My Father was a car salesman for a couple of years in the early '60s - didn't last as he was too honest. "Geez mate, you don't want one of those - they'll give you nothing but trouble."Chris
One of his favourite "this is how to live your life" stories is when in his first month on the job an old bloke walked in the dealership (Vauxhalls I think) in overalls, dishevelled hair and generally looking a bit down & out (remembering these were the days when you wore a tie to the football).
This old bloke asked one of the "gun" salesmen how much the ute on display was. "Too much for you mate" and turned around and walked away. It was a quiet day and Dad was a sociable guy so he starts talking to the old bloke about the weather, business, the family - anything but cars. Eventually the old bloke asks Dad how much the ute was. Dad says: "Don't know, I'll find out for you".
The end result was that the old bloke bought a ute that day and another about a month later and a sedan and few other vehicles over a 18 month period - always off Dad. The old bloke was Mr Foley, owner of Foleys' Bus Lines and very rich. He was in the overalls because he was still a hands-on owner and had been at the bus depot all day helping service the buses.
Unfortunately, people like my father don't last too long in the car sales industry. They get sick & tired of fighting with all the pricks in the industry.
I found that Sales Guys are very unwilling to deal with a young person wanting to buy a car. About 12 months ago I bought a nice VR Berlina Commodore from Sandgate Road Wholesale Cars at Virginia, Brisbane. I was thrown around to all of the sales guys like a bag of potatoes because nobody wanted to deal with me. I didn't let that bother me because I already knew I wanted to buy the car as it was a cheaper price then market value. A sales guy eventually spoke with me and he made an easy sale.Darren
About 2 months ago I just bought a VT Berlina from Steve Mortimer Wholesale Cars. The car was originally listed as $21,999 so I went and spoke with him and told him that I'm a little short of that .. and asked what could he do. He said that he could not bring down the price - it was once again obvious that he didn't want to deal with someone young.
A couple of weeks later I was reading the Saturday Paper at McDonalds and found a Dark Blue VT Berlina Commodore advertised for $18,999. I thought bargain as that was in my price range. I rang the number and found it was at Steve Mortimers. I drove all the way out there to find that it was the same car marked down $3K from 2 weeks ago. A different sales guy assisted me and after an inspection was done I signed the contract. Once again - no hassles (on my part) - another easy sale was made.
The original sales guy then tried to steal the sale from the chap who I dealt with the 2nd time - what a loser!
What I really hate is when salesman tell really stupid lies that are obviously going to get found out very quickly. Classic Example from a few years ago:Darryl Walford
I was browsing though a Holden yard , sales rep asked what I was looking for so I told him "a V8 Wagon in something better than basic trim." He said they had a V8 Berlina wagon, but it was a V6! Anyway it was a nice Berlina so I was having a look and asked if it had ABS? "Yes!" was the automatic reply, so we went for a quick drive. I told him that it obviously didn't have ABS and he said that I couldn't tell on a dry road. So we looked under the bonnet and he agreed that it didn't, but that they could be fitted for "a coupla hundred!" So just to stuff him around we haggled out a deal and wrote up the "offer," and when I was ready to sign I said "since the ABS is only a coupla hundred to fit, you can throw it in," and I wrote that on the offer!
You have to learn how to play the game.DedDoNKy
A mate (carpenter) and I were down at our local Toyota dealer picking up parts for me to service his Landcruiser.
As we were going to service his car we were in dirty old clothes but my mate had his big double size check book in his hand to pay for the parts.
We walked through the used car lot on the way to the parts dept. and the saleman spotted the cheque book and came running. My mate said to the saleman "I'll have that green 80 Series and my mate will have the white one".
The salesman was falling all over us thinking that all his Christmas's had come at once.
We led him on a bit and then I said to my mate "we will have them for at least a week until the cheque bounces".
The saleman started swearing and walked away very angry, with us pissing ourselves laughing.
Don't get angry, get even.
Went into the new nissan dealership in ballarat peter stevens to look at the new skyline in the showroom, am interested in taking a plunge and getting something nice ie skyline/supra maybe. was on my lunch break and being a tradesman was in rather ordinary clothes, walked up to the skyline, was having a look and straight away a salesman came over and all he said was- ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THE SPARE PARTS SECTION!Forg
i didnt know what to say....lots of things looking back now i shoulda said.
so i walked out.
