[brewer]

Edmunds hired this guy to be an undercover car salesman. He goes and applies for a job, gets it and then gives us all the dirt on it. I feel like I need a hot shower after reading this.

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying...2/article.html

[radix]

Originally Posted by brewer

Edmunds hired this guy to be an undercover car salesman. He goes and applies for a job, gets it and then gives us all the dirt on it. I feel like I need a hot shower after reading this.

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying...2/article.html

I just made it through the first few chapters, interesting read to be sure.

[Feyd]

Wow... long read.

Pretty informative though. I'm one of those internet guys... the last two bimmers i bought I handled via email and phone and it was incredibly painless. I'll never buy a car the traditional way again...

[chungdae]

Very informative. Going to use these tactics against them when I purchase a new car.

[ililillilillilil]

oh i've read this over a year ago.
it reminds me of a family friend at Toyota
whos the type of swindler and crook thats good to know.
(always getting us deals)
but hed still rip his mother off.
and he did

[ililillilillilil]

[BMW F22]

I saw this article a few years ago but didn't bother reading it (too long). I've just read it now and he's hit pretty much everything correctly. When I read the part about how he was haunted by bad deals (bad for the customers) it reminded me of one particular deal that I did (as a former salesman). I worked with a nice Asian family of 3 on a used mini-van. Due to their credit and income (checks from the government) they had to put quite a bit of money down and the interest was high. I basically just showed them the car and let the closer work all the numbers with them.

At the end I made off with a very nice commission (forgot how much it was exactly). However, whenever I think back on it, I couldn't help but think if I did the right thing. On the one hand, I was doing my job which was to sell. On the other, I couldn't help but think if the dealership (and myself) might have made "too much" profit on the family. The guy might have been a soldier in the Vietnam war and his daughter had a condition. I was just trying to make a sale but when they put up the profit on the board, I wondered if I did what was ethically right. I mean with a wealthy family I wouldn't mind. But with this family, I could have lived with the minimum commission (since about 75% of the profit went to the dealer anyway).

But yeah, car selling is a tough business. I went into it expecting all the glory that people usually think salesmen get but it was never anything like that. You basically have to be there from open to closing time and even then, if you don't sell, you don't really make jack. You're also faced with constant pressure of having to sell, sell, and sell. The job taught me a lot- perhaps more than I would have learned anywhere else. But in the end, it's a job that not many people could do successfully.