I hate car dealerships

[Anonymous]

I bought a car from Alexandria VW two weeks ago and it was excellent. About 45 minutes from start to finish. But I knew I wanted the car when I showed and was happy with the price. Told them I wanted to buy it but wasn't staying longer than an hour. He said how about 45 minutes and stuck to it.

Beyond that, dealerships are all capable of completing these transactions without you even showing up so that is my first choice. I only went to the VW because the car was for my kid and he wanted to test drive it first. The car before this one I bought from Pohanka in Fredericksburg last year. All paperwork handled over the phone and the salesperson delivered the car to my job and took my trade in back with him. It was great!

[Anonymous]

I had a dealer quote $1200 for some work that they "discovered" during servicing some recalls, same work in a local workshop around the corner including parts was $400. Dealership also wanted to do an additional $300 of work that supposedly was necessary if the first task was done. Turns out it was completely unnecessary. So bottom line additional cost would have been $1100 if I had just listened to them. I told them it's funny how much they are trying to overcharge me for, they seemed non-plussed. I guess it's completely normal for them to gouge their customers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Salesmen can be great, but dealerships almost universally suck, that's the lesson I've learned. So you need to leverage that to get a great salesman to help you overcome the crappiness of the dealerships.

Here's my strategy for new cars:

1. Do your own research about the brands and models you're most interested in, as much as you can read and glean from the internet beforehand.

2. Find online reviews of dealerships for the brand you are interested in that are reasonably close to you. Find the one that seems like its the best of the bad options, and then WITHIN that, look for reviews that mention a particular salesman being good.

3. Email that salesman personally. "I've heard you're amazing, I'm interested in a new VW BlahBlah, how's next Tuesday for a test drive?" When I've done this, I've gotten great white-glove service that helps the whole process go easier, generally with the salesman waiting outside for me as I drive up. No milling around until some shmuck approaches with "can I help you?"

4. Show up with some amount of homework. Research prices from different dealers, get the "TrueCar" price, see what incentives the brand is advertising. As well as a pre-approval with the lowest interest rate you can get. Yes, dealers are experts in obfuscating and jerking you around, but you will be better off if you've done *something* than the walk-in saps who've done *nothing.*

5. Yuk it up with the salesman. Make yourself his friend. Emphasize how bad you've had it with dealerships in the past and how you *really* need this to be a smooth experience. Act like a rich person who needs good service, not like someone who plans to hassle them right off the bat. They're people too and will help people they like.

6. When it comes to pricing, make him explain the pricing in detail. If the incentive you read about online isn't available, find out why not and see if there's anything they can do. If another dealer's price seems lower, show it to him and make him explain it to you and see how close they can come to matching it. You're not desperate to pinch pennies, but again, the persona you're putting on is a careful rich person who is obviously good with numbers and appropriately cautious with big purchases. Emphasize over and over again that you need the total, bottom line, all-in price -- the price to which not a cent will be added -- before you discuss financing or your trade-in. Negotiate as much as you like, but recognize that at a certain point, you're just nickel and diming. An extra $500 off isn't worth it if it's going to aggravate you and waste your day with threats to "walk out of here right now!" If you've followed these steps, you're already getting a better deal than most people.

7. Whatever you do, don't let them hear your monthly budget. Don't let them negotiate monthly numbers. Even if you plan to finance, tell them you think you're going to pay all-cash "unless there's a great interest rate, better than this one I have here from my bank."

8. When the salesman - now your friend - hands you off to the ghouls from management or financing, emphasize to the salesman that you don't want him to go far away and you're SO sold and SO ready to write a check, but you don't want a hard time from that point on. If management or financing gives you a hard time, say, "I'm sorry, I thought from my conversation with Tim that we were done negotiating and we had a final price with nothing additional. Can we get him back here? Otherwise I think I'll need to go."

It is their job to get you to pay more and they do it all day every day. They have the reps and the practice. You do it once every few years at most. You will not "beat" them. But you can at least make it easy on yourself without getting totally screwed.

This is super helpful. Saving a copy of this on my phone for later.

[Anonymous]

Very good experience with Jim Coleman Toyota in Bethesda. We bought two cars in the last six months. We knew what we wanted and negotiated over emails/texts. Once we agreed on the OTD price, they made the paperwork and the cars ready for us. We spent less than an hour at the dealer to sign the paperwork and get the cars. Very smooth process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very good experience in the last year--Acura dealer in Arlington on Columbia Pike. Very easy experience.

Bad experience last year--Safford Honda sales in Arlington (twice tried to sneak extra stuff into my sales agreement), BUT I am a big fan of their service dept, which to me is worth it.

