In my last month of car shopping I’ve been perplexed by one thing - how do all of these salesmen afford to drive the vehicles that they are selling?..or are they lying?
At Infiniti the salesman told me he had both a Q50 and QX70…at BMW the 25 year old “genius” that did our delivery demo drove a 5 series and the salesman had an X5 and 3 series…and on and on.
What kind of deals are the dealerships giving to their employees? They can’t be the “you pay what we pay” bullshit deals we see several times a year can they?
My experience with a few friends of friends who work in car sales is that they can often get great deals at end of month. When a dealer needs to hit a number for a big bonus, they are willing to sell cars to staff at cost, which when leasing car result in super low payments. Sometimes we can get similar deals but that requires great luck and persistance.
I think all employees get special pricing.I took over lease from a former employee for 3 series priced @ $48,500 for $ 350 pm with 15,000 miles per year with MSDs
Just to add a different perspective, I’ve got a friend who is the finance manager at a Lexus dealership. I was talking to him about this topic and he said he sees lots of customers that get better pricing because they can cross shop dealerships and beat them down on pricing. He’s eligible for some dealership programs that customers aren’t able to get, but by and large they don’t seem to beat out shrewd negotiating along with strong lease programs.
Also, other possibilities:
Bad at finance
Family money
Spouse that makes bank
Crushing it in sales
Overpay but use it as a sales tactic (pull up in a shiny new car generates conversation with perspective new clients)
Depending on their role, brand, and dealership they may be given the car
Where I used to live, San Fernando Valley (CA), majority of these under 30 who drove these nice cars lived in apartment with 6 others or lived at home with no rent payment. Therefore, a $450 to 600 (and in some cases $1000) lease was part of their budget. Much like how our full mortgage payment or rent payment is part of our budgets.
Some dealerships give their employees lease allowances on top of special pricing. So, a $600/mo special employee lease becomes $300/mo with $300/mo lease allowance.
I have a good friend that works at BMW who shares info like this all the time. One of his salesmen friends was driving an M3 at like 490 a month. He shared some other insane deals similar to that.
I’m sure good credit has to help, but the huge discount and favors seem to work huge dividends.
“Bad at finance” is at least 25% of most BMW owners from my experience gotta get that badge to impress all those employees you assistant manage at TJ Maxx.
But seriously, I don’t really care what others drive. If someone wants to live in an apartment and eat Ramen to afford an RR that’s cool by me. Different priorities is what makes people interesting!
My volvo salesman said he gets to use one of the cars if he sells X number of units per month. I think the dealerships have different perks to get people to sell.
Bad at finance (many sales people live large believing they make $10K or $15K plus a month based on that one month where they made $10K or 15K plus)
They are at the dealer year round (including the times when all the stars align on a deal - incentives, money factors, one off demos, etc.)
Despite what all you “hackers” think, sales people can make a very good living as long as they can put up with all the dealership bull and hustle. See #1 above.
Also, like a friend of mine used to say: “If I worked at Pizza Hut, I’d come home with pizza all the time…”
Don’t forget about disclosure (accident) cars. They sell for cheap at auction and the residuals are unaffected, dealership employees get their hands on them for almost nothing monthly.
gotta get that badge to impress all those employees you assistant manage at TJ Maxx.
