Beating The Car Salesman: Know Thine Enemy

Before You Visit the Lot

As with any purchase, regardless of disposable income level, buying a vehicle should never be done on a whim. Everything in regards to a car sales lot is designed to diminish critical thought of the consumer by overwhelming them with colorful, noisy and meaningless attractants just to lure bored passersby into the lot. The walk-in customer is the very lifeblood of car sales in these desperate times so they employ all manner of bait to get them in: giant inflatable monsters in the lot, free food and all manner of the usual Vegas sideshow antics-sound and fury signifying nothing, to make you forget how much this little detour is going to ultimately cost you.

Your car search should begin right where you now sit, in your computer chair, where you can learn about the consumer reports for various cars, get a bonafide price quote (new vehicles only) and also check the manufacturers website to see if there are any special rebates available. The time you spend perusing the vehicles in the comfort, quiet and clarity of your own time and space will pay large dividends later when you walk into the den of inequity which is the modern car dealership.

Your Own Team

Aside from everyone who will ride in your potential new vehicle, your shopping team should include the two following persons, a certified (not shade-tree) mechanic and a car salesman himself, or someone who is knowledgeable about high end sales. The mechanic will immediately be able to discern the various everyday grinds and groans from a death rattle on a used car, and in the case of a new vehicle, will usually be able to tell you which cars tend to show up in his repair bay often and why, or if there is talk of any recalls.

In any case, a modern, tech-schooled mechanic is an invaluable resource when you go car shopping, provided you are shopping on a different lot from where your “friend” works. As for your buddy the salesman, he will not only be able to identify fallacies, lies and obvious falsehoods in the dealer’s friendly (but always loaded, open ended) sales prattle, but will also keep the suited idiot busy, while your mechanic can do his job.

Though just identifying your friend (any friend) as “an off duty car salesman”, should work wonders in making the lot’s sales rep/overpaid valets keep their mouth shut more often than not therefore limiting his lies to an absolute minimum.

Greeting and Graft

After making your acquaintance and walking up to you with the same eager to see you stride and false smile as a prostitute or life changing high school counselor in a really crappy made for TV movie, the car salesman will take this unforgivable fake friend act to insane eschelons of intimacy.

First he will ask about the weather, then he will ask if you are looking for a vehicle, and then what kind? While retail store employees also harass their patrons for similar self serving reasons; “Can I help you?” in the case of the store it is only to cut down on shoplifters by letting a prospective shopper/thief know that the store is aware of their presence, so please will they conduct their business in a timely fashion or leave so they may stalk someone else?

In the case of the car salesman, the inquisition is a little more duplicitous. The sales rep wants to find out something about the needs of the consumer standing before them so they can direct them to a fitting car. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact it is the very mark of good honest car sales salesmanship, (if such an oxymoron could hold any meaning whatsoever). No, in the case of the car rep it is so that they can impersonate you, and mirror your every thought, taste and preference like some sort of sci-fi doppelganger.

For example, if you like Obama, he will like Obama, If you liked Mccain, he too will gripe with you about the results of the recent election and demand a recount. Heck, if you said you loved Hitler, the salesman would tell you without pausing that he wishes for the day when Germany will take the world, and Mein Fuhrer’s Thousand Year Reich will finally be realized. Does it sound crazy, evil and untrue? It is! Welcome to the very would of car sales.

But it’s not only what you say, if you wear sports gear, t-shirts featuring a famous band or political slogan or drive a car with a bumper sticker proclaiming your preference or aversion to anything in this world, the salesmen will be able to engage you with more sycophantic, self serving blather that lets you know that no matter what you think, you are right, intelligent and that he is your like-minded friend. And if you think (like so many do ) that this strange man you just met moments ago on this sun baked concrete lot is the last good guy, the last honest man in the desert wasteland of scorpions that is car sales, let me tell you that you are wrong on all counts. A fun thing to do here is to act as your own your polar opposite.

