High Tide Aquatics

Car salesmen... sheesh!

Without trying to sound sexist I want to see what a saleswoman would be like.

So a new car is in the future, and I haven't really dealt with salesmen before, my last car bought 11 years ago didn't require a salesman because I knew exactly what I wanted to buy when I walked into the dealer, and my previous car before that was a hand-be-down from my parents :D

Over the past few weeks visited a couple Toyota places, and today we did Honda and Subaru. The first Toyota place "City Toyota" had this huge parking garage structure, but unfortunately we got a "junior sales associate" to help us and other than him reading what was on the sticker we got zero help. None of the cars were unlocked, and he seemed put off by needing to get a key and seemed quite content with trying to point out features through a window to us, so when we left I have renamed the place in South Park fashion "Shitty Toyota". The other Toyota place was Melody in San Bruno, and our guy Jeff was fricking awesome, I mean he wasn't pushy, he didn't talk down to us, he offered to go get a hybrid Rav4 from another lot a block away just so we could look at it. I mean it was almost creepy as the anti-stereotype of a salesman.

Today we ran into super push dude at Subaru which wasn't horrible as he was your typical "this is what I think of when I think car salesman" person, but the winner of our outing was ultra condescending Charles at Honda, no Charles we don't want you to get a key to open a door we're totally happy to try and see inside the car though the dirty ass tinted window, oh really Charles thanks for making me feel stupid by not knowing that a moon roof can be opened, and that sunroof is either open or closed. And thanks a bunch Charles for telling me any incentive deals would only be told to me if I was willing to buy right then...a serious jerk.

My wife had some car manufacturers she was interested in, and she had a type in mind ("Crossover" SUV) and the salesman had one job, help us want to pick your car over another by telling us everything it can do and letting us decide what we want to buy.
 
totally agree, I hate dealing with car sales men. I fact, not to stereotype either, but i really hate most ALL salesman types no matter what they are selling.
 
I know they only sell used cars but carmax rocks. I went in , saw car , test drive , papers signed in 3 hours. I asked the dude " Is this price firm? " He said " we don't play that game , that's the price if you like it great if not that's ok too" For me it was the best car buying expierence
 
Costco and they will give a quote for car with color and options via fleet manager. No salesman deal wiith. They have car dealership that part of their program. No haggle no stress.
 
Have you considered going through Costco's car program?
I've only gone once in my life trying to get a car through dealership, about 30 years ago... Lady was nice, not pushy, showed the features I had no clue about but everything went south pole when I had to get a co-signer; I just decided not to ruin someone's credit (the potential part of it).
I've read about Costco's program and seems to be a good option. You'd have to do your homework to know the type of car you would like and the kind of vehicle you need. I guess right now a roadster is out of the list, right?
 
I actually used to sell cars and so much of your experience depends directly on the salesperson. Unfortunately the kind, considerate, understanding sales people don't last too long because they just don't sell as many cars as the aggressive, pushy, condescending sales people. Having sold cars I don't mind the battle (and it is a battle) but I completely understand why people hate it.
 
Yeah Carmax was in my mind if I were to buy used, but I really got my heart set on a new car, when I bought my Prius I had a lot of the same experience, "I want that car" "we don't have any in stock, we can put you on the list" "Ok put me on the list" like 2 weeks later "we got your car, I hope you like red" "I don't mind red, can you pick me up from the BART station?" "yup" "here's your check, bye!"

Haven't thought of Costco because almost exclusively I see "American" brand cars there (Ford, Chevy, Dodge) didn't know they did "imports" (Toyota). But I'll give it a check, I know currently Toyota is doing 0% APR for 72 months, and me not giving them money up front just makes me money in the long run with my investment accounts, so that is a definite perk.

Flagg, yeah I get that, but I'm amazed that those people sell more. I get the art of convincing someone they need something, but for me I did my homework on which autos were the ones I wanted to look a bit closer at (and the ones my wife refused to look at), I was not there just "browsing" cars to have them sell one to me, I told them one specific model, and even which trim I wanted, now tell me some features that make it stand out that go beyond what I read on the company webpage.

Mario, nope Roaster is definitely out.
 
I love dealing with car salesmen. I love negotiating on anything and am 100% certain that I will always get a better deal negotiating than going to a CarMax or similar and not having the opportunity to bargain.

Now that being sai I was amazed a few years ago when I went car shopping with a woman. She was the one buying the car. She was the one choosing the car and she was the one paying for the car. She told me that car salesman pay no attention to women and I told her that's nuts. They'll pay attention to anyone buying the car. She was right and I was wrong. Every single one talked to me. Tried to sell me on the car. This was even after I told them multiple times I wan't the one shopping or buying it. It was an eye-opener.
 
Yeah, funny how car buying can be so unpleasant unless you like that sort of thing.

Costco, AAA and others have no-haggle deals, but that usually just means going to a specific salesman
at a certain dealer that will give you a fixed mediocre sales price.
You skip the negotiating, but then have to wait for the specific person and so on. And deal is so-so.

Ordering a new car is a bit easier, but only if you want something not on the lot
You go to the fleet dealer. All forms and business, no negotiating. Generally a decent deal, since it is zero risk for the dealer.

Best deal: Buy a year old model as new models come in, negotiate hard, and walk out twice.
Oh, and agree to crappy overpriced financing through the dealer, then refinance with a credit union the next day.
 
Have you use this website www.truecar.com It will tells you price people are paying for the car you want. If you like the price they will connect you with a dealer that will give you at that price. I used that website to buy my new van.
 
