MasterCaneman
Posts: 3842
Joined: 3/21/2013 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam quote:
ORIGINAL: MasterCaneman I went to Auto Trader and found an '03 Sport (last year made) for 7k in Stockton. Based on my limited research on the market there, it's about right in the middle of actual values for that type. But Carmax is known in the industry for being on the high side of price range, mainly owing to their marketing programs. How many other dealerships/vehicles did you look at? Who chose that particular vehicle? Lord knows, as a former car salesman, I've had loads of people show up looking for a particular make, model, and trim level and if we didn't have it they left without a second thought. When I hear the words "I gotta have..." it either means I'm making my commission or I watch 'em drive away. Don't try to confuse people with verifiable facts and actual knowledge. Well, it's post facto now. The papers were signed and they took delivery. That alone makes rescinding the deal in any manner very hard. I had a love/hate thing with informed customers. If they did their research right, it made my job easier in some ways. When they did it wrong, it was like performing home dentistry without anesthesia. I'm taking a stab in the dark here, but I think that someone had their mind made up on a certain vehicle and that determination is why she's in the boat she's in now. Again, I've seen this numerous times when the boyfriend/fiance/husband (who can't or won't finance in his name for whatever reason) insists on "X" make or model and the girlfriend or wife goes along with it. And while I outwardly didn't and couldn't care (I worked for commission, baby!), I knew that in a few months to a year or so, the deal would blow up in their faces. Sub-prime customers are a weird group to work with. They're often just barely scraping by, yet when they get to the lot, they gravitate to the most expensive units on the line. We'd get folks who work part-time at a burger joint, or who are on public assistance and all they want to look at are higher end SUVs or luxury sedans. As a bartender, I was trained to upsell, as a car salesman on a sub-prime lot, I had to downsell in order to make that sale. We used to joke, "Come in for an Expedition, drive away in an Escort." Because that's sometimes the only deal we could make with them. And that was usually only after they made a huge downpayment (in one case, 83% of the floor price), a stupidly high monthly, and the requirement to have full coverage, which is based in large part on their zip code, employment history (or lack therof), and legal background. One customer who HAD to have an Envoy, ended up with a nearly four hundred dollar monthly loan and a hundred fifty dollar monthly insurance bill just to own a truck that was over ten years old with 90K on the ticker. Not to mention it only got around 14/20 mpg, and she worked as a CNA making around 13 an hour. I worked out everything on her, and at the end of the month, after paying all her other bills on top of her truck, she walked away with a little less than 200 for groceries, childcare, etc. Yeah, she was receiving a shit-ton of government bennies because she exhibited poor family-making decisions which smoothed that out, but still... And the saddest thing of all about that deal was, she really didn't get to drive it. It was all so she could make "her man" happy. And when "her man" went out with the truck and disappeared into North Carolina, and she got stuck with yet another massive bill she couldn't pay, she just stopped paying on it. I still got my commission, though.
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Age and treachery will always overcome youth and ambition. The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. ~ Sun Tzu Goddess Wrangler
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