Oh my lordy, American car salespeople are SO MUCH WORSE than Australian car salespeople (and I would know, I used to be one!!). Friends of ours have just moved here to work at the same company as DH, so we've been helping get them set up. Today was the trip to the car yards.
Every place the freaking salesman would be descending on us before we'd even parked the car. Serious. By the time we were out of the car, the salesman was there ready to shake our hand. And they'd give us the entire history of the dealership!! One guy was saying how it was the second oldest dealership in the area, had been there since 1916 and he'd been there for 23 years. Our friend said to him "gees, 23 years, you must be tired". We cracked up, and he gave us a blank stare.
Eventually he smiled and said to her "oh 23 years, yeah not continuously of course". Then he obviously lost his place, so started the whole spiel again!! After 20 more minutes of his life story and him telling about us the sort of cars they normally sell, I said that there was nothing there we wanted, thanks anyway and walked off.
He was just so pushy, that the only way to get away was to be rude!!!
At another dealer, we were able to drive though the lot without getting out of the car, and realised it was all bigger and more expensive than they wanted, so went to drive out and a salesman stopped me and said "are you looking for a park", and I said "Nope" and drove off!
They were just soooooooo annoying, and the others couldn't believe how rude I was being, but it really was the only way to deal with them. Our friends were just having an initial browse at what was around to get an idea of prices and what you get for that price. They won't buy yet, and we didn't want salespeople trailing us and giving us their and the dealerships life stories, and making us get in and start every single car we paused at (which is what happened at the first 3 dealers).
We finally found a Subaru dealership and they liked Subarus, and there was a couple of used ones that were good. They want to stick around the $6000 mark, and the guy showed us a $10,000 car, and kept steering us away from the $7000 Outback which looked in great nick. He kept saying the mileage was really high, but then steered us to a slightly newer car which had the same mileage! I kept saying I wanted to look inside the car, and he was refusing!! I asked what the drive away price would be and he said probably around $8500 which I thought a little excessive. We ended up looking inside after he realised I wasn't going to stop asking him, and it was in great condition, just the size they wanted, and seemed really good, but he was STILL pushing us to another car!! He ended up saying he had something else he had to deal with (another customer who looked as though they were actually buying), and brought another salesman over to us who was much nicer and not at all pushy. I asked him what the drive away price would be and he said the car was $7000 and on road costs were normally 10%, so it'd be about $7700. Not $8500 like the other guy told us!!
So I ended up having a great day being rude and cranky at any salesman who would not listen to me when I said "we'd just like to browse on our own, we'll come get you if we need a hand".
Edit: Wow, that rant was long - even for me!!!
Every place the freaking salesman would be descending on us before we'd even parked the car. Serious. By the time we were out of the car, the salesman was there ready to shake our hand. And they'd give us the entire history of the dealership!! One guy was saying how it was the second oldest dealership in the area, had been there since 1916 and he'd been there for 23 years. Our friend said to him "gees, 23 years, you must be tired". We cracked up, and he gave us a blank stare.
At another dealer, we were able to drive though the lot without getting out of the car, and realised it was all bigger and more expensive than they wanted, so went to drive out and a salesman stopped me and said "are you looking for a park", and I said "Nope" and drove off!
They were just soooooooo annoying, and the others couldn't believe how rude I was being, but it really was the only way to deal with them. Our friends were just having an initial browse at what was around to get an idea of prices and what you get for that price. They won't buy yet, and we didn't want salespeople trailing us and giving us their and the dealerships life stories, and making us get in and start every single car we paused at (which is what happened at the first 3 dealers).
We finally found a Subaru dealership and they liked Subarus, and there was a couple of used ones that were good. They want to stick around the $6000 mark, and the guy showed us a $10,000 car, and kept steering us away from the $7000 Outback which looked in great nick. He kept saying the mileage was really high, but then steered us to a slightly newer car which had the same mileage! I kept saying I wanted to look inside the car, and he was refusing!! I asked what the drive away price would be and he said probably around $8500 which I thought a little excessive. We ended up looking inside after he realised I wasn't going to stop asking him, and it was in great condition, just the size they wanted, and seemed really good, but he was STILL pushing us to another car!! He ended up saying he had something else he had to deal with (another customer who looked as though they were actually buying), and brought another salesman over to us who was much nicer and not at all pushy. I asked him what the drive away price would be and he said the car was $7000 and on road costs were normally 10%, so it'd be about $7700. Not $8500 like the other guy told us!!
So I ended up having a great day being rude and cranky at any salesman who would not listen to me when I said "we'd just like to browse on our own, we'll come get you if we need a hand".
Edit: Wow, that rant was long - even for me!!!
