Car Shopping #3

Looked at Hondas last night. I drove an Accord and it was hard to remember to pay attention to the car because it was so familiar. Except it was a stick shift, which I have missed driving. The dealership I went to is non-commission. I asked the saleswoman how she was incented and she said bonuses are keyed off the number of units sold. There was a monthly contest going on a bulletin board in the showroom -- she was winning for the month and was really proud of hereself. So I asked, "So you want to sell me a car before the end of the month, but you don't care which one you sell me or at what price?" That's correct, she says. Interesting. It seems that the salespeople and the manager rely on the good-cop bad-cop routine a little bit, where the salesperson wants to sell you the car to get his or her notch on the bulletin board and the manager's the one who says, well, nope, sorry, can't go any lower in price. I guess they all do that. She did like to talk, this saleslady, and in addition to hearing about her daughter's diamond ring and her own back troubles and the job she used to have operating a cherry-picker and her one-eyed dog (we have that in common, my dog also has one eye) I learned some things about commission dealerships. At the end of the month, the managers will sell the salespeople down the river, she says, and mark a car way way down, eating up the commission, to move the vehicle. "I would never work at a place like that," she said. Interesting. I might want to buy my car from such a place.

I have my own Blue Book, which is very useful because I notice that I do tend to believe the salespeople when they say, "This car is a really good deal." It gets me all anxious and worried that someone else will buy the car even if I haven't yet decided that I want the car. And gets me feeling all smart and smug, like, wow, I'm going to get a great deal, I'm so shrewd. And then I pull out my bluebook when the salesman's gone and think, well, it's an ok deal, but it's not a great deal. I should probably have bought the NADA book instead of the bluebook but who really knows. Also I have been doing a lot of shopping on Autotrader.com, and I have a nice little Excel spreadsheet of the makes and models and mileage of the cars I've seen and their comparables out there. It reassures me first that there are PLENTY of good cars around in my price range, and second that, when I am very close to ready to buy a particular car I'll be able to pull out the spreadsheet and show the dealer a very similar car that's listed for $1000 less and ask him why he can't start negotiations at that price.

Tomorrow I have a board meeting outside of Boston and I think I'll hit a couple of the Massachusetts dealers I've seen on Autotrader on the way home. The fun never stops.

Comments

[Thomas kemp]

Hey,

I would recommend you (and everyone else who ever plans on buying a car) read a piece written for Edmunds.com. They paid a writer to go out and get hired on at a couple of car dealerships, one high pressure commission-based gig, and one “no haggle” dealership. The piece is pretty well written, but the insights are incredible:

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/article.html?tid=edmunds.a.landing.buying..4.*

[Thomas kemp]

sorry, that link is:

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles
/42962/article.html?tid=edmunds.a.
landing.buying..4.*

[liz]

Hi, fouond you from the "recently updated" links at typepad.

I bought a Honda Civic Hybrid in December, and am 96% happy with it. The price was right, the dealership was right, and the 4% dissatisfaction has to do with the trade-off between fuel efficiency and acceleration. If I lived in Kansas I probably would be 110% happy. It requires some careful shifting to get up some of our steep bay area hills at speeds greater than 25 mph.

Also: about board service. Do you know of Compass POint and the Board Cafe?

http://www4.compasspoint.org/p.asp?WebPage_ID=652

Go check it out. Cheers.