The saga of selling and buying cars..

[Donny Carlson]

I used to sell cars and trucks at three different Houston Chevrolet dealerships back in the early 80's. There's a lot of stories to share about being a car salesman, some funny, some tragic, and most interesting I hope. I am starting this thread so those of us who want to share stories about selling --- and being sold --- cars. Post this thread your experiences -- bad, good, whatever, about buying, and, if you sold/sell cars, your experiences.

I'll start with one.

When I worked for the (then) oldest Chevy dealer in town, they had a huge assortment of custom vans. The Superintendant of the Pearland, Texas school district was about to retire, so he was looking to trade in his town car for a van he and his wife could travel in. Fine. We had over 50 units to pick from in various levels of trim and such, so we head out to the truck lot to find something that he likes.

During this same time we had a blonde sufer-dude salesman from California working in the new car department. He was quite a lady's man, and was busy working his way through the younger female employees of the dealership. At the time a very attractive young lady was hired to sell cars for the dealership, but rumour was she batted for the other team (this based on the fact she never accepted any of the hits she was getting from the male sales force). I was in the truck department and couldn't care less about her or blond surfer dude.

This dealership left vehicles unlocked on their storage lots, primarily because it would take forever to hike back in to get keys to open units up to show. Once you had something to test drive, then you schlepped back inside. So, all the vans were open, and you could just slide open the side door or what to show the interior. Superintendant was looking at a van and I stepped a few vans down, popped open the side door... and there was Surfer Dude and the new sales lady going at in the back! Yeesh! I slammed it door shut and Superintendant walks up. I say, "you don't want this one, looks like there's water damage to the interior..."

I sold Superintendant a van. Surfer Dude disappeared one day, shortly after which it was discovered he was doing two highly illegal things. 1) He would have buyers sign blank contracts, saying he needed to fill them out again for neatness but he didn't want to inconvenience them by having them wait. He would then change the figures on the sale. Buyers would'nt know until their payment books arrived and the payment was different than what they were quoted. The payments would not be terribly more, but enough to boost the profit on the sale and generate more finance money. 2) He would deliver cars to people who were turned down by the banks and GMAC. This was crazy. He'd call them up, say, hey, we got you approved but you need a little more down payment. He'd prepare some fake sales documents and finance contracts, take thier cash down payments (which he kept), then delivered them the car. Then he threw away all the paperwork. A dealership with 1,500 vehicles over 5 lots can lose track of a car or three, even with a GMAC auditor, so he got away with this long enough to pocket thousands of dollars cash before high tailing it. The "buyers" had their cars repossessed, when they could be found. Quite a nasty bit of business.

[O's Fan Rich]

I have however spent about 6 years as a dealership parts guy, ending up as a manager of a Chrysler dealers parts room. I also did 4-5 years as a retail parts guy.
I came across this group of articles while doing some sales research a while ago. I enjoyed them.
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/article.html

[Dr Caleb]

I came across this group of articles while doing some sales research a while ago. I enjoyed them.
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/article.html

Wow Rich! That is an excellent series!

And so many of the processes I recognise, but never knew what they were. I'm glad I did research the Marauder before I bought it. I still feel good about my purchase.

Those articles should be in the FAQ.

[Donny Carlson]

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I came across this group of articles while doing some sales research a while ago. I enjoyed them.
That is a great series of articles!