The internet sale people are generally better than the ones hovering around on the lot.

My process:
1. Put out a feeler through edmunds.com or any similar sites, you would get contacts/price offer from all the internet department in the area
2. Pick something close, contact them and do test drive
3. After you are happy with your choice of car, offer to buy it at the lowest offer that you received from (1) subtract some, if the current dealer you are at does not play ball, just call the list from (1) till someone take the deal.
 
So the best insider information on how to deal with car sales people has been from women friends who used to be in the business who told me how the car sales "script" works to manipulate the marks, err, I mean customers. After one of these briefings, I went into a car dealership. It was like being on the set of a Twilight Zone episode. *Everything* I had been told played out *exactly* as predicted. I also followed their advice -- don't buy anything until at least your third visit to the dealer and wait for a desperation phone call near the end of the month. Again, played out exactly as predicted. By the time that call came in, however, I had purchased a vehicle through the auto broker at my credit union. Sadly, Bay Federal Credit Union's auto buying service is no more and now that I am in the market for a vehicle again, I have not figured out where to go. I must say that Fremont Toyota and Capitol Toyota are the most pleasant and low-pressure environments I have experienced so far. I have dealt with both men and women at Fremont and they have been really pleasant.
 
About Capitol Toyota, back in the day (like almost 20yrs ago) when I was following my parents around car shopping, I remember we talked to a guy that just bought a Corolla for $20k+, a COROLLA. We asked the guy why it was so expensive and he doesn't know neither. We never bought from there. YMMV lol
 
$20k for a Corolla, sounds like it had all sorts of bells & whistles on it :D

One thing I noticed form buying my Prius 11 years ago is that every car has multiple trim levels, one particle car we've been looking at is the Rav4, well they have the LE (lowest) XLE, Limited, Platinum, Platium Limited (guessing on those later ones) but there's at least 4 different levels not even including the Rav4 hybrid which has the XLE as the base, then the other corrisponding levels. Then there's the add ons, and oh boy there are plenty. Everything from "premium audio", navigation, different ways to pop the back hatch, leather seats, side guards, paint guard, etc... just too crap and if you buy a "premium" setup then yeah it can definitely increase the cost substantially over what the "Starting at.... " price states on Toyota's website.

Never really knew how to negotiate for new cars though, I mean other than possibly talking back with the missus about how the Honda CR-V is a nice car too with similar features, I mean used cars sure. But new?
 
Ok looked at TrueCar, and looks too good to be true, wants my email, street address, phone number and even says in the agree terms that dealers will spam me, call me, and text me (luckily I didn't give them true information). Then it got to 1 dealer, and the prices they showed were not anywhere close to the "average" price they said I could get it at.
 
Bring your wife and kid(s) when you negotiate. Have her be a pain in the butt and complain about everything. Feed your kids candy and ice cream, preferably at the dealership. Make sure the kids act rude, obnoxious, and uncontrollable. It's good if they are cranky and cry a lot. Bonus points for wife yelling. You'll get a great price for the car :)
 
We are in the market for a new car as well. Glad I found this thread, getting a lot of pointers. If it helps, last time I bought a car I did all the negotiating via email. Contacted 4 dealers, asked them to quote a model and trim that I liked and them bid against each other... all via email. One dealership wasn't having it but after a couple of weeks of exchanging emails with 3 dealers, I got the price that liked and came in to sign the papers. Saved me from the 4 hour haggling session at the dealership.

By the way, if you can't get them to give you a discount on the cost of the car, get it to the lowest that you can and right before signing, ask them to add on service packages for free. I was able to get them to give me free car service at the dealership for a few years. That's worth at least a couple of G's


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Here's another option.

https://www.hertzcarsales.com/

You can get a 1 year old used car from them. That's actually where I got my Mustang in 2008. Still have it.

IMG_0226.JPG

They send their problem cars to auction, and sell the decent ones through their car sales program.
 
By the way, if you can't get them to give you a discount on the cost of the car, get it to the lowest that you can and right before signing, ask them to add on service packages for free. I was able to get them to give me free car service at the dealership for a few years. That's worth at least a couple of G's
Well the nice guy salesman I talked to, actually was in a lot where they have "Sonic-Price" or something along that line. Asking him and doing some research it seems they price based on what people are paying or something along those lines, so you get "no-haggle pricing" now how good that price is... I dunno, as I mentioned there are so many fricking variations in one car model that can see the price swing greatly easily thousands of dollars (just on the MSRP sticker price), so it makes it a lot more difficult to know if I'm getting a good price because there's lots of options in there or if there's nothing and it's just elevating the price because they added some "door guard" crap (seriously, City Toyota had on EVERY car these little plastic things around every door that literally looked like someone got vinyl tubing at home depot and sliced it down the middle to slip it on, and every car it showed an increase over over $300, written on a tag with a fricking Sharpie! like holy crap, talk about aftermarket addon bullshit)

Norm, yeah I think the first car my parents bought me was from Hertz (way before the internet of things though!), which was perfectly fine to get a discounted car for some one so young, but I need a new car. While that used car I got definitely ran very well for a long time, it was a compact car (Geo Prizm) so you kind of expect those types of cars to last a while. But the first car *I* bought was new, and there is something about it that I know every "naughty" thing that was done with it, so it is an untouched virgin for me, of course the downside is when someone rear ended me a week after I bought the car it felt like such a violation, doesn't matter if the body shop made it look new again, this was a new car that was already damaged.
 
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