Whats your best "used car salesman" or dealer story?

My brother cane into some money around 2004, and gave serious thought into buying a new car. We went down to the Chicago Auto Show. Both Mitsubishi and Subaru had knowledgeable people behind the counter, and we pitted them against each other in an Evo vs. STi tech battle. 

But that isn't the story. Dressed in street clothes, we popped into the Audi booth to check out the then new RS6. No one was there, so we asked the same techy questions about the RS6. We didn't deserve it, but the salesman in the suit treated us with nothing but respect. BullE36 M3ted with us (kids, really) just like one of the guys. I might never buy an Audi, but I'll always remember  that. 

Nothing this crazy, but I have a couple...

Looked at an S2000 CR at an Audi dealer. 8000 on the clock, but it looked like hard miles. Sales lady is getting a bit pushy but I refuse to commit unless they put the car on a lift so I can inspect the underside as I suspected it had seen track use. Ah, but they can't let civilians into the workshop. Oh well. It was a good price but to this day I suspect I dodged a bullet.

When I was shopping for an Evo X, I called around to see if anybody had an MR in stock. Made it clear on the phone that I wasn't going to be signing anything without a test drive. No worries. Dealer is five hours away one way, we get there, oh no sir, no test drives on Evos.

I got *very* quiet and made it very clear to them that they'd have $40k walking out the door forever right there and then if that policy wouldn't change immediately. I think the salesperson picked up on my "very angry hun" vibe very quickly and the policy suddenly changed for "more mature drivers". I got my test drive and we had a very good experience with the sales manager from that point onwards, second only to the one I had when buying the Alfa. And they got their sale the same day.

The less I say about a Mazda dealer that used my reserved/allocated/deposit paid for Launch Edition ND for test drives for other potential buyers, the better. To their credit they were bending over backwards when I pointed out to them that I knew about that.

Buying my Accord my salesman chats me up and tells me he's from Ohio and went to high school with Larry Csonka.  

Oh yeah? In another year or two the young people won't know who your talking about.  

I don't really have a good one but we found a super clean 2 yr old  Z24 for Mrs. f1y in one of those small used car lots run by the owner and lone sales guy.  After a test drive we decided we wanted the car and went into the tiny little dealership office. I made a decent offer and sales guy came right back with the I'll have to talk to my manager line, so I said let me save you the trouble, leaned back in my chair so I could see past the office partition into the owners cubicle and said hey Lou, will you take 10 grand for the Z24?

He did.

I've always been told it's either illegal, or against your merchant agreement to take a credit card for an automobile.  I wonder if that's Canada, if it's dealers not wanting to eat 2%, or if I've been lied to? 

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

I've used a credit card for a significant deposit so you're probably being lied to. Here that would be an easy sell because Ontarians seem to think everything is illegal.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, the sole reason I have the card I have now was to buy a car. I wanted to borrow the money and the bank said we don't normally make loans under $5k anymore and this low interest credit card would be the same interest rate, so just do it that way, and I did. That was probably 25 or more years ago.

Datsun310Guy said:

Buying my Accord my salesman chats me up and tells me he's from Ohio and went to high school with Larry Csonka.  

Oh yeah? In another year or two the young people won't know who your talking about.  

^LOL, I have friends that used to go to his carryout in NE Ohio. People in Ohio won't forget!

Streetwiseguy said:

I've always been told it's either illegal, or against your merchant agreement to take a credit card for an automobile.  I wonder if that's Canada, if it's dealers not wanting to eat 2%, or if I've been lied to? 

In Ohio it used to be illegal to buy any titled motor vehicle with a credit card, in full at least. This was true at least until 1996. Not sure about deposits or down payments though.

I was in the market for a wagon. I looked for months. One day in the late afternoon, a unicorn materialized! A Volvo 850R. It was perfect. Condition, price, options were great. With quivering hands I called the dealer and put a $500 deposit down to hold it until the next day when I could get to it. I spent about 30  minutes dancing around with 850R visions in my head. The phone rang. It was the dealer. While he was taking my deposit another person was already buying it. He was so apologetic, and I was just depressed.

I then found an Merc E500 and drove 2 hours to look at it. They knew I was coming. I arrived and was immediately given the cold shoulder, like I wasn't good enough. I talk to the salesman. We have to go for a test ride. I don't want a test ride, I want to look at it. Can't see it until a test drive. It's running outside. I drive down the little street by the dealership about 300 feet and turn around and go back and park. Meanwhile the salesman is gaslighting me, essentially saying if I buy this car I'll lose 50 lbs, have chicks throwing themselves at me, and will win the lotto. I get out and start looking at the car. Paint is rough. Needs rotors bad. Tires are too large for the rims. Front fender is crooked. Guy makes me give him a price. They were asking 27k, I said 20k. He got huffy and insulted and we were done. This was at Brumos Mercedes-Benz. They sold the dealership soon after that. No wonder.