Agree their service department is the best. So honest.

[Anonymous]

Hmm, I got my Honda “$3000” off MSRP, which Im always skeptical of because of the processing fees and such.

My out the door price (including taxes and registration) was $1000 less than MSRP — is there anyway to evaluate if this was a fair price?

Financing was very smooth, and I have a 4% rate which seemed well enough.

I shopped around 7 places and this was the best offer I could fine, and it seemed okay, but went smooth enough I must have been ignorant and ripped off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hmm, I got my Honda “$3000” off MSRP, which Im always skeptical of because of the processing fees and such.

My out the door price (including taxes and registration) was $1000 less than MSRP — is there anyway to evaluate if this was a fair price?

Financing was very smooth, and I have a 4% rate which seemed well enough.

I shopped around 7 places and this was the best offer I could fine, and it seemed okay, but went smooth enough I must have been ignorant and ripped off.

Once you agree to a sales price, the only additional charges should be the dealer processing fee (it’s high, often $1000 or so these days) your state’s sales tax and some tag/title fee usually around $100. Look at your bill of sale and see what you paid. Any additional charges are BS.

[Anonymous]

I'm one of the CarMax fans above. I bought a new car a few years ago and had a fairly good experience at Safford Brown' Honda in Arlington. I already knew what I wanted, but if I needed to test drive I would have test driven cars separately from purchasing; that is, gone into the dealership and said clearly, "I AM NOT BUYING TODAY but I would like to test drive. And I don't have much time because I have to pick up my kids, so if you can't put me in a car for a test drive within 15 minutes, then I'll be leaving." Then later contacted dealers about buying.

Anyway, since I knew what I wanted, I emailed and said I wanted X car and was ready to buy and wanted to spend zero time in the dealership. What was their best out-the-door price?

We ended up conducting most everything by text. I did do financing through them because they offered me a good deal. I made it clear via text what the out-the-door price was and that I would walk away if that wasn't the actual price In the end, they did make me come to the dealership to sign the papers and that took about 90 minutes, which was about an hour too long IMO. After about an hour, I finally stood up and said, "I need to leave now, am I taking a car with me?" and suddenly things moved quickly. So next time I would do that after about 15 minutes. There is zero reason why the car shouldn't be ready to go and paper work waiting.

If you are in a position to take your time and really can walk away if things aren't going the way you want them too, I recommend this approach. But if you need to buy a car quickly (as I did earlier this month), I recommend CarMax every time.

[Anonymous]

When you consider the fact that it is less stressful and takes less time to BUY A FREAKING HOUSE, it puts everything into perspective. When I bought my house, I showed up at the closing and all the paperwork was ready to go. There were no surprise fees, no one trying to up-sell me anything. I signed on the dotted lines and everything was done in about 15 minutes. When I refinanced, we did it all by email--I didn't have to leave my house.

So the fact that car buying is so awful is a CHOICE that dealers make. When you think about it that way, you can really just get down to brass tacks. I'm pleasant, but everything about I say and do is designed to deliver this message: You can make this easy for me and get my business, or you can make this hard and lose it. (Pleasant smile.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you consider the fact that it is less stressful and takes less time to BUY A FREAKING HOUSE, it puts everything into perspective. When I bought my house, I showed up at the closing and all the paperwork was ready to go. There were no surprise fees, no one trying to up-sell me anything. I signed on the dotted lines and everything was done in about 15 minutes. When I refinanced, we did it all by email--I didn't have to leave my house.

So the fact that car buying is so awful is a CHOICE that dealers make. When you think about it that way, you can really just get down to brass tacks. I'm pleasant, but everything about I say and do is designed to deliver this message: You can make this easy for me and get my business, or you can make this hard and lose it. (Pleasant smile.)

Lol, did you try to negotiate the $60k fee the real estate agent charged you for doing a couple of hours of work to help you with your $1 mil house purchase? Or thousands in other closing fees that you didn’t even realize were on page 150 of your paperwork

Your car dealership experience would be a lot more pleasant if you immediately agree to their price and sign on the dotted line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Salesmen can be great, but dealerships almost universally suck, that's the lesson I've learned. So you need to leverage that to get a great salesman to help you overcome the crappiness of the dealerships.

Here's my strategy for new cars:

1. Do your own research about the brands and models you're most interested in, as much as you can read and glean from the internet beforehand.

2. Find online reviews of dealerships for the brand you are interested in that are reasonably close to you. Find the one that seems like its the best of the bad options, and then WITHIN that, look for reviews that mention a particular salesman being good.

