14,995. Customer B feels that this is way too high and she should be able to buy the car for well under our invoice. After spending 4 hours negotiating with her, we finally agree to sell her the car for a $1500 loss on our end. She buys the car and then sends a letter to the manufacturer saying that we are the worst dealership in town because we wouldn't sell her the car for what she wanted and it took way too long.

One would say that Customer B got a "good deal" while Customer A got screwed. However, in the dealers eyes, Customer A is a repeat customer who will also send friends into see us, while Customer B is going to be a pain in the ass for the entire time she owns the car.