Selling cars was mostly screamingly boring, and I HATED high pressure, dishonest tactics. What the article say were mostly true back when I was in the business. Things were a bit different in the early 80's (no internet, for example, no ebay or Edmunds.Com, and interest rates were amazingly high) The first dealership described in the article was what we called a "tower house" or a "mouse house." I never worked for such a dealer, but then I always worked for a Chevrolet dealer. There were places in town like described, mostly Toyota or Nissan houses, though there were some domestics (Ford, Chrylser) that were like this. I never worked for a dealer that listened in to conversations in our offices, and most of the time I never turned a customer. I never pressured anybody, usually told them to protect them from other more agressive salesman I would hang around outside of earshot, just incase they had a question or wanted to test drive a car. I never made big money, just a living. My goal was to get into fleet sales, which was a great way to sell cars and trucks. At one dealership I was sent to GM school to learn to spec medium duty trucks and learn how to write bids for government agencies and municipalities. I sold a lot of trucks and cars to smaller cities and sold a lot of trucks to companies in Harris County. Most of the cars I sold were the occasional "up" that I would stumble across on the showroom or on the lot or were fleet or commercial buyers who came in looking for a personal car for themselves, their wives, or kids. I was a big believer in training, and Chevrolet had (probably still has) a great training series that teaches you the "walk around" in which you literally walk around a car model showing the features of the design and point out engineering differences between the car and competitor's models. I enjoyed doing that and sold many many pickups this way.

But, even though I sold a lot of cars and trucks, and even got awards for the my sales volume, I never really made good money, not the thousands of dollars a month that some bragged making. Most car salesman don't. I simply sold a lot of cars at decent price (and the profit on fleet and bids is very low). I could never really plan my finances because depending on interest rates, rebates, what was in inventory on order, etc. my income would fluctuate from feast to famine month to month.

I saw thieves making lots of money screwing people. I could not do that. But, in the end, some of those same guys that were held up as "real salesman" and got the vacation spiffs, cherry demonstators, etc. proved to be what they were - dishonest. Some went to jail. One of the dealerships I worked at the franchise was taken away by GM. By the time I walked away I knew I would never, ever work for a car dealer anywhere in sales.

When I ended my sales career, I had 75 cars and trucks on order. I was the order king. I would show a buyer around the lot and then take them back to my office and say "Look, I spend most of my time selling big trucks and fleet vehicles. I order a lot of cars and trucks. You can go out there and look around all you want on our lot and if you find exactly what you want, I'll sell it to you for as low a price as anyone in town. In fact, you can go anywhere in town and look. But, I can also order you EXACTLY what you want.. paint color, interior, factory options, and have it here in less than 6 weeks. I'll show you exactly what dealer invoice is on the ordered car, and you tell me how much over that amount you'll pay for it. Your trade will be exactly the same amount when you pick up your new car in about a month, provided you haven't had an accident in it or had a major mechanical failure. So, go on out there and shop and here's the quote for your new car." We'd sit there, they'd pick out everything they wanted, color, what have you. I'd print it up with the invoice, hand it to them, then say "Okay, good luck. Hope hear from you!"
About 25% of the time they'd go out and find a car on the lot very close to what they wanted, ask me if I'd sell it for what the order deal was (yes) and I'd deliver a new car that day or the next. 25% I never heard from again. But, an amazing nearly 50% (I kept a personal log on this, too) returned and ordered a car. About 10% of these failed because of financing problems or used cars couldn't give them what they wanted for the trade (remember, there was very little profit in the deal for over allowance on the trade). The rest ordered a car. It was great. I delivered, on an average, about a car or truck every work day that was an ordered vehicle. I'd see the transport come by the truck department on the way to the receiving lot, the other salesman would say "how many of those are yours?" My best ever day every car on the transport but one was one on my orders. I delivered, towards the end, about 30 units a month to retail buyers. Counting fleet and bid units I delivered another 15-20 or so. With no health insurance, no retirement plan, and only a $175 a week draw on commission until the end of the month. 50 cars sounds like a lot, but you sell a car in those days for $100 over invoice and you pocketed $25. Do the math. Minimum fee of $25 x 50 units = $1250.00 Of course there was more money made on the "back end" and I did sell units for more than $100 over invoice. But hell, I was moving 600 vehicles a year and not earning more than $20,000. This is in 1982.

[Heavy351]

I sold Fords then Toyotas for a couple of years. That article really brings back the memories.

I used to sit in Toyota landcruisers for hours during the middle of the week in January just waiting....waiting.... waiting ....

What a life

[O's Fan Rich]

Car sales people are a special breed.
I avoid the whole process of the purchase by simply choosing my car, option it as I wish and calling my leasing company for the business. I then pick up my car at the local dealer. EZ!