There was that time a few months ago where I was sold a Ram 1500 with a still-activated GPS tracker shoved up into the steering column. They also tried to sell me an aftermarket warranty on the CPO'd vehicle, didn't hand over the second key until I asked repeatedly for it, and kept pestering me after I wrote an article on my blog about how awful they were and sent it to FCA corporate. They finally asked what they could do to make everything better and I just said "never do this to another customer and take me off of every phone and email list you have." At least I was able to put $5k down and let them eat those fees. They had a sign saying a max of $2500 down on a credit card and the salesman missed it.

A bunch of years ago, I bought a 2009 BMW 128i from a Porsche dealer. It had the Service Engine Soon light illuminated when I test-drove it and the salesman tried to tell me it was just a service reminder. I informed him that the maintenance minder used the iDrive screen, whipped out my code reader and asked them to fix the misfire on cylinder six please and thanks. I understand not knowing every little thing about every non-Porsche vehicle on the lot, but CEL/SES lights are standardized. It pains me how many ill-informed people try to sell cars.

There was also that time when  test drove an older Volvo 264 (I had a thing for old Volvos when I was in high school).  I had read how gutless the PRV V6 was, but I couldn't believe just HOW gutless it seemed to be.  I could barely get to 60 kph on a road with an 80 kp/h speed limit. 

That is, until I noticed the salesman looking terrified.  He caught my eye and told me the speedometer was in MILES PER HOUR . . .

It was still slow.  Just not that slow . . .

GCrites80s said:

Streetwiseguy said:

I've always been told it's either illegal, or against your merchant agreement to take a credit card for an automobile.  I wonder if that's Canada, if it's dealers not wanting to eat 2%, or if I've been lied to? 

In Ohio it used to be illegal to buy any titled motor vehicle with a credit card, in full at least. This was true at least until 1996. Not sure about deposits or down payments though.

My guess is they didn't have to count the fees against their department profit. Otherwise why would you eat $540 in profit?

When I got married my wife had this awful Jetta vr6. It's was only six years old at the time and was falling apart (typical German engineering). 
 

it had a "bad injector number six", a few swear words and parts later it wasn't fixed and I had hardly any tools back then. took it to mechanic. He "fixed" it. CEL came on a few blocks down the road. No dealership would take it as trade in (you see why I'm scarred on German cars?) 

finally took it to mechanic again, had him reset the CEL, drive four blocks to the Honda dealer. Traded it in on a brand new Fit. 

A few weeks later I saw the salesman at Starbucks. he went off about how they've put "a ton of money into that car, over 5k. It can't be fixed, we need to talk". I bought his coffee and headed out the door. 
 

eff you dealerships. 

Dave M said:

GCrites80s said:

Streetwiseguy said:

I've always been told it's either illegal, or against your merchant agreement to take a credit card for an automobile.  I wonder if that's Canada, if it's dealers not wanting to eat 2%, or if I've been lied to? 

In Ohio it used to be illegal to buy any titled motor vehicle with a credit card, in full at least. This was true at least until 1996. Not sure about deposits or down payments though.

My guess is they didn't have to count the fees against their department profit. Otherwise why would you eat $540 in profit?

What I'm going to try to as the dealer is get a massive price break on my large transactions through my processor. As in, an ordinary store has average rings of $25-250 and pays 1.5-3% as fees which companies are used to. But on a $25,000 car the processor doesn't get 2%... instead pay 2% on the first $1000-2000 but after that it drops to 0.1%. The processor still makes a massive amount of money and way, way more than they do off of Larry Csonka's carryout. At least that's the idea.

Brake_L8 said:

I informed him that the maintenance minder used the iDrive screen, whipped out my code reader and asked them to fix the misfire on cylinder six please and thanks. I understand not knowing every little thing about every non-Porsche vehicle on the lot, but CEL/SES lights are standardized. It pains me how many ill-informed people try to sell cars.

Who is to say they didn't know? They were counting on YOU not knowing. Just like the GPS unit.

I was looking at a DSM Talon for a friend.  It had a ripped flex joint (pretty clear sign the engine had been replaced) and he tried to play it off as a performance exhaust.

I take a half-day off of work and drive two hours to look at a '95 Impala SS. It looked sweet online, the price was a bit high though.