Okay, a friend & I were looking through a well-known Sydney Toyota dealer's used area, because this friend's dad was looking at getting a new car. There was a demo in the yard, and was the last of the Cressida Grandes (quite a good car at the time, before Toyota stuck Lexus badges on cars of this quality and doubled their price).HoldenHistoryMan
The dealer came over, and told us how it was a great car, only driven by the dealer-principal, and how grunty it was with the big V6 in it, just like a Commodore. We told him it wasn't a V6, and he shouldn't compare it to a lowly Commodore.
He was adamant it was a 2.8 litre V6, and we told him no, it was a 3 litre straight-six. He refused to believe us, so we popped the bonnet and showed him where it said "3.0"; but he still wouldn't believe it wasn't a V6, even though we showed him the single row of spark plugs.
My Aunt went to buy a new car in the Astra/626 range. She took Dad along to help.M@W8
All the dealers (except one) immediately tried to sell the car to Dad, and when he pointed out that my Aunt was the one who was buying, either turned around and told her about trim levels and CD's and stuff, or said Hello to her and went back to selling it to Dad.
When I was looking for the Vectra ($35k on the road) I found it pretty hard to get the time of day from the salesmen. I rocked up on Sat morning in my usual weekend attire (Ripcurl track pants and t-shirt) and nobody would even look in my direction. What eventually made the difference was taking my wife along. Apparently a couple looking for cars is seen as having more potential for a sale than a single guy.Masta
When i was test driving a car on thursday i think i was with the quintessential (however you spell it) used car dealer!Mr Michael Earl
Among all the bullshit about how much interest there had been in the car (my mates dad knows the owner of the yard so called him and was told yeah its a great car he couldnt believe there had been NO interest in it apart from me)
Anyway when driving somehow he got on about how he was a great rally champion...part of the local scrub bashing wanna be car club here, although there are a few good drivers i think.
So he says 'id never have a head on, if a car came towards me id just head out for the dirt' i nearly headed for the dirt when i heard this shit, and looked at my mate in the back who was shaking his head...the guys still on about how hes had so much experience on the dirt he could just drive off the road no worries, good stuff knob head. I wouldnt mind asking Makkinen what he thought of that, hed say YOU TOSSER!!!
I said to him, what if theres trees everywhere (like where we were at that moment) his reply was 'if your an experienced driver you can get through a few small trees' The way he said it sounded like he said he would just drive THROUGH them, literally.
I had a fun one when I was looking for an MR2 a while back. One had $11k on it and looked in pretty good nick in the car yard, so I went in to have a look.Neil Fisher
Salesman assures me it's an Australian delivery, I open up the engine bay and there's a 3ALU sitting in there instead of a 4age. This is a Japanese domestic only model..
Me: "That's a grey import, that engine puts out about 50 kW, my corolla's quicker."
Salesman: "There's the door..."
So the guy lies to me and then gets angry at me when I point this out. Way to lose a customer.
You would be suprised how wearing different clothes would make the difference.Noddy
In 1986 I was working a Sinclair Ford, in walks a guy wearing a T shirt shorts and thongs. Because I was the trainee he was given to me as a prospective, as no other salesman thought he was buying.
After about 30 minutes my sales manager asks me "how you going there Bob", I promptly gave him an order for 3 Fairlanes with a deposit (in cash) of $5000. He owned a hire car company.
Although not exactly in the same vein, I had some pretty good experiences with car salespeople while working with them at a dealership. I used to be a service manager at a Melbourne Honda dealership, and although they tended to turn over sales staff pretty regularly (as most dealers do), there was one who was a real character.Oz1
His name was "Chris", and he was a badly dressed man in his late 50's who smoked 3 packs of Marlboro's a day, drank piss like prohibition was coming in tomorrow and was as blind as a bat. He wore glasses so thick that if he looked into the sun for a brief second a pair of holes would be burned straight through the back of his head, and he literally could not see his hand in front of his face.