3. Email that salesman personally. "I've heard you're amazing, I'm interested in a new VW BlahBlah, how's next Tuesday for a test drive?" When I've done this, I've gotten great white-glove service that helps the whole process go easier, generally with the salesman waiting outside for me as I drive up. No milling around until some shmuck approaches with "can I help you?"

4. Show up with some amount of homework. Research prices from different dealers, get the "TrueCar" price, see what incentives the brand is advertising. As well as a pre-approval with the lowest interest rate you can get. Yes, dealers are experts in obfuscating and jerking you around, but you will be better off if you've done *something* than the walk-in saps who've done *nothing.*

5. Yuk it up with the salesman. Make yourself his friend. Emphasize how bad you've had it with dealerships in the past and how you *really* need this to be a smooth experience. Act like a rich person who needs good service, not like someone who plans to hassle them right off the bat. They're people too and will help people they like.

6. When it comes to pricing, make him explain the pricing in detail. If the incentive you read about online isn't available, find out why not and see if there's anything they can do. If another dealer's price seems lower, show it to him and make him explain it to you and see how close they can come to matching it. You're not desperate to pinch pennies, but again, the persona you're putting on is a careful rich person who is obviously good with numbers and appropriately cautious with big purchases. Emphasize over and over again that you need the total, bottom line, all-in price -- the price to which not a cent will be added -- before you discuss financing or your trade-in. Negotiate as much as you like, but recognize that at a certain point, you're just nickel and diming. An extra $500 off isn't worth it if it's going to aggravate you and waste your day with threats to "walk out of here right now!" If you've followed these steps, you're already getting a better deal than most people.

7. Whatever you do, don't let them hear your monthly budget. Don't let them negotiate monthly numbers. Even if you plan to finance, tell them you think you're going to pay all-cash "unless there's a great interest rate, better than this one I have here from my bank."

8. When the salesman - now your friend - hands you off to the ghouls from management or financing, emphasize to the salesman that you don't want him to go far away and you're SO sold and SO ready to write a check, but you don't want a hard time from that point on. If management or financing gives you a hard time, say, "I'm sorry, I thought from my conversation with Tim that we were done negotiating and we had a final price with nothing additional. Can we get him back here? Otherwise I think I'll need to go."

It is their job to get you to pay more and they do it all day every day. They have the reps and the practice. You do it once every few years at most. You will not "beat" them. But you can at least make it easy on yourself without getting totally screwed.

Much of this is unnecessary. You do need to find out what the best out the door price for the car is currently. You can usually find it on that model/make forum where people share their recent buying experience. You do need to find out what the fair price for your trade in is. You can use the carmax website for that. Take the difference between the two numbers, go to a dealership and tell them that is how much you want to pay. If they don’t get reasonably close just say you are not ready to pay that much and go to the next dealership. Also have your financing arranged before going to the dealer.

[Anonymous]

I used the Costco auto buying service for both of our recent purchases. Prenegotiated rate, approved dealerships, no added fees allowed.

In and out the door in under 2 hours at both dealers, including test driving.

Only works if you know what vehicle you want and it’s in the program though. We got a Honda and a Hyundai.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the people who have had good experiences, could you name the dealership? We're shopping for a minivan and all I know is I'm never going back to the Bethesda Honda dealership but I'd love some pointers, particularly a Toyota dealership.

Call Brown Honda in Arlington and agree to a price over the phone/email then go pick up the car. That’s what we did with them. They said they were scared we were going to haggle for additional discounts when we got there, we didn’t and everyone was happy. In and out in record time. Got a great price and sold at a profit 2 years later during the pandemic. 😁

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the people who have had good experiences, could you name the dealership? We're shopping for a minivan and all I know is I'm never going back to the Bethesda Honda dealership but I'd love some pointers, particularly a Toyota dealership.

Call Brown Honda in Arlington and agree to a price over the phone/email then go pick up the car. That’s what we did with them. They said they were scared we were going to haggle for additional discounts when we got there, we didn’t and everyone was happy. In and out in record time. Got a great price and sold at a profit 2 years later during the pandemic. 😁

I need to say that I called a bunch of other dealerships first and researched prices online before agreeing to a price with them. So do your homework

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The car dealership keeps you there all day long. By the time you come home with your new car, you're physically and mentally exhausted. You also feel like a huge sucker because you got ripped off. If you don't feel like a sucker, you really got ripped off and don't even know it.

I drive my cars until the wheels fall off just to avoid going to the dealership. If hell exists, it probably an eternal loop of the car buying experience.

Once they have your contact info you can leave after 30-40 minutes. Name drop another dealership you are headed to and bounce. The negotiation starts when you leave the parking lot.