Ouch!

Any dealer will tell you that Saab and Volvos are indestructible, what's a bit of salt in the works? All those E-Types that sank in the Suez canal got back on the road - your car is safer, submerged in the channel than parked in Leeds or Manchester!

Any dealer will tell you that Saab and Volvos are indestructible, what's a bit of salt in the works?

Yeah, but the ship sank on its side, so that's a shedload of panels that are going to need the dents taken out.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/8/4/163150/0581

shedload of panels that are going to need the dents taken out.

No problem, knock on one of a thousand lock-ups round here and wave a few fivers, and you're in business!

Liking your job is almost prerequsite to doing it right. I am sure it shows in your dealership's results.

I have witnesed the most dramatic changes in car buying experience here in Croatia:

Some 25 years ago, when I was buying my first car (a crappy Fiat-128 knockoff called Zastava-101 (from "Crvana Zastava" ("Red Flag"), producers of laughing stock Yugo)) there were perhaps 5 places in Zagreb when one could buy a car, after spending months in waiting list. The salespeople were behaving as if they were doing you enormous favor, and showrooms did not exist.

20 years and one change in economic system later, I set up to investigate buying a Ranault Twingo. I went into a dealership (also conducting 'faded jeans and T-shirt test') and questioned a poor guy there about models, options etc for half an hour, then thanked, said I would think it over and left. A week later I received a letter from the dealership inviting me for a test drive. When I appeared, the guy recognised me and appologised for not having a test car with exact options I was interested in (in particular, canvas roof). To make a long story short, they made a sale (and subsequent one, when we bought a fully loaded Laguna as a company car; now we are considering the new Espace). They invited me on celebration of moving into new premises, and still send me birthday cards. As the result, Renault in general and that dealership in particular have quite an edge over competition in my eyes (other things being close to equal).

Never mind the salespeople, it's the service departments that drive me bananas, I have a simple rule, never take out an extended warranty, never use the dealership once the warranty expires. In the near 40 years that I've been a car owner, it's the area of the operation that hasn't improved one bit: However much you think, I've got a better executive model, the service will be perfect, right up to a Bentley, you can assume it's rubbish. I want my cars competently serviced, not competently valeted - their are plenty of people around in little garages who are more than willing to do the work competently, 1/3 rd cheaper and make an effort, rather than just swap units.
Sorry to rant, but it happened again last week: simple job, two nights with a courtesy car, recovered twice, because they hadn't got the diagnosis right and returned the third day with a dented wing. And to make matters worst, as is the norm, I was lied to by the receptionist.
These places are run for the benefit of the staff, not the customer.

Never mind the salespeople, it's the service departments that drive me bananas

This is precisely the reason I want to replace my BMW. I've had nothing but agony with these "service advisors" whose job seems to be to convince you that the problems with your car are really just psychological disturbances in your head.

I've had nothing but agony with these "service advisors" whose job seems to be to convince you that the problems with your car are really just psychological disturbances in your head.

Amen to that. I've had to calm my irate wife down more than once because she felt like mechanics were telling her a noise she was hearing didn't exist.

I'll second the shock you get from cloth seats. I get shocked every single time I step out of my car and close the door. I've started purposely walking around the door and closing it by pushing on the glass (which then gets all smudged). But I don't mind cloth otherwise. It gets really hot around here in the summer.

As for car buying goes, I had a semi-difficult time with my own. When I bought my van, it was one of the 3 most popular cars at the time (along with the PT Cruiser and the S2000). All were selling for WELL over MSRP, and could not be negotiated. The local Honda dealership was selling Odysseys for $3000 over, and the S2000 for $7000 over. As far as I had heard, Honda did not like this since it develops bad will with customers (I have no idea if this is true).

