01-03-2019, 02:57 PM | #45 |
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Dude, for real though. She was crazy cute and flirting like crazy. Brought the car in for a recall, they changed my oil, detailed my car, changed my wiper blades and filled my car up with gas and I didn't even buy it from them.
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01-03-2019, 03:02 PM | #46 |
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No, I'm not, but you are aware there is more to what someone "looks like" than just the clothes they're wearing, right? LOL...there must be a reason I could walk into any store wearing a hoodie and be treated with respect. I guess I'm just lucky...or wear really nice hoodies. All I'm saying is if you're the type of person who thinks walking into a dealership with $10K is of any significance, your clothing will not impact how you're treated.
On the notion of clothes...it's rare someone buying a high-end car is wearing a suit while doing so. I don't think I've ever worn a suit to a dealer, nor do I recall seeing other customers at a Ferrari/Porsche/MB/BMW wearing suits. I'm taking delivery of my Pista on Saturday then driving with car friends. I'll be wearing sweats and a hoodie. |
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01-03-2019, 03:23 PM | #47 | |
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Or you could just be that good, who knows. |
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01-03-2019, 03:40 PM | #48 | |
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01-04-2019, 02:17 AM | #49 |
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Dropped by the Porsche dealer with a couple buds today for the hell of it. Again, pretty nice sales people.
Sitting in that Miami Blue 991 GTS got me off. |
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01-04-2019, 06:00 AM | #50 | |
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Anyway, my all time favorite dealer story was when I needed a vehicle right away. Chrysler agreed to buy back my Jeep from hell. I went to Lexus to look at the RX. Took it for a test drive and when I started talking numbers the salesguy actually told me to come back with my husband. I laughed, told him big mistake, he just lost a sale. I wish I could have seen his face when he called me to follow up and I told him sorry, I bought a BMW all by myself. |
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01-04-2019, 07:54 AM | #51 | |
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I hope you wrote to Lexus corporate to let them know that they lost a sale, and a potential life customer, because the dealership sales people treated you as a chattel. Interestingly, there was an incident a number of years ago involving a dealership in my market where there was discrimination occurring. Since then the dealership has changed hands but I still find myself battling an inherent attitude against not only that dealership but also the auto company involved. I know that this is not right as I have no reason to believe that the auto company knew of or tolerated the dealership actions but feelings are as strong in many respects as facts. My point is that dealerships may be independently owned but they remain a reflection of their franchisers and the franchisers need to hold the franchisees accountable. It is sad but unfortunately true that this type of attitude continues to exist. Good for you for walking out! |
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01-04-2019, 08:14 AM | #52 | |
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01-04-2019, 08:19 AM | #53 | |
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The guy who knows most about cars and the BMW line is the lot attendant. I end up shooting the breeze with this guy than a CA. I've been to other dealers such as BMW Morristown and the sales manager was pretty cool, offered to order me a car, knew of the individual paint that was free near end of productions; offered to see if he could swap. This guy wanted to make the sale. He is probably very succesfull. Alas there are two types of dealerships: Volume based- usually have good client relationships and excellents CAs as their business relies on volume and repeat purchases. Will discount heavily to play long game of incentives from BMW. Stealerships--> Charge MSRP, or damn near close to it. Knock off the incentives and claim they are taking 3k off the price Princeton BMW I found wont budge on sales numbers. Like not a penny off MSRP, on a simple f8x order or m5 order. Come on now- these aint GT3s. These guys get no allocations but do sell cars in my area. Sell 5 m3s at 1k profit. or sell 1 M3 at 5k profit. Same difference; but I bet the volume based- is making a shit load more on sales goals- which leads to more allocations and overall a better experience for everyone involved. The people at Princeton probably hate their jobs since management is so stiff and is hard to deal, if you can't baragin |
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01-04-2019, 08:48 AM | #54 |
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My experience over the weekend at BMW was pretty sub par. I had to go to a dealer that I don't typically use because my dealer "doesn't do recall work on the weekends" . So I go pull into the service bay and while being the only person there, I was not greeted for about 2-3 minutes. After being greeted by the porter(who just asked for my key), I walked inside to talked to a service advisor who ignored my existence while I stood in front of him for a couple on minutes. Again, I'm still the only customer in the service department. After speaking with the SA and letting him know that I will be walking around the showroom while my recall is being completed I hear the porter ATTEMPT, key word here, to pull my car out of the bay. I'm watching as he gets my car stuck on a hill because he doesn't know how to drive a manual car. So I run up and tell him to get out of the car and I will just park it myself. After all that nonsense and while my car is being worked on I decide to test drive a 2018 F80 competition package. During the test drive I'm asking the sales agent about the differences and why one would purchase the competition package over a standard car. Things I already know but he literally couldn't tell me.
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01-04-2019, 08:49 AM | #55 |
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BMW is no longer a Premium brand in my opinion, you cannot have arrange as big as today's line of models and sell so many and maintain a premium service, human nature does not allow it, robots maybe, but they limited to the production line only! volume never helped quality, the only premium about BMW is the prices.
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01-04-2019, 09:23 AM | #56 |
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In my experience, being a car enthusiast is the WORST type of customer for your average dealership/salesman. You know why? We know what we want. We're picky, particular, and know what we're talking about. Nobody can sell us a car we haven't already sold ourselves, which means they probably aren't going to win us over on another in stock unit that they have fatter margins on or with different options they just want to dump ASAP.
I knew my BMW salesman personally. He was in my (extended) group of friends, and he wouldn't even bother to go over BMW Individual options with me. I felt like I was wasting his time at certain points. I was originally interested in a manual 340i - he just let me take it for a test drive by myself. Later, I found out why - a mutual friend (fellow car enthusiast) told me that the salesman said he didn't even think I was going to buy anything. I guess I duped him when I ordered a M3 instead. He did give me a great deal though, especially for a custom order, and so as a friend he helped me out, but as a salesman, he failed terribly. Too bad, probably could have talked me into some Individual options had he given enough of a crap. Point is, I thought that knowing exactly what you wanted made the dealership's job easier. That's only true if the salesman cares as you do about finding the perfect car for you. It's possible that Porsche embraces this approach a little more, since our type is far more common there I would guess. But for any other brand who sells econoboxes or luxury vehicles, they want you in and out as fast as possible with what they have on hand, so just get to the point and start negotiating. Just my experience though. |
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01-04-2019, 09:40 AM | #57 |
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What puzzles me is that there is so much downtime for car sales staff. I have always said that an employer doesn't have to fire me...just stick me at a desk in a corner with nothing to do and I would quit within an hour.
So why not utilize the downtime to become experts on the vehicles that the company sells? It will make the day pass faster and make the sales person more effective. |
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01-04-2019, 09:44 AM | #58 | |
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01-04-2019, 11:32 AM | #59 |
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Great thread, especially the wild differences from dealer to dealer.
My dealer is Pfaff in Mississauga, service is quite good and but damn they charge like a wounded bull, everything they touch is incredibly expensive. Bought my wife's CPO X3 from there 3 years ago and the salesman was good, he could kinda tell i don't mess about and I said "Look, we like it and will pay $42k out the door if you CPO it and put 4 new tyres on it, that's my number". He agreed and we were done. It was listed at $40K, non-CPO, so effectively $45k out the door plus paperwork fees etc. plus the CPO and tyres, i'm good at $42K, let's make it happen. |
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01-04-2019, 01:00 PM | #60 | |
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It is true that once someone comes in and starts wandering around looking at the display models a sales person might approach her. But one could sit at one's desk, study car materials, and still manage to get up and walk a few feet to a person looking at a display model. Incidentally, my dealership did not pressure me to purchase an instock model. I would have expected them to do so since BMW was buying back my previous car but my sales person suggested ordering exactly what I wanted and BMW corporate agreed to wait for me to place the order, get it built and get it delivered to Arizona. I felt I was treated well and as a result purchased a car with an MSRP of $73K. If I was pressured, I would have walked out, taken my BMW buyback check, and gone to a different car company dealership. |
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01-04-2019, 01:18 PM | #61 | |
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Of course I was exaggerating a bit, but I get where you're coming from. My experience with Audi has been much closer to what you described, and I've built a pretty great relationship with a salesman there because of it (5 cars since 2012). I only went with my acquaintance at BMW because I knew him, and knew he would hook me up, which he absolutely did. But I stand by my experiences of knowing what I want does not exactly make me the best customer to deal with. All I do is bring a printout of the build & price config, and have had the following experiences: Lexus: Ordered it, did not require deposit, never called me back when it came in. RAM: "Let me talk to my manager" garbage, made me wait 45 minutes when I could clearly see he was BSing with another salesman, only to come back with the wrong color, didn't even follow what I printed out. Told him to call me when he finds something, and walked out. Never heard back. Subaru: Said he'd call me when a car on its way would come in, never bothered, even after followup calls, and never tried to land a sale. I've tried numerous times to self-critique my car buying attitude and habits, and I've never wasted anyone's time or effort. I've been directly to the point, knowing exactly what I want, and the results all have been what you just read, with the exception of a recurring stellar Audi customer experience. I may not be the most likeable person, but it really isn't the salesman's job to like me, just to sell me a car haha. |
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01-04-2019, 02:02 PM | #62 |
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BMW wouldn't even let me test drive my M4! Only when I showed them my part exchange M3 (E46) did they agree to it. Otherwise it was a no everywhere I called up. :
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01-05-2019, 12:38 AM | #64 |
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Interesting thread.
Try walking in to any Porsche dealership in southern Ca to buy a GT car and see how they treat you. Or even just call them or email them about it and see how they respond. I have had disappointing experiences with BMW dealerships as well but the Porsche dealerships are at a different level. "Ha, you are not going to be able to buy a GT4, forget about it. I recommend you consider that used cayman over there or this one over here".
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01-05-2019, 01:45 AM | #65 | |
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While test driving an E36 318 (way back in 1992), my friend turned around with a serious face and asked the sales rep “is this a 4-valve per cylinder engine?”. A pause and an answer “I will check for you once we get back to the dealer”. The irony of it that Porsche is the most profitable car manufacturer and BMW isn’t. BMW sells more cars and Porsche sells less. Yet, Porsche knows how to treat a “valued” customer. A sane person would think BMW ought to catch on to that idea and train their dealerships to be more customer-friendly and oriented. |
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01-05-2019, 09:11 AM | #66 | |
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Have heard some horror stories on Rennlist about southern California dealers with ADMs and reneging on agreed upon terms for GT cars. Two sides to that coin, of course, because it makes the GT cars incredibly stable in value. But getting your foot in the door is tough. |
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