I get there. From 20 feet away I can tell it's had a hard life. I'm standing next to it waving my hands at it, saying to the salesman "Man, I drove two hours to look at this and it's a piece of E36 M3. Really?!"

Salesman says "It was owned by so-and-so!" "Who's that?" He give me a puzzled look. "The attorney!"

I left.

Streetwiseguy said:

I've always been told it's either illegal, or against your merchant agreement to take a credit card for an automobile.  I wonder if that's Canada, if it's dealers not wanting to eat 2%, or if I've been lied to? 

I used a credit card to buy my wife a new minivan at a GM dealer.  Worked out the whole deal, agreed to everything and aftre it ws all signed, whipped out my credit card to pay. They whined but I also pointed out that they had the credit card signs out which meant they accepted them, and had said nothing at all about any limitations, so they bitched but took it.

Last time was even more fun - was buying my wife a Mazda - when I say I was buying it, the salesmen aren't very good at actually taking the ladies seriously and probably lose a bunch iof business that way, but to ease the negotiations I went along and we came to an agree price. Then they gave me the sales contract to sign and it had the usual money grabs like a 'documentation fee' of $300, which they of course tried to justify by telling me that it ensured that I got good title to the car.  I replied that I was a lawyer and had my own way of dealing with any failure on their part to convey good title to me (as required by statute here) , and that it would be done on their dime, not mine as I'd sue them myself if they failed t produce.  They finally subtracted the fee by allowing the same amount in additional credit on our trade so the numbers dropped $300 for me, but somehow that satisfied their accountants or something.

The sleezy reputation of car dealers is generally well supported, despite a few very good ones (some of whom are friends of mine). I've seen many salesmen just making it up as they went along, saying anything to get a deal and then denying they had said anything when things went South.  Most fun I've had was a salesman I took into the manager's office to report his lying over terms. The salesman repeated that he had never said anything of the sort.  I pulled out my cell phone and told them that I'd play them just a bit of the evidence I'd bring to trail if necessary and the salesman wa heard to say the very words he'd just denied uttering.

My advice on used cars is to pay for a final inspection either by the auto club or a shop of your choice to point out mechanical issues that could cost you a lot of money before you buy - just put a 'subject to inspection' clause in the conract you sign.

In reply to GCrites80s :

Yeah, that makes sense! After all, for the processor each transaction costs the same to process.

oh man I got a good one but I was the used car salesman...

This story takes place over a ~1 week period:

To give some background I was working at a used car dealer over the summer for an internship that counted towards my school - that typically had "cool" cars (but that doesn't mean we also didn't sell econolines and OBS tauruses/etc either) and still story involves a black neon SRT4 ACR. 

Location: 

Chicagoland, IL

WEDNESDAY: 

Some kid comes in to look at this SRT4 ACR but he is 17 and thus too young to drive it due to state laws, he had asked me some questions about it, no test drive just a little chat and said he would be back later but I assumed nothing and figured it was a tire kicker. 

FRIDAY EVENING:
Friend is leaving for a work trip to Belize for an extended period of time so a group of us go out to the bar and celebrate/farewell/get super drunk. 

SATURDAY 10AM: 

Woke up - and hurried myself awake because I was supposed to be at work at 10AM, its a 20-25 minute drive from my home to the dealership. Rush my self to work before the hour closes, probably (allegedly) the only time I have ever felt so drunk and driving to work and especially that late in the day (not proud of that part, but it happened nobody got hurt and with less inhibition I made it there with pretty good time) . 

Not to long after arriving at work and realizing that  I was still drunk, the kid from Wednesday comes back to look at the car, this time all the more seriously interested (and still alone) in buying meanwhile myself, was still in the pre-hungover stage. Now I have to negotiate and seal this deal in this state. 

Being still 17 as the birthday did not change over the few days he wants a test drive, no parent is here so n naturally he wanted me to drive it and ride shotgun! so I ended up giving him a ride on "our test route" in this car, it was ~2 mile loop that was 4 right handers with 50-55mph roads in a square leading back to the dealer and I ripped through the gears and got the boost going and drove like a fool for that 2.5 minute window. 

Ended up back at the dealer and sealed the deal, he was thrilled - parents showed up within the next hour and I finalized the paperwork with them (while sobering up). The kid drove the first time leaving the dealership, he was a nice kid and his parents were both super nice too, the car seemed out of character for all of them but they supported him and he was happy with the car! 

In short: 

Sold a car while drunk to a kid who had never even driven the car before buying it. 

that was my proudest moment as a used car salesman. 