I called every single Honda dealership in the northern Virginia area. Every one was charging $2500-3000 over MSRP, and most didn't have the model I was looking for, since they were so popular. Finally, I started calling all the dealerships in Maryland. After about 20 more calls I found a nice dealership about 2 hours from my house that was selling the car AT MSRP. My dad, who was a car salesman during law school (yes, car salesman* and a lawyer!), hated not being able to negotiate the price, but since it was the ideal vehicle for me at the time, we went with it. I certainly felt less screwed than I could have been at any other dealership in the DC Metro area.

Although, even with all that demand, my local dealer let us drive the car.

Anyway, my point is that sellers' markets suck when shifted that much. All I know is that the dealership I bought at got a good amount of business when I went on the Edmunds message boards and told all the DC area folks where they could buy their car for $3000 less than anywhere else.

* my father was the first person to sell a Toyota Celica in the tristate area. he also said he made more money selling cars than he did for the first 10 years he was a lawyer

I'll second the shock you get from cloth seats. I get shocked every single time I step out of my car and close the door. I've started purposely walking around the door and closing it by pushing on the glass (which then gets all smudged).

The car that's shocked me the most was my mom's '84 or so Cadillac Seville, and it was all leather. One time, in the middle of winter, I got out of the car, and it shocked me when I brushed past the door with my shoulder, through an insulated leather jacket. It left a pinhole in the leather. I've never been shocked so hard in my life. I finally learned to grab the door frame before setting foot on the ground, and it never shocked me once I started doing that.

After owning cloth interior cars for 4 years, then getting leather in my new Saturn, it is now a must for me.

Ditto. Not specifically because I like the way it looks or feels (and it does look and feel good) but more because it's more practical. It withstands tears better than cloth seats, and is easier to clean than cloth seats, especially when you spill a Biggie drink in the back. It's a must for any tripmobile.

>>> At least I'm honest.

Which was one of my points. It's this whole "pretending to be my best friend while looking for a way to get over on me" thing that I don't appreciate (or really even understand).

Actually, whether providing service to potential customers is a "waste of time" for people depends on how they define their jobs.

If John was treated well it probably fostered several future deals. If someone sees John's '98 and asks him about new M3s, which dealer will he refer them to? (Hint: not the one that requires deposits for test drives.) And when it comes time for John to get serious himself, well there you go.

OK, Heather. Since you took time to rebut me so thoroughly, I'm going to counter some of your points (see the other post about not knowing when discretion is the better part of valor; that's me!).

>>> All standards of common decency often get checked at the door.

While I certainly don't check mine at the door, I've been to enough dealerships (~100 over 26 years, buying ~20 cars) to know that some people do that. But your assumption that they wouldn't adopt that attitude elsewhere may be false; I see the same rude people hassling store clerks & McDonalds' counter workers.

>>> Do people tell you every day how much money you're entitled to make?

Not every day, just twice a year at review time.
Can't speak for others, but I'm not trying to dictate your profit; I'm saying "Here's what it's worth to me. If you think you can hold out and get more for it, by all means do." I have more respect for a dealer who sends me packing (like Lexus did), then one that jerks me around (like Toyota did).

>>> Oh wait, I forgot, places like jewelers, clothing stores and optometrists are entitled to 200-400% markup on their product without argument.

Uh, survey says [insert BUZZER noise]. Example: Recently bought my girlfriend $9375 worth of jewelry. Paid <$4000. Does that mean the pieces were cheap, or worse, she's not worth paying more for? Of course not. It just means I'm cheap and don't always agree that what you're selling is worth as much to me as you think it should be worth to me.

>>> You want a professional? Pay for one.

This, I can totally get behind. I just happen to not need one. But back in the days I did, they were still hard to find.

>>> Do you interrogate anyone else you deal with for wearing an expensive watch? I didn't think so.

Doesn't matter what kind of saleperson you are, I'll admit it makes me think in the back of my mind: "She must've gotten that by jacking some customers. She should dial back the ostentation." But I wouldn't say it out loud; that would be rude!