But he could talk the legs off a butchers table. In his best month while I was there, he sold 105 brand new Honda's, with the majority of them being Legends, and the dealer principal loved him to death. He used to give me the shits at times, as each time I'd nip across the road to get some lunch, as soon as I came back in through the showroom He'd jump up and try to sell me a car. I got sick of saying "Fuck off Chris, I just went to get something to eat" :)
One of his more noteworthy gaffs was when he sold a car to some lady who was an actress on some soapy. The dealer principal wanted to get some mileage out of it and had Chris and the woman pose for photo's in front of a car. Three or four camera flashes later and poor old Chris was totally lost. Expecting the woman to have walked off to finalise things with the dealer principal, he leaned over to who he thought was the photographer and said in a rather loud whisper that everyone could hear "Now get one of me fucking her on the bonnet"
The problem was that the photographer had already walked off and it was the customer who was standing in front of him that he said it to :)If you lent him a 20, he always pulled out a fiver to pay you back and "get square", and I don't think that was *totally* related to his eyesight problems. Being a car salesman probably helped in that area. Funnily, he *never* seemed to pull out a 50... :)
He was always good for a stir though. If you were bored shitless with nothing to do, you'd just walk around to the showroom and start opening a few doors saying "Ooh, this looks nice" in a put on voice and then duck down and hide behind the car. Being a typical hungry salesman, he'd jump up and go walking around the showroom looking for the potential "head" like a prospector with a divining rod. You could almost see his ears homing in on sounds like a radar antenna.
After 5 minutes, he'd start dribbling :)He was as "hungry" a car salesman as you could ever hope to meet and he could sniff out a potential sale a mile away. That particular dealership had 5 very smooth talking sales staff, plus the new car sales manager, and he was clearly the best salesman in the place for as long as I was there.
He had a period of around 5 or 6 consecutive months where he sold more cars than the rest of the sales staff combined. I think the customers mostly conceded defeat and just bought a car to get away from the bastard :)
He was an alright bloke (for a car salesman anyway) and he was a heap of fun. Outside of work he was just another bloke in the pub and was a shitload of fun once he had a few ales into him (watching him trying to play pool was a riot :). If the pub was crowded he needed an escort to the bar when it was his shout, and watching him try to use the payphone to call his wife and tell her to pick him up when he was half pissed kept you entertained for around half an hour :)
One of those pub regular's that everyone liked...
Reminds me of a story told by rock legend Billy Thorpe. He walked into the Jag dealership on William St Syd with a suitcase full of cash to buy a new E Type. He looked typical for a rocker of the day and the salesman gave him some grief then walked off.Shaddow Edge
Another junior sales gut talked to Billy and got the sale and the substantial commission.
Tis funny you know, all the normal car yards people are rude, yet you get the odd one. Once I turned up at a toyota yard (in Newcastle) and they gave me a test drive of an echo when they had only just come out. I turned up in my old shit heap at the time.Stan Marsh
I was looking at a 98 Golf GLE - aparantly top of the line. Salesmen changed his mind when I told him it wasnt a GTi. (whose price is "around $50,000!"). This Golf GLE was about "$40000". Never mind that they were about $34k new. The options can add up I guess . . . and I don't know how many times I heard the phrase "It's a rocket"Steve
This was the same dealer who had a viper on display - except this one had a "v12"
Secondly, I was looking at an 86 BMW 325. The sales document said the car was a 325i, but the "i" badging had fallen off the car. I was suprised that it was only $10K, as nice 318i's get more $$$ around here. I had a look around, but something wasn't right . . . I came back the next day (solely to find the problem!), and found that it was in fact a 325E. BMW didn't sell 325i's in Australia in 86. The E's have a low revving "economy" motor. 4500 - 5000 redline, 30kw less? Not sure exactly *yuck*
I told the salesman and just shruged his shoulders . . . Made no attempt to correct the sales sheet. Maybe they took the "e" off - more likely they're just idiots.
Another salesman pretended he knew me (my ferrari cap to be precise), just to try and find out what I do for a living . . . "I know a guy who wears one of those!"
Sounds like the salesman could change hands at 100 without missing a stroke....The Red Krawler
When we went looking at an S pack VT (s/c version) we were told you could "easily" adjust the boost to 14psi... The same guy told us the S packs were quicker than the V8 SS's ... "or at least, they feel quicker"...
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