(allegedly of course...)  

the other one (much more PC)

I was driving back to a customers house (with the customer) to grab the key for the aftermarket alarm he had in the car that he was trading in, so we drove the wrx that he was interested in buying at our dealer but it had a super heavy fast n furious stage 8 clutch and he stalled it a bunch on the test drive getting the hang of it. I drove it flawlessly wearing birkenstocks: he was blown away that I could do such a thing in sandals... 

I wore sandals at work because one Saturday morning I opened with the owner and he was always very casual and relaxed (attitude and appearance) so I tease him one morning (midway through the internship) "hey why do you get to wear shorts and sandals to work!" 

his response, "I didn't say you couldn't wear sandals and shorts to work..."

I was stunned and excited, every day after that much more casual attire and my sales improved because I was more relaxed. 

In reply to dean1484 :

Np brother

GCrites80s said:

Streetwiseguy said:

I've always been told it's either illegal, or against your merchant agreement to take a credit card for an automobile.  I wonder if that's Canada, if it's dealers not wanting to eat 2%, or if I've been lied to? 

In Ohio it used to be illegal to buy any titled motor vehicle with a credit card, in full at least. This was true at least until 1996. Not sure about deposits or down payments though.

I bought a total POS S10 Blazer on my credit card from a Chevy dealer in the early 2000's.  In hindsight I wonder if I could have reversed the charges and made them take it back.  Issues from day 1.  (Ex-wife tried to go back to talk to them, in typical red-head tantrum mode she got kicked out quickly according to her mom).

_ said:

When I got married my wife had this awful Jetta vr6. It's was only six years old at the time and was falling apart (typical German engineering). 
 

it had a "bad injector number six", a few swear words and parts later it wasn't fixed and I had hardly any tools back then. took it to mechanic. He "fixed" it. CEL came on a few blocks down the road. No dealership would take it as trade in (you see why I'm scarred on German cars?) 

finally took it to mechanic again, had him reset the CEL, drive four blocks to the Honda dealer. Traded it in on a brand new Fit. 

A few weeks later I saw the salesman at Starbucks. he went off about how they've put "a ton of money into that car, over 5k. It can't be fixed, we need to talk". I bought his coffee and headed out the door. 
 

eff you dealerships. 

I have had friends hide known faults and defects too. Typically they rationalize this by selling it to a dealer as well. I can’t in good conscience do such a thing. 

I’ve related this one before. Nothing exciting just pretty smooth. Getting a Sienna for my MIL, I looked in a 2 hour radius and found a couple I liked. She’s not picky and we were looking at one or two year old modes so my test drive inspection was pretty straightforward. Test driving the first one at a big Kia dealer I called the one man shop and told the guy straight up we had $20 to spend (a couple less than he was asking, which was already an avg price) and needed to get out the door with that. He spent a couple mins doing the math and said best he could do was $20,500 out the door.

We ran over there, looked at it and it was fine. I called the Kia dealer’s saleman back and asked him the same thing. I told him we had the cash and wanted to get out the door for $20 and if not we would buy the other one. He said he didn’t believe that price was possible, I told him to look up the listing for the little dealer. He did and told me that he couldn’t match it so we bought from the little guy for, as promised, $500 more than the $20 we offered.

hearing some of these stories I wonder if we could have hardballed to get less but I’m not very comfortable doing that and this was a painless method— esp since I came into it knowing their value. 

Also, her head gasket had just blown and I was visiting on vacation so there was a rush to execute. 

P3PPY said:

_ said:

When I got married my wife had this awful Jetta vr6. It's was only six years old at the time and was falling apart (typical German engineering). 
 

it had a "bad injector number six", a few swear words and parts later it wasn't fixed and I had hardly any tools back then. took it to mechanic. He "fixed" it. CEL came on a few blocks down the road. No dealership would take it as trade in (you see why I'm scarred on German cars?) 

finally took it to mechanic again, had him reset the CEL, drive four blocks to the Honda dealer. Traded it in on a brand new Fit. 

A few weeks later I saw the salesman at Starbucks. he went off about how they've put "a ton of money into that car, over 5k. It can't be fixed, we need to talk". I bought his coffee and headed out the door. 
 

eff you dealerships. 

I have had friends hide known faults and defects too. Typically they rationalize this by selling it to a dealer as well. I can’t in good conscience do such a thing. 

I didn't give all the details for brevity. The dealership took my car on a drive. The check engine light came on. And they had their mechanic look at it. They still took the car. So my conscience is off the hook. It would be much different if I was selling this to a dear little old lady.