>>> LEATHER INTERIORS AND SUNROOFS ARE NOT NEEDS THEY ARE WANTS

Which is why neither of my cars has either. Of course, when I walked into an Audi dealership seeking a car without them, they laughed and asked for $2000 before they'd use their locater to find one so equipped. "What, do you think, we do that for our health?" (Instead, I special-ordered -- at no extra charge -- a BMW from the factory w/cloth interior, no cruise control, manual A/C, no sunroof, and no folding seats. Of course, the sport package was an absolute must-have.)

>>> who are probably decent people before and after they walk through the door

As I'm sure you and (some of) your staff are, as well.

manual A/C

What's manual A/C? A punkah wallah in the back seat?

Peter

>>> never take out an extended warranty, never use the dealership once the warranty expires.

I'd go one further: never use a dealer for service unless it's being paid for by somebody else who won't reimburse you for using an independent mechanic. And also: don't feel compelled to service it at the dealer from which you bought it, as the goals of the 2 departments are 180 degrees opposed.

What's manual A/C?

It's one of those older AC's which is controlled by a knob (colder-warmer), in contrast to those new AC's which are controlled by digitally setting the exact temperature you want in the car.

I finally learned to grab the door frame before setting foot on the ground, and it never shocked me once I started doing that.

Does that really help ? Mmmm, I must start doing that too then. I get shocked all the time by my car.
I now also get out of my car the way Dignan describes : closing the door by pushing on the glass window.
Of course, this doesn't always solve the problem. It has happened to me a couple of times now that I got out of the car, and closed the cardoor via the glass. No shock, perfect. But then when I inserted my key into the keyhole of the front door of my house (metal on metal), I got one helluva shock.

In my mom's car, I always figured that it was the car building up static, as I couldn't figure out a way that I could really be generating it inside the car. So I figured that if I got out of the car, then touched it, it got grounded through my body. But if I touched it before and while I got out, that my body was enough of a capacitor to slowly drain that electricity to ground instead of doing it instantaneously. But that's pseudo-science mumbo-jumbo, even though it made sense to me. Regardless, it always seemed to work. You can give it a shot; it couldn't hurt. Well, at least not any more than it currently (no pun intended) does.

Although IANASEE (Static Electricity Engineer), I did notice shortly after replacing a set of tires that the amount I was being shocked changed dramatically. I don't see how just sitting there I could possibly generate the charge I've gotten at times.
-Zeke

I did notice shortly after replacing a set of tires that the amount I was being shocked changed dramatically.

Right. Some tires have a high degree of conductivity, others do not. Depends on what compounds are in the rubber. It's quite common for a set of aftermarket tires to increase the amount of static shock you get on leaving the vehicle.

I've gone through a lot of trials and tribulations trying to get rid of the static problems in my car and don't have a solution except for the "be touching the metal of the car as you're getting out instead of touching it after you're already out".

Which, by the way, works because the soles of your shoes transmit the built-up static charge slowly over a large flat area (the soles of your feet) instead of quickly through the tiny point of your first touch with the car's metal upon exiting. The trick is that you have to be touching the metal when the soles of your shoes hit the ground.

Buying a car in the US seems a bit different to here - servicing it sounds appallingly the same.

I never put the salesperson under pressure, nor can I remember them doing so to me: Range Rover have given me new models for the day, with a picnic hamper on the back seat, and also for the weekend, as have Mazda: "To take it for a good run": Jaguar brought the X type demonstrators round to the office for my guys to take out. MG are regularly offering to drop off the new model at my house, whilst they service the old one - but it's out of warranty and I'm not interested in the new model.
The only time in recent years that the salesman came with us was when I brought a Saxo for my daughter.
Of course, we still have it that the one they can get on the road the quickest has a spec. way over what you want, but I start early and persevere!

Post deleted by bodybag

Sorry, wasn't trying to open a can of worms, just commenting on how entertaining/funny I thought it was. My bad I guess?

I have a feeling you're about to get a few more suggestions for a new bbs alias.

