Car Dealer Horror Story: What They Really Want to Sell You!

Yesterday I was sitting in the showroom of a local car dealer. In the waiting room of the dealership they have a TV and magazines. I was sitting watching the end of a soccer match when several salespeople came in to have their morning coffee. I guess they figured that I was not there because their language and attitude was clearly not the same as if I was buying a car from one of them.

The thing that really got me was two stories by two different salespeople. In both they talked about bumping the profit and selling an inferior product at a higher price just to make a few dollars of extra commission. I will try to retell those two stories here.

The first salesman was clearly an experienced salesman. He appeared to have been in the car business for quite a while as he discussed several dealerships that he had worked for in the past. His comment had to do with the financing of vehicles. He stated very clearly that his main objective is to get his clients off the price of the car and onto payments that will fit into their budget. He gave an example.

Here is his story.

The other day I was talking to a young man about the car he wanted. He kept talking about the price and eventually I got him to tell me how much he could afford as a monthly payment. Knowing that piece of information allowed me to bump up the price of the car by almost $2500 making me an additional $750 in commission. I kept getting him to bump up his monthly budget by $20 dollars a month because for every $20 in monthly payment I can get an extra $1000 in price/profit for each vehicle that I sell.

That is scary to know what was really happening here. By not sticking to his budget the young man who bought a car got terms he can afford but the car will be worth nothing to him by the time he is able to pay it off and there will be no trade value in this car for years even if his finances turn around. This young man was clearly taken advantage of by an unscrupulous salesperson.

The second story, to me was just a short footnote, spoken by the salesman but it was really telling about how this young salesperson thought about what he was doing.

He stated very clearly that selling cars was not his career and he was just trying to bide his time and make as much money as possible as quick as possible. His story was about talking a single mother into making $550 a month payments for a 4 year car and having those payments for more than 5 years. He said he had bumped her budget up over $100 from where she first started and he had made over $1250 in extra commission from this sale.

Clearly this abuse of the customers and the trust they put into professional salespeople but these are not isolated incidents. Take your time the next time you are looking for a car and make sure you are doing what is in your best interests and not the best interests of the car dealer. I am not against people making money from their commissions but when they begin to hurt good people who are in tough spots then I believe they have taken it too far. Do your research first and then you can make a quality decision about a very large purchase.