For example, if you dedicate your spare time for a Christian Pro-life movement, you can pretend that you work for a women’s center that offers Pro-choice options to all women. Then watch as your new friend who seemed like your ideological twin moments ago, suddenly says the most insulting and blashpemous things, informing you how a woman’s right to choose should be Constitutionally protected and how he always wanted to be an abortion doctor but he couldn’t pass the intelligence or ethics tests and had to be a car salesman instead. And while having to deal with someone who is everything you ever hated incarnate may make the purchase of a high ticket item perhaps even more unpleasant, don’t hate the salesman for this; it’s not like he really loves or hates anything he says he does.

Moreover, after a couple years he has lied so much to everyone about everything he has ever interacted with that he doesn’t even recognize his attitudes or beliefs regarding anything in this world anymore, and even if he somehow did, he realizes that no one ever truly wanted to know them anyway.

The Test Drive

After establishing that you and your party are in fact looking for a car and aren’t just a gang of lazy, elitist car thieves who want the greatest possible color selection, the salesman will suggest a test drive. The salesman will take your license, and will return with a set of keys, and purport to get in with you, for the test drive. DO NOT LET HIM IN! If you have done your homework as I have instructed you earlier, there is nothing this suited cretin can tell you about this car on a joyride that you shouldn’t already know.

The real purpose of the test drive is so that your new friend can get you to have an emotional attachment to the vehicle- telling you again how much the ten cup holders will keep your activechildren properly hydrated in their minivan if you tell them you are a family man, or conversely, he will reassure you that the seats of the van also remove so you can stack thirteen bodies in the always “spacious” interior once you tell them you are a serial killer. Of course you (probably) aren’t really a serial killer, but I recommend that you lie to them often, and no less gratuitously. No matter what you tell them, they will always respond in a manipulative, encouraging fashion.

Moreover, when talking to a modern car salesman lying shamelessly and insanely with every spoken word almost passes as professional courtesy. Finally, they may try to tell you that the policy of the dealership forces him to accompany all buyers on all test drives. As always this is a lie, if you make an issue of it, the sales rep will always back down because if you guys cut and run and leave the lot without taking a test drive FOR WHATEVER REASON the sales reps superiors- people far more greedy, corrupt and evil than he is- will do things to him behind the scenes, terrible things which bear no mention here.

But you shouldn’t pity him. You, your mechanic and sales rep need to have a private conversation about the true value of the vehicle and pull over as soon as you are out of the dealership and look under the hood, (especially if it is a used car).

Objects on Paper Are Pricier than They Appear

If the car is valid, and worth the listed price your mechanic tells you, you are half done. The sticker price on all automobiles sold in the United States is artificially inflated to give the illusion that you aren’t getting reamed because you didn’t pay the maximum number posted to the glass a little paper tag. There is a saying that permeates the industry that states “sticker price is sucker price”. And while I hate to speak in cliche’s, the wisdom here is as correct as it is harsh (as usual in life).

So after bringing the vehicle back, the salesman will run out to your car, nervous as hell because not only has he just gotten royally chewed for allowing you to leave the lot without him, but because you are obviously a “nightmare customer” who has fallen for none of of his ploys. If you have done everything I have asked you to do thus far, (and the dealership allows it) he may have given you away to a more experienced salesman by now just to be rid of you and so he may pick on weaker prey, carrion feeder and predator of opportunity that he is.

Either way, it matters not; the salesman has surprisingly little authority when it comes to the final deal and in may cases is discouraged from talking about prices except in the form of rebates. In any event, he should be disregarded by now if you haven’t done so already.

Once a salesman comes to your car and collects the keys and your feedback about the vehicle which they are always oh-so happy to hear (as long as it is positive and conducive to a same day sale) you will be invited inside to sit at a table and glut yourself on free food or drinks and fill out your offer on the car. Now is the time to play lawyer (as one should whenever they address a criminal) and ask the salesman questions you already know, such as if there any rebates, cash back, or any other form of special incentives to buy today.

The salesman will smile that happy, friendly, accommodating, always insincere smile of his and tell you about the ways this car will not cost you what the sticker price says it will. It may be because it’s President’s day, it may be because GM is having a closeout on that model or the entire industry is having another bailout garage sale, but listen closely for if you have done as I advised you to do, you already know the answer to all these things already.

Why should you ask then? Many veteran salesmen will omit one or more of the incentives to customers who don’t know about them in the initial stages of negotiation. Why? So it gives them room later to make a much better deal, if the original deal is rejected. If your salesman leaves something out of the deal, something you know you are due, do not let him know that you know at this time! Before the car is bought, you will have all of the savings and perhaps even more if you follow my advice here, using the last bite maneuver.

The Last Bite Maneuver

As you fill out what you would like to pay for the car, low ball them about $2000.00 less than sticker. This deal will never go through, but that’s okay, that is not the point of this. The point of this is to find out how much the car is really worth, and if you have done the individual study I have asked, you already know.

The bottom line is you don’t want to buy the car until the salesman’s manager comes over and mentions that this is a final offer, (usually the third rejection). The game is rapidly winding down, but if you have been paying attention there might be additional savings to you, the consumer, not available on any website or newspaper.

If at any time during the negotiations, the salesman failed to mention a rebate, cash back or special incentive that you KNOW you are eligible for, now is the time to mention it, adding you will buy today if the final incentive is applied to the price of the car. This will freak the sales manager, because odds are, the cost of the special promotion was already included in the final figure they gave you, albeit secretly. By asking for it now, you are essentially asking to receive the vehicle for a price which approaches dealer costand they may be selling the vehicle at a loss, or close to it.

Now is the time to stick to your guns. The manager may lie to you, tell you that you aren’t eligible for the special incentive for reason x or reason y, or they may inform you that they don’t participate in that program or offer. From there you not only threaten to walk, but you threaten to go to the Better Business Bureau, contact their corporate office directly or generally be more trouble than you are worth.

At this point the manager will excuse himself from the negotiations (swearing under his breath at you) so he may go consult his superior, an even scarier guy; many times the owner, but always an unpleasant person who hates dealing with the general public and has the personality, tact and subtlety of a band-saw. This will take a while. Kick back and take slow sips of their bottled water hospitality and kindness which ultimately runs as thin as two dollar rustproofing.

Eventually, the manager or someone else will return to your table and let you know that they have met your insane offer. And even in the event that they tell you that they cannot do it, they will offer you some free oil changes or some other services they can hide in this months spending report from the aforementioned owner upstairs whose office always looks like a mirrored gun tower.

From there you can decide whether or not to buy the car, but if you do this trick enough places, eventually you will get everything you want at cost, as all the levels of the auto sales industry are governed by incompetence and greed.

The Real Hidden Cost

It may delight you to know where the extra money will come from if your “at dealer cost” deal should go through. It actually comes out of the car salesman’s own pocket, but only at his discretion. A good (commission based) car salesman is paid exponentially increasing amounts of money for every car he sells, so while selling a fifth car may be worth $200.00, selling a seventh car may be worth $400.00 while selling a ninth car may be worth $650.00, so a car salesman may agree to your “at cost” price, even at his own personal expense of $300 means he can himself clear another $200 of a $500 commission and slate him for an ever bigger payout on his next victim, er, um, customer.

As always, you should buy at the end of the month, when everyone is amicable (desperate) for your business. And please never pity the car salesmen, for too long they have been substance without form, fraudulent piles of human garbage who have had only one skill in life, and it was being a trained functional sociopath who has been bred, trained to be convincing and hollow enough of a shell of humanity that they could talk the devil himself into setting himself on fire.

If we, as knowledgeable consumers, work together we can put all of them on ice.

-Sinferno