In reply to:

---

Guess what? In the US at least (can't speak for the Brittish, I live for Brittish customers) the customer created most of this attitude..... arrogant prick customers (who are probably decent people before and after they walk through the door) tomorrow.

---

Do you think people undergo a personality transplant when they walk into your showroom? We have been conditioned by years of dealing with wretched car salesman. Blaming customers - who don't act like this in other situations - is absurd.

In reply to:

---

Do people tell you every day how much money you're entitled to make? Half the people I deal with in a day have determined I'm entitled to no more than 1-3% gross markup on my product, no matter what the demand for it. We can make it up in volume. There 's a limitless number of people buying a new car in any given month. And our rent, electric, and labor is free. Try telling this to any other merchant. Oh wait, I forgot, places like jewelers, clothing stores and optometrists are entitled to 200-400% markup on their product without argument.

---

You'd avoid this bullshit as well as most of the confrontational attitude you get from customers if you'd just post a final sales price and eliminate the negotiating. Everyone knows the dealerships goal is to prey on ignorance and confusion as much as possible to extract the highest price from the consumer. Fine, you're entitled to do business that way but expect the consumers to consider you the enemy. If I had to bargain with my optomotrist then I would consider him an adversary, too.

-Dylan

In reply to:

---

Nice. Waste the man's time when you have no intention of buying anything. You may have cost him a deal by doing this. But what do you care, car salesmen arn't entitled to make a living because they're all assholes, right?

---

I went into a dealership once to drive an M3. I was young and the M3 was probably out of my price range. However, the salesman was an [censored] and I walked out. If the salesman had been accomodating he had an excellent opportunity to sell me a less expensive new or used BMW.

Some salespeople are smart enough to recognize that a good relationship may pay dividends later.

-Dylan

msaeger:

But how's the service department ? My VW salesman was great but the service is such [censored] it makes me want to sell the car.

The sad truth is that while it's a hell of a lot better than all the other local dealers (we have loaner cars and shuttle buses, no one else in a 30 mile radius does, and you can usually get an appointment in less than a week) but it's not what it can/should be. Partially because the service manager is about as useful as tits on a bull, but should be gone any day now, but primarily because VW can't get their supply lines straight and has some mighty [censored] up methods for attempting to move the brand image upward (ignition coil packs and window regulators anyone?).

lectric:

It was the idiots at corporate that made this brilliant decision.

It still burns me that they were willing to stick me for $600 just to save 25¢ worth of cotter pins at the factory.

The manufacturers make entirely too many decisions like this that dealership employees suffer for. They aren't the ones who have to deal with the irate customer, so why would they care? The kicker is, if a dealer decides to start making mechanically sound, but not by the bok repairs, manufacturers yank back a lot of money from them, as this is a violation of the franchise agreement. Our Audi shop got charged back $1,600,000 this past march for sending out a few thousand happy customers with non standard repairs. It sucks for everyone except the manufacturer.

Drakino:

I have had 2 seperate sales people comment on how much they liked dealing with me,

Because it's rare. Don't get me wrong, I have customers that are an absolute joy to deal with. But they're not the norm, especially not in a shitty economy. While I'm sure you're nice to people in other service fields, they're used to being treated with a certain level of respect, so it's not something often commented on.

The jeans and t-shirt bit I get quite frequently too, it's often where you can easily pick out who knows what they're doing. I actually got someone fired in Neiman Marcus once when I was 17 for this. Nasty whenever I asked for something, followed me and my friend around like we were shoplifting, but was more than happy to run up to take my drivers license out of my hand (back when they used to let you use that instead of a physical credit card if you had an account there) and get her 5%. I had her call up one of the salesmen from the mens department because I refused to deal with her. He called the GM, he was mortified.

bonzi:

Liking your job is almost prerequsite to doing it right. I am sure it shows in your dealership's results.

