It Was Not Pretty

I went with my wife to buy a car yesterday. I think I would rather have a root canal than to go through what I went through yesterday.

I have a few very good friends in the car business and I usually deal with them and the process is simple.

This is the car I want.

Here is the price. How do you want to pay for it?

I have no trouble understanding that.

But Kathy had a certain vehicle she wanted (getting ready for the grandbaby) so we walked in a dealership yesterday where I knew nobody.

It was not pretty.

The salesman was great. In fact we went there because Kathy stopped by earlier in the week and she was impressed with how nice he was. When I met him I wanted to do business with him. He was a sincere guy with a lot of years experience in the car business.

He did a great presentation on a couple of vehicles she was interested in buying. The three of us went on a test drive.

I was thinking this is a good experience. Everything was wonderful.

When we got back to the dealership things started going downhill.

As he was getting information about us to put in the computer we had not spoken about price. I told him I was very easy. Just give me the bottom price one time and we will make a decision.

After he got the information he said he needed to go talk to his boss about the price.

I didn’t like that.

I don’t like for people to leave their customer for 15 minutes in an office while others talk about us in another room. Just rubs me the wrong way.

I was thinking and wondering what families would do if they came in to make funeral arrangements and the arranger got all the information from the family and then left the room for 15 minutes to decide what they will charge the family.

When the salesman came back I explained to him rather plainly that the deal was not what I wanted and the process was about to cause me to walk out the door. I explained to him if he had to talk to his boss about the price of the car to bring the boss in the room and decide in front of me.

He left again and in a few minutes he came back with his boss. The boss started the negotiating process and I stood up to leave. I politely thanked him for his time and said we would be moving on down the road.

He then said to sit down because I had won.

What in the heck did I win? I was about to spend as much money on this vehicle as I did our first house and I really didn’t feel like a winner.

All I wanted was for them to allow this nice salesman to look me in the eye and give me a price on the vehicle.

I understand customers like to negotiate on vehicles. Then give the salesman some parameters and at least give him a chance to make the deal.

We did end up buying the vehicle. (It was actually not the vehicle in the photo above).

But we would have paid more.

What “the boss” never understood was that the price was not why I was so bothered.

It’s was the way they went about it.

They did sell a vehicle but they lost a customer in the process.