davearm wrote:
jmh wrote:
Complaining about car dealers being the devil is like complaining about water being wet or the sun rising in the east. Their game is simple, they generally suck at it and most aren't that bright.
Outplay them.
I'm having trouble with most of this narrative.
The sales lackey may suck at it and may not be bright, and you may well have superior product knowledge.* But that person is mostly irrelevant. That's not the person you're negotiating with. The actual decisionmaker (sales manager or whomever) is not going to sell you a vehicle for less than the dealership is ready to take. The notion that you'd drive off the lot with the car guys scratching their heads wondering how they just got "outplayed" by some joe blow buyer just defies all logic.
The best you can hope for is to chip away enough to get closer to their bottom line price than a less savvy, or less patient buyer would.
*Actual discussion overheard between my buddy and a newb "sales" guy, when discussing options for the pickup he was buying:
Salesguy: "How about the limited slip differential?"
Buddy: "Should I get it?"
Salesguy: "Do you want it?"
Buddy: "Well what is it?"
Salesguy: "I dunno."
Suffice it to say, I was floored. A dude selling cars couldn't explain what a LSD is/does. Had no clue in fact. You can imagine the awkward silence that ensued when it became abundantly clear neither my buddy nor the salesguy knew WTF they were talking about. In that moment, it became obvious that everyone was just BSing each other.
The game is simple. They want to sell a car to maximize profit. The buyer wants to buy a car at the lowest cost. Both want the transaction to happen, but the game gets in the way. The sales manager has done this transaction hundreds or thousands of times more than most buyers. It is unemotional for him. If the process of buying a car is emotional for the buyer, they have already lost. The game is to make it emotional for the buyer. But the game boils down to a math problem for the sales manager. It the buyer keeps it unemotional they have a greater chance of a better result.
I think you are misinterpreting my "out play" comment. I am talking about making it a math problem and remaining unemotional about the purchase process. Out playing is recognizing the common moves they make and take those moves out of play.
A dealer should make some money on the transaction, but the buyer needs to understand that they make money even if they sell the car at invoice. So my objective is to get a deal that I think is fair once I understand what the dealer will make on the car. You will never get a "head scratching deal" and I didn't suggest that. Sometimes you might get a super deal that the dealer is willing to take a hit (however slight) in order to get an incentive from the manufacturer. Getting those deals is more luck than skill.
I think we agree that most of the sales team in a dealership are just in the way. They lack knowledge about their product and are being used by the sales manager in the game. Their only role is to make you feel good about the purchase, add pressure, or delay the process and act as an intermediary between you and the sales manager. The "sales lackey" generally suck at this part of the game. Most are clumsy and getting them out of the way early is key. They dominate the sales floor, and, yes, aren't that bright. Come back in a year and there will be 90% turnover in the sales people.
Oh and the game isn't over once the buyer and sales manager sign a deal. Trade in value is a separate game, if you choose to go this route. There might be a good reason (sales tax) to take a slightly worse deal from the car dealer than sell it on your own or to a Carvana or the like, but again that's a math problem. And if you decide to finance the car through the manfacturer, know the finance manger is also still selling and the game is still being played.
So what part do you disagree with?
Suffer Well.