Precisely. Except for an abysmal first month (hey, I had absolutely no management experience at the time, and was only there for 3 weeks of it), our sales are more than double what they were last year. Most of the area is down at least 20%. Feels good to get those faxes on the first of the month, especially since I was hired because no one else was willing to take the job and my name came up in conversation with the glowing review of "She's difficult to deal with, late for work almost every day, possibly insane, has no experience but she does get things done." from my old boss.

DiGNAN17:

The local Honda dealership was selling Odysseys for $3000 over,...Although, even with all that demand, my local dealer let us drive the car.

Most Honda dealerships did up here too, even though they wouldn't let you touch an S2000 until at the very least, money was discussed and it was down to "if I like it I'm buying it now" or they aready had a deposit subject to test drive. Around here, they both went for $3000 over list at that time. The difference being that people rarely go out and test drive a minivan who have no intention of buying a minivan. They do this often with sportscars and SUVs.

several other people:

Re: on test driving cars, and annoying car salesme [re: Drakino]
Reply to this postReply

After owning cloth interior cars for 4 years, then getting leather in my new Saturn, it is now a must for me.

Ditto. Not specifically because I like the way it looks or feels

This was not stated right. I should have better explained my gripe. More like this:
A women comes in (I have never had this happen to me personally with a man) and can realistically afford a base model car if I sell it short, which she likes how it drives and it suits her needs. She wants the one that is $4000 more and has those options. She expects ME to sell the car at a loss because she NEEDS THOSE THINGS. Then I'm a bitch because I won't sell it at a loss. The worst part is when she refuses to leave after I've told her there's nothing more I can do for her, and continues to argue. It gets much more irritating when she comes back in three weeks later (most likely she's been to every dealer in the area), stating she's ready to buy, and once again refuses to accept that I'm not selling things at a loss.

And I won't buy a car without a sunroof myself. I just don't expect someone else to pick up the tab for what I want.


I really do have several more things to say and things to answer, but I'm falling asleep .

I have a TDI so it's window regulators and maf sensors.

The manufacturers make entirely too many decisions like this that dealership employees suffer for. They aren't the ones who have to deal with the irate customer, so why would they care? The kicker is, if a dealer decides to start making mechanically sound, but not by the bok repairs, manufacturers yank back a lot of money from them, as this is a violation of the franchise agreement. Our Audi shop got charged back $1,600,000 this past march for sending out a few thousand happy customers with non standard repairs. It sucks for everyone except the manufacturer.

But why don't the manufacturers understand that I am much more likely to buy another brand of car next-go-round because I feel like they shipped a purposely inferior product? I mean, I understand that they don't want to make a car that will last for 25 years and 500,000 miles, but come on... It's that kind of attitude from corporate giants that makes me nauseous.

I've become of the opinion that dealership repair shops are only good for one thing. Getting an EXTREMELY high estimate on fixing something to give your insurance company, so you can pocket half the check plus the deductable when you take it to a body shop instead to get it repaired. Not to mention that a body shop owned and run by some guy is much more interested in making you happy than any dealership repair shop ever is.

I once got into a head on colision in a jeep cherokee sport. Took it to the dealership to let them fight it out with my insurance company. After 2 months and $12.5k of the insurance company's money, I got my $14k Jeep back. I was told that they drove it around for a week-end to make sure everything was working OK. They give me the keys, I hop in, and I try to put the seat back. It was bent to an 80º angle TOWARD the steering wheel, leaned all the way back. Put the seat forward, and it was more like 45º. There was no WAY they had driven it even around the block. I call attention to it and the service manager said, and I quote, "Oops". He then jumped in the back seat while I was watching, wrapped both hands around the front seat, and proceeded to yank it back into some semblance of the correct angle. Let's just say I was not getting warm fuzzies all over. Tthe car never acted properly again. All told, they spent close to $15k to fix a $14k car, plus they rented me a car for 2.5 mos. Why they didn't just total it from the start I'll never understand.