I had never considered looking into leasing before believing the myths that it couldn’t possibly ever make sense to not own your car (while I sat upside down on a loan for 3+ years off my last new car purchase and was only saved for a tidy profit by the pandemic-o-monium) - but with EV incentives started digging, and now I need a car relatively fast so I’ve been hammering a bunch of dealerships a day and I must say this entire process makes a mockery of a free market or anything efficient
#1) Send over clear terms - not deep in the weeds - here’s MSRP, here’s what I want for purchase, here’s some incentives, we can throw all your weird fees up front, I think these numbers make sense, what do you think?
get emails back asking me if I want to lease or buy, if I’m still interested, sending me over quotes that are absolutely blistering (got one for 7000DAS/320 month on an Ioniq 5 SEL based on what I sent over…which we can pick one or thoe other of those, geez…as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Tell me that they can’t discount MSRP at all on a 2023 if I use lease cash, etc etc – okay play ball or not, but WTF, hyundai should shut down a dealership if they are suckering rubes into $14,000-$15000 plus leases on Ioniq5s right now as far as I’m concerned
oh god the emails, oh god the calls, oh god the autoresponders - WTF is this madness? anytime I click anywhere to look at things, I’m getting quotes, quotes that contradict the last quote, people emailing me wondering who I had talked to, a robot sending 8 emails by 11am from 4 different salespeople all with the same sentences…sometimes just an idle click to look at something…I had over 100 emails and 30 voicemails by 10AM this morning - about 3 were people I was trying to talk to and we both kepet laughing cause they had to resend stuff over because it is los in the flood - nothing at all makes sense about that as being your marketing and outreach strategy
the guilt trips - literal email “I’d like to think my email is in your spam folder, but I think you are just ignoring me, did I do something wrong?” NO, I never asked for an email in the first place, your dealership is far away, I clicked on it by accident…
the lies - today I was told twice Hyundai absolutely forbids any lease across state lines. Is that so? Why not just say no
and mostly all the bullshit - I understand wanting to get someone in front of you, making them sweat over paperwork for hours, spinning them in circles, and then ending up with another few grand for carpet shampoo in there - but there has to be place for two intelligent people to basically say this is what I want, I know it’s not the most profitable thing in the world, but if it benefits you, it will also be quick and easy and we both win, yay or nay
what kind of free market has 4 dealerships in the same city, maybe even two owned by the same people somehow, offering the exact same car, and having prices that differ by thousands and thousands - that fact alone is enough to say this whole industry sucks money out of information disparities
the relentless pressure and desire to pull you in - had someone ask me 5 times today why I wasn’t picking up the phone until I finally said, there’s nothing to talk about on the phone yet - you haven’t even replied to a single question
and again the terrible AI robots that every dealership uses so you can’t tell a person apart
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I think I found a deal I wanted if they decide they want to go through with it - and they offered it to me first - I literally said I don’t really need to push back on this - but the rest of my day - wading through junk mail and actual assholes
I did call out the dealer who had mistaken my I could do a 1payforthis, or an effective monthly of this based on this purchase price and gave me that purchase price, used my 1 pay minus some, and my effective monthly as the monthly and wrote me to say “I could barely do it, but I think I can, I can actually beat the offer you wanted” and sent me that bullshit. Told him that was too far on the side of misleading for me to trust my business with them in the future, as even if I had made a mistake, don’t sell it like my benefit - I’ve worked on commission and that’s dishonest commission! Not even from joe blow with the used cars on the corner - one of the largest by volume dealerships in my state…
TLDR nothing new here - the entire way cars are sold and how the people in that game make their money is just a mess of confusion, annoynace, spam, misinformation, pressure and somewhere along the way normal deals happen that benefit everyone involved
It was just the spam I wanted to complain about - that shit didn’t exist last time I went car shopping…make the emails and phone calls stop…make them stoppppp
After reading it I have this playing in my head (probably NSFW)
But yeah dealerships are all like this. They’re not set up for cross shopping and they have no desire to make it convenient. An intelligent informed consumer is not their friend because as you say they suck money out of information disparities.
My favorite are the ones to at don’t respond to my emails, just put me on their mailing list where they send an email a week of hillbilly gibberish and a bunch of random car listings. And the unsubscribe link is broken so I have to make an email delete rule.
All dealers are like this to some extent, but sadly, Hyundai / Kia are usually the bottom of the barrel.
After my recent experience using a broker on here, I’m done doing this on my own. Especially at a Hyundai dealer where I want to shower after being in there for more than 30 min, it’s well worth a few hundred bucks to have a totally seamless transaction.
It’s not so much Kia/Hyunday though. There aren’t many independent or one off dealers left. They’re all part of mega corp dealer networks. So if it’s Hyundai or Mercedes, the culture and sales tactics are the same corporate wide.
I should say that the internet sales dude at Bridgewater Chevrolet in NJ was zero BS in March, and the F&I lady realized quickly I wasn’t a good mark and just wanted to move on to the next one. So that was a good experience.
@erist23 , go get a Lucid, Rivian, or Tesla. Or get a vehicle through an easy-to-work-with LH Broker.
The franchised dealer model has had a century of experience to learn tactics to maximize their margins and squeeze maximum profit per unit sold. Doesn’t look like you have any appetite to go up against that type of juggernaut on your own.
Oh, I’m finding it kind of humorous and exhausting but I have a private seller car down the way that I happen to love and worst thing that happens is I grab it, drive it for 2,3,4 months and then resell it for about the same amount (actually higher if I’m patient) - it more drives me insane because it’s clear how many people just get money sucked out their pocket out of sheer exhaustion and frustration - predatory models always piss me off…but the new AI/spam wrinkle is just…weird…and neverending…and its clear even the most junior folks have been trained to get them closer - get them on the phone, then bring them in…then we’ll lock the door and give them free bad coffee until they agree to $2k carpet shampoo…
it can