Why people hate car dealers!

[Larry Weil]

Here¹s my e-mail to the owner of Exeter Subaru in Stratham, NH:

Hi David,

This is Larry Weil from Salem, I bought a car from you in 1997, and have
shopped there several times since.

I came in today (Fri 4/4) to look into buying a new Impreza, and trading in
my old one. My experience was most unpleasant.

The salesman, Jim LaFlame, refused to talk to me as an adult. If I hear the
word ³awesome² from him one more time I think I¹ll puke.

But the worst part was that when he spoke to the sales manager (Jason), he
came back telling me I should just get some prices from other dealers and you
will beat their price. I find this highly insulting. Is this man too lazy
to get off his ass and do some work and appraise my car and give me a price?
Why did I waste my time and gas going there just to get the bum¹s rush?

At this point I feel like I wouldn¹t want to buy a car from you if you were
the cheapest dealer on earth. I was told you were out of town for the
weekend, otherwise I would have spoken to you. But the people you left in
charge are doing you no favors with their lazy attitudes.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

Larry Weil

I¹m wondering if others find similar experiences at other dealers?

I¹m so fed up with the car shopping experience that I think I¹de rather
just walk!

 

[bigjimpack]

You may have appeared to be a looky-loo. If you had sat down and said
"I want to buy an impreza with X , X,X. I will pay this much. I
expect $x for my trade I bet you would have a new car and found the
experience pleasant. I love car shopping

 

[Bob Burns]

All Subarus are created equal.
All Subaru dealers are not.
I'd go to another dealer, even if you have to drive a ways to do so.
Salem NH is highly populated; you should be able to find another dealer.

Here¹s my e-mail to the owner of Exeter Subaru in Stratham, NH:




I¹m wondering if others find similar experiences at other dealers?

I¹m so fed up with the car shopping experience that I think I¹de rather
just walk!

--
-------------------------------------------------------
"Every day is Saturday when you're retired."

Bob Burns
Mill Hall PA
(email is a spamtrap)

 

[Frank]

You may have appeared to be a looky-loo. If you had sat down and said
"I want to buy an impreza with X , X,X. I will pay this much. I
expect $x for my trade I bet you would have a new car and found the
experience pleasant. I love car shopping

Family member is a retired car salesman. He loved it when I guy came in,
said he had done all the background computer shopping and told him what
he would pay for the car. He'd get his car at his price but family
member said he would have sold it to him cheaper otherwise ;(

 

[Frank Boettcher]

I¹m wondering if others find similar experiences at other dealers?

I¹m so fed up with the car shopping experience that I think I¹de rather
just walk!

Thank you, I'm always happy for the opportunity to share my experience
with the Carlock Automotive Group. I made the mistake of telling this
dealership that I would have to have my offer accepted before I left
for a ten day trip to lock them to the sale. If not, that was fine,
I would route my trip to check with several other dealers. Well, they
accepted the offer, I didn't shop the other dealers on the way, and
below is the result.

That's CARLOCK AUTOMOTIVE GROUP. A large multiline dealer in
Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee.




June 8, 2007


Carlock Toyota
1700 South Gloster Street
Tupelo, MS 38801

Attention: Brian Nguyen, General Manager

Dear Mr. Nguyen:

I wish to express my disappointment with the treatment I received from
your dealership while attempting to purchase a RAV 4.

I'll not repeat the story in detail, you know it by now. A written
offer to buy; verbal acceptance by your salesman; two additional
confirmations of that acceptance; an attempt to renege and add $425 to
the deal, then repeated deferrals blamed on the individual who did the
locating/ordering being out of pocket for various reasons; and
finally, closure in that the offer would not be accepted at that price
under any circumstances. As discussed, the process wasted three weeks
of my time and caused me to miss other opportunities.

In defense of David, I got the impression with the first vehicle I
purchased from your dealership and with this one that he was very
inexperienced and would do nothing important without authorization.
He indicated when he accepted the offer that he had "gotten approval
from the managers that were on site". Additionally, I'm pretty good
at reading faces, having managed people all my adult life. My
impression, when I walked into your dealership on that Friday morning
to find out if I had a vehicle on order, was that both your sales
manager and your closing/finance/ext. warranty manager knew exactly
what was going on. Of course, I couldn't prove that, but it was in
their eyes. Did they lead him astray and leave him hanging? I'm not
condoning his deceit, just wondering if it isn't somewhat of a Carlock
Toyota policy.

And where did I get that "lowball" price in my offer, from which you
were going to "lose" money? Edmunds true market value, what others are
paying in this region. I discounted it a whopping $26 because we are
so near the end of the model year, but would have given that back to
make the deal. So there was a small margin showing on the surface,
plus whatever your volume rebate or holdback is, plus if ordered as it
probably would have to have been, zero use of any floor plan or credit
term allocations, with no cash tied up from your dealership. I felt
the offer was reasonable, so I left on my trip fully confident that
your dealership would honor the agreement.

