Rant: Town North Mazda Sales Department

[sammm]

Kind of off the subject, but here it is FWIW. A buddy at work bought a Toyota Highlander a couple years back. After he and his wife decided it was the vehicle they wanted, he handled all the rest of the negotiations via the internet. No spending hours fighting a salesman and playing the game with paper and numbers.

When the time comes to replace my wife's car (and it's getting close), that's how I will be handling it.

[MiataMike]

From the logic that I'm hearing. I would ask this question, "Why do we need sales personel if they only try to sell a sure customer?" Isn't the purpose of a salesperson to sell an item that one wouldn't normally buy or might be on the fense as to buying?

And if thats the case why not just hire professional drivers to escort people around town for a "Driving Session" and fire all of the sales people and just have a cashier.

[Titus]

Kind of off the subject, but here it is FWIW. A buddy at work bought a Toyota Highlander a couple years back. After he and his wife decided it was the vehicle they wanted, he handled all the rest of the negotiations via the internet. No spending hours fighting a salesman and playing the game with paper and numbers.

When the time comes to replace my wife's car (and it's getting close), that's how I will be handling it.

That is how we bought the Murano. Still ended up having to spend 3 hours there and almost walked out on the Finance guy for dragging things out when we wouldn't agree to every add-on in the book, but we did get the exact car we wanted for something like $250 over invoice, just as we had negotiated via Email. It helped that we had no trade-in, and I had prearranged financing through a credit-union too.

[srivendel]

And if thats the case why not just hire professional drivers to escort people around town for a "Driving Session" and fire all of the sales people and just have a cashier.

+Forty hundred eleventy quadrillion. What's so hard about a sales gnome understanding that someone who isn't buying today can still be a serious buyer?

S.

PS -- Hey Titus, what's with the new sig? You've gone all edgy on us.

[channelmaniac]

I had prearranged financing through a credit-union too.

What? Bank boy doesn't even use his own bank?

[redmenace]

When I was shopping back in August, I went to test drive the new GTI. Nice car. I had done my homework on teh internets and knew they had the exact spec I was looking for -- a grey 4-door with the manual trans and leather.

Four-door GTI -- is that anything like the '08 Trans Am?

[wrxmr2eater]

Four-door GTI -- is that anything like the '08 Trans Am?

Nope, the GTI now comes in 4 door trim

VW GTI

[Titus]

What? Bank boy doesn't even use his own bank?

While my company's bottom line is important to me, it is not as important as my households bottom line. C.U.s seemed to be where the best rates were on car loans when I bought, and we don't seem to get the same great employee deals on car loans like we get on home loans. We do get cash for buying a hybrid though.

[Ataim]

Here is allot of good reading for those interested.

http://www.carbuyingtips.com/

[SixAce]

Details?

Ok, so I'm car shopping and stop by the Lexus dealership in Abq. NM.

Had my eye on a cool IS they had on the used car lot for about a month.

One of the games we used to play (and some still do) was get the customer to agree to a price, sign, and take it to the manager. We would then go have a smoke and a coke while the customer sat in the little office.

Of course, the price was never agreed to by the sales manager, so he would take a big marker and line out the price and write in the price that he was willing to let the car go for (always highball), and draw a new line with an x for the customer to sign on.

This was the start of many, many, back and forth trips, always with the same result, crossed out lines and new prices and sig lines. But the manager would start writing little comments on the paper, like "comon, yer killin me" or hey, I got kids to feed too!" Same old bullshit. Often, we would end up taping new contracts to the bottom of the old ones and extending the offers/comments until it was like 5 pages long!

The real deal was, the mgrs had such huge egos, that they would NEVER accept the customers offer. The customer always had to cave and accept his. I'd lose a sale over a fricking hundred dollars!

Anyway, I decide I want to play the game my way, now that I am the customer, so I go in with two big markers (one black, and one red) in my jacket pocket. The sales guy falls into my cleverly sprung trap and asks me what I was willing to pay for the car. I offer him some insane lowball price (like 6k low!), he looks like he was about to have kittens and refuses to take the offer to his mgr. I insist, and he writes it down and I sign...

He's back in like two minutes, and of course the offer is crossed out and a correspondingly stupid new offer is written in by the mgr ($100 below asking price!) with the comment "be serious", with sig line and all.

Ok, game on. I cross out his price with the black marker and write a reasonable offer that I was willing to work up from and sign it. Not one minute later, the sales guy is back, offer crossed out, and new offer is a whole $50 off of his last one, with the comment, "dont' make me laugh" written on it.

Now I'm pissed, take out my RED marker, cross out his number, and add $150 to my original insane offer, with the comment (in big red letters) "PUT DOWN YOUR CRACK PIPE AND WORK WITH ME!!!" I thought the saleguy was going to shit a big IS right on the spot! But he dutifully takes the offer.

After sitting there for about 5 minutes, I get up and look out the office door and see a whole gaggle of sales people bearing toward the office with the mgr. He introduced himself and stated that he would not be doing business with me at any price, that they were the only Lexus dealer in the state, and that I would have to leave and not return! I laughed and reminded him that Denver, Phoenix, and Vegas were easy drives and it was their loss.

I guess some guys don't get my sense of humor.

[SixAce]

From the logic that I'm hearing. I would ask this question, "Why do we need sales personel if they only try to sell a sure customer?" Isn't the purpose of a salesperson to sell an item that one wouldn't normally buy or might be on the fense as to buying?

And if thats the case why not just hire professional drivers to escort people around town for a "Driving Session" and fire all of the sales people and just have a cashier.

Very true. As they say, a good salesman can sell ice to eskimos.

When I test drove a Mini in Phoenix (huge upscale dealership), they had hat they called "product specalists" that drove and demonstrated all features and knew all the specs. Very cool. Test drives by appt. only and pre-screened credit ratings (they also had new BMW, Jag, Porsche, Aston, and some that I cant remember..)

You only talked to a sales rep if you wanted to. I make the mistake of driving the 315 hp M-Coupe, which made the Mini feel like a lead slug. I passed on the bimmer, thinking it would either put me in jail or kill me trying

[icepenguin66]

I understand everyone has a mortgage to pay. But what about treating every customer with respect whether he/she decides to buy the car that day or not?

I know sales get paid on commisson. But if I encounter a saleman that's friendly and not pushy for a sale, I will save his business card for future purchases and refer friends and family to him.

I was all set to buy a leftover $17k 03 Miata back in 2004. But I got a test drive of the RX-8, ended up changing my mind and bought the 8.

Yeah, you and your friends were treated like crap but I understand the views of the salesperson. There are a lot of jerk off people that think they are serious about being serious about purchasing a new car! My father and several friends’ parents are holes when looking at cars and thinking about making the upgrade.

OTOH, I think dealerships should have a demo car to test drive as soon as a customer says they want to. For intelligent and courteous buyers like most of us probably are, this would quickly determine if we are serious about the car, since we would already have pined over the specs of the competitors thus leaving a drive as the only way to pick a winner.

I must say, I have to commend the little Asian guy at TN for being a great salesman. We both knew I could not and was not going to purchase an NC but was on a test drive within the 2 minutes it took to photo copy my DL and grab the keys!

[Red5]

Yeah those guys at Town North are some crusty fools. The place smells like death and cigaretts. I bought my MSM from there in January of 05. I got 7000 off without much hassel.


Now we have a baby on the way and I spent most of last fall looking for something new, and the MS3 was at the top of the list. I went back to Town North 4 times to inquire about the MS3 and as others have said, it was like NO ONE WANTED TO SELL ME A DAMN CAR! No one would tell me when they were coming in, I couldn't get anyone to take my number, and one guy even told me that they were ALL already accounted for.

So, off to El Dorado where I got my first MS3 for sticker and a few extras thrown in (they were charging $1K over). My salesman Bruce was excellent. He was very professional and very nice to my wife. He talked to her instead of over her. He kept bringing us water and made sure we were comfortable. At Town North we were shown the vending machine. When my first MS3 was totaled (driver texting on his cell slamed into the back of my car) I had no problems going back to Bruce at El Dorado.

[channelmaniac]

My salesman Bruce was excellent. He was very professional and very nice to my wife. He talked to her instead of over her. He kept bringing us water and made sure we were comfortable. At Town North we were shown the vending machine. When my first MS3 was totaled (driver texting on his cell slamed into the back of my car) I had no problems going back to Bruce at El Dorado.

You know... I had a similar experience with them when I bought my 03. The sales folks were great. Their service department was the exact opposite... HORRIBLE. They lied and did shoddy work. I won't step foot back there.

Can we combine the best of both dealerships?