I have a feeling I will get some backlash for this post but im genuinely curious.
I am 22 years old and have always worked hard to be able to afford a nice car. For example I have gone into a Lexus and BMW dealer recently and I feel like some salesman dont even want to entertain sitting down with me and negotiate a deal. Is this something anyone else has dealt with?
Also, I have learned my lesson and will be negotiating over email from now on but I just wanted to see if anyone else has ever had this issue.
It may just be they are deciding ahead of time who is worth their efforts. You’ll most likely need a co-signer to get into a lease unless you have a history of other car loans. When I was 21 I needed a co-signer on my lease.
I wish to have that kind of problem with my age LOL. No worries. I’ve had the same problem light years ago. If somebody will not treat You seriously just move on.
Oh yeah. When I was 22 and went to sign for a Raptor, sales people would not take me seriously at all. No test drives allowed and no interest of even sitting down to talk about numbers which was insulting. Even though I had tier 1 credit, was rather professional with them, and did not present any red flags, I was profiled.
In the end, I didn’t give them my business and they are also personally content with thinking they avoided a fruitless endeavor. We both win!
I mean you are looking at it from your perspective, but how about this young kid, hot new model, test drive?
They usually don’t allow test drives on certain flagship models anyway, reason being is that buyers of said vehicles are turned off by test drives and miles, example when I got my 2017 hc I specifically asked about test drives on the car… it may be a little silly to some of you but often times people/employees beat the sh*t out of these cars and leave rubber residue on the fenders/rear quarterpanel that essentially gets stuck in the paint, burnouts with the tires, rock chips, etc etc.
What you saw is pretty common, nissan dealers were very finicky about test drives when the gtr was relatively new 09-12, most ford dealers don’t do test drives on shelby’s, Chevy dealers on zr1’s, etc etc
Then he could have come with me on a test drive to remove the possibility of that happening. The Raptor at the end of the day is a truck. Not a sports car, and certainly not the Mona Lisa that Ford dealerships try to depict it as.
I don’t think you understand the market, at one point in time these trucks were going over sticker.
They simply don’t want them to be test driven period, while not a sports car ford has deemed the raptor a “flagship” as such dealers like to baby them.
I don’t see anything out of the ordinary here as far as the test drive went, as far as them not taking you seriously that’s a legitimate issue, if you have the money and the credit they should jump at the chance to sell you the vehicle.
Also most buyers of these types of cars know exactly what they’re getting, they don’t need to test drive it to figure out if they want it, and thus dealers get stuck in that “the perfect customer,” is gonna walk through that door and buy it without even asking for a test drive.
I went to buy a golf TDI in 2010 and was treated like garbage. No one even came up to me and when I asked to speak to someone about pricing was told it’s in the window. Also no test drive until you buy. Guess what that dealer is out business for couple years now.
I’m well aware of the market and was not shopping during that time frame when they were going over sticker. I suggest you try to be a bit more realistic in what you’re saying and get back to wearing the shoes of a prospective buyer. Dealership logic isn’t surprising and it is very often misaligned with ours.
I have discussed my particular test drive issue with a ford raptor group and every single person agreed that the dealership was being irrational. Further, all of these individuals affirmed that they test drove the truck before buying. I have yet to meet ANY Raptor owner that you describe. I pity anyone that falls victim to dealership tactics and chooses to buy a 75k truck without being able to drive it.
and it’s not unique to buying a car.