Like Alfred from the Batcave
OK, so yesterday I get a call from Poppy. She and Mr. Poppy are off buying cars since both of their cars have kicked both of their respective buckets. She is at Dealership X, looking at Car Y and the salesvermin says the sticker price is $Z4,995. The car is a lease return, has only 24K miles, all wheel drive (important, since Poppy lives in the tundra and, as we speak, a documentary with the working title Nanook of the Suburbs is being filmed about her) and a few other goodies.
I explain to her that as a starting point for negotiating, $Z4,995 isn't bad. Of course, she oughtn't, in a fit, pay anywhere near that. With Poppy in my ear and my laptop on my, er, lap, I consult and verify and tell her (subsequently texting her to confirm) that her max price ought be $Z1,000 at dead worst IF the car has a factory (none of this aftermarket warranty...those suck mightily, AMHIK) warranty AND is fully loaded. Poppy takes her leave of my ear, since she has left Mr. Poppy alone with the salesvermin and given he is a gentle, caring soul, there seems to be a fear he'll just cave to avoid confrontation.
Poppy returns and begins to negotiate. The "showing of the invoice" (as bogus a bit of commercial showpersonship as can be imagined) leaves her unmoved. She is firm and Poppy, via a few well chosen epithets and snappy retorts, gets her price.
It is, of course, a poorly kept secret that the relationship between a car buyer and a car salesvermin is quite adversarial. There are a many techniques to distract the buyer from this fact, most famously Ye Olde "Let me talk to my manager." The fact is the salesvermin knows, beforehand, exactly how much the car can be sold for and s/he has full authority to sell that car without consulting anyone. The invoice is another scam. The fact is you are looking at an INVOICE, not at what the dealership paid. (This is especially scammy in the case of a lease return or trade-in car) The invoice doesn't refect the various incentives the dealer gets and it doesn't reflect what the dealer has actually paid. Truth of the matter, if a car has an invoice of $50K the dealer has not paid a penny for it the first month and only paid $5K for it. If the car sells for $51K before the end of the 2nd month, the dealership has made a 20% return [($51K-$50K)/$5K] in two months. That's an annual return on investment of 120%. Try that on the NASDAQ.
Furthermore, the salesvermin's commission is on a progressive schedule, meaning the greater the dealership's profit, the higher the percentage of commission. A profit of $1000 is worth 20% to the salesvermin, but a profit of $2000 is worth 25% and $3000, 30%. Now you see why the salesvermin has a strong disincentive to let you have a good deal. Now you can see why I haven't bought a car from a dealership since 1997. (TFBIM is a different matter.)
Another advantage that salesvermin have over you is they know once you start looking, you are only 15 days, on average, from buying. They know how to sell (they don't know so much about the cars, other than the trunk capacty and the commission schedule...and they are pretty iffy on that trunk thing) and they know how to overcome the usual sales resistance people have. My advice? Go into the negotiation with a sadistic desire to take food from the mouths of the salesvermin's family. You have to want him (very rarely it's a her...but as Kipling noted, the f. of the s. is more deadly than the m.) fired. Be sarcastic and make fun of his tie and his hair (rich veins, BTW). My favorite crack came from dad--a crusty ol' bastard--who once told a salevermin who was trying to song-and-dance him into something "I've bought more cars than you've sold."
TFBIM, who likes her cars from dealerships, is no good at this. She is, by instinct, prone to believe and fall for the subtle ploys the salesvermin have been trained in. The whole process, even if I am the one haggling, exhausts her and makes her verrrrrrrry sleepy. But that's another blog for another time.
I explain to her that as a starting point for negotiating, $Z4,995 isn't bad. Of course, she oughtn't, in a fit, pay anywhere near that. With Poppy in my ear and my laptop on my, er, lap, I consult and verify and tell her (subsequently texting her to confirm) that her max price ought be $Z1,000 at dead worst IF the car has a factory (none of this aftermarket warranty...those suck mightily, AMHIK) warranty AND is fully loaded. Poppy takes her leave of my ear, since she has left Mr. Poppy alone with the salesvermin and given he is a gentle, caring soul, there seems to be a fear he'll just cave to avoid confrontation.
Poppy returns and begins to negotiate. The "showing of the invoice" (as bogus a bit of commercial showpersonship as can be imagined) leaves her unmoved. She is firm and Poppy, via a few well chosen epithets and snappy retorts, gets her price.
It is, of course, a poorly kept secret that the relationship between a car buyer and a car salesvermin is quite adversarial. There are a many techniques to distract the buyer from this fact, most famously Ye Olde "Let me talk to my manager." The fact is the salesvermin knows, beforehand, exactly how much the car can be sold for and s/he has full authority to sell that car without consulting anyone. The invoice is another scam. The fact is you are looking at an INVOICE, not at what the dealership paid. (This is especially scammy in the case of a lease return or trade-in car) The invoice doesn't refect the various incentives the dealer gets and it doesn't reflect what the dealer has actually paid. Truth of the matter, if a car has an invoice of $50K the dealer has not paid a penny for it the first month and only paid $5K for it. If the car sells for $51K before the end of the 2nd month, the dealership has made a 20% return [($51K-$50K)/$5K] in two months. That's an annual return on investment of 120%. Try that on the NASDAQ.
Furthermore, the salesvermin's commission is on a progressive schedule, meaning the greater the dealership's profit, the higher the percentage of commission. A profit of $1000 is worth 20% to the salesvermin, but a profit of $2000 is worth 25% and $3000, 30%. Now you see why the salesvermin has a strong disincentive to let you have a good deal. Now you can see why I haven't bought a car from a dealership since 1997. (TFBIM is a different matter.)
Another advantage that salesvermin have over you is they know once you start looking, you are only 15 days, on average, from buying. They know how to sell (they don't know so much about the cars, other than the trunk capacty and the commission schedule...and they are pretty iffy on that trunk thing) and they know how to overcome the usual sales resistance people have. My advice? Go into the negotiation with a sadistic desire to take food from the mouths of the salesvermin's family. You have to want him (very rarely it's a her...but as Kipling noted, the f. of the s. is more deadly than the m.) fired. Be sarcastic and make fun of his tie and his hair (rich veins, BTW). My favorite crack came from dad--a crusty ol' bastard--who once told a salevermin who was trying to song-and-dance him into something "I've bought more cars than you've sold."
TFBIM, who likes her cars from dealerships, is no good at this. She is, by instinct, prone to believe and fall for the subtle ploys the salesvermin have been trained in. The whole process, even if I am the one haggling, exhausts her and makes her verrrrrrrry sleepy. But that's another blog for another time.
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