Your choice was to either honor the agreement I made in good faith and
your representative accepted, whether independently or, as I suspect,
with at least the tacit authorization of your organization, and have a
satisfied, multiple unit customer, or to not do so and have a
disgruntled ex-customer who will never fully trust your dealership and
will certainly pass that opinion on to anyone who asks. You chose the
latter. In my opinion, that is a very poor business decision, but
certainly yours to make.

Regards,






However, this experience led me to Subaru. I discussed the purchase
of a Forester with two dealerships, Jim Keras Subaru of Memphis, TN
and Paul Moak Subaru of Jackson, MS. I bought from Paul Moak. The
sales people and sales managers for both of these dealerships were
knowledgeable, responsive, and honest. The buying experience was the
most pleasant I've ever had in my long car buying history.

Frank

 

[bigjimpack]

Not likely. I sold cars too and those without a clue got hammered.
Those who did research got best deals and still do

 

[Frank]

Not likely. I sold cars too and those without a clue got hammered.
Those who did research got best deals and still do

I agree but in this case the guy was adamant about paying more than he
needed to.

 

[Larry Weil]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in

You may have appeared to be a looky-loo. If you had sat down and said
"I want to buy an impreza with X , X,X. I will pay this much. I
expect $x for my trade I bet you would have a new car and found the
experience pleasant. I love car shopping

Being that they knew I had bought aa car from this dealer in the past,
why would they make such an assumption? I was too early in the process
to demand a price, I had to know how the prices were running first. A
lot of the dealers these days seem to have an attitude that if they can't
close a deal in the first five minutes after you arive they aren't
interested or willing to put in the effort to make the sale.

Regardless of other factors, dealers should extend the basic courtesy to
anyone who walks in the door. If they make assumptions before they even
get to find out where you are comming from they are the ass!

 

[Larry Weil]

Family member is a retired car salesman. He loved it when I guy came in,
said he had done all the background computer shopping and told him what
he would pay for the car. He'd get his car at his price but family
member said he would have sold it to him cheaper otherwise ;(

I don't care what the salesman likes or dislikes, that's irrelevant. They
need to earn my business, and there's more to that than just qupting a
number.

 

[Larry Weil]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in @f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:

Not likely. I sold cars too and those without a clue got hammered.
Those who did research got best deals and still do

I did do a lot of research on the model, options, etc.. I walked in with a
printout of exactly the model and options I wanted. They still treated me
like shit.

 

[bigjimpack]

Bad dealer. Some are a-holes. Find another its part of the game

 

[Dano58]

Here¹s my e-mail to the owner of Exeter Subaru in Stratham, NH:










I¹m wondering if others find similar experiences at other dealers?

I¹m so fed up with the car shopping experience that I think I¹de rather
just walk!

Pretty much everyone has a 'bad car dealer' story these days. Most of
us (myself included) also have a 'good car dealer' story or two as
well. Too bad we don't share those as well as the negative ones.

I'm curious. Larry - is this dealer a Subaru-only dealer, or do they
carry other brands as well? I've had a few dealings with my local
dealer, a small, family-run Subaru-only dealer, and they have been
excellent. I've bought parts and had service done on my son's car.
Anecdotally, I have heard that single-brand dealers tend to be better
than the large, multi-line shops.

Dan D
'99 Impreza 2.5 RS (son's)
Central NJ USA

 

[Larry Weil]

Pretty much everyone has a 'bad car dealer' story these days. Most of
us (myself included) also have a 'good car dealer' story or two as
well. Too bad we don't share those as well as the negative ones.

I'm curious. Larry - is this dealer a Subaru-only dealer, or do they
carry other brands as well? I've had a few dealings with my local
dealer, a small, family-run Subaru-only dealer, and they have been
excellent. I've bought parts and had service done on my son's car.
Anecdotally, I have heard that single-brand dealers tend to be better
than the large, multi-line shops.

Yup,Subaru only,as was the dealer I finally bought the car from.

 

[sarahs choice]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in


Being that they knew I had bought aa car from this dealer in the past,
why would they make such an assumption? I was too early in the process
to demand a price, I had to know how the prices were running first. A
lot of the dealers these days seem to have an attitude that if they can't
close a deal in the first five minutes after you arive they aren't
interested or willing to put in the effort to make the sale.

Regardless of other factors, dealers should extend the basic courtesy to
anyone who walks in the door. If they make assumptions before they even
get to find out where you are comming from they are the ass!

Indeed they should. However potential customers should also show
respect to the salesperson.

EG Those who spend 2 hours at a dealer to fill in time doing nothing but
stealing valuable selling time for "real" prospects.

Prospects who do "research" prior to attending the dealership and can't
accept that their research is wrong and what their asking for is just
plain stupid.

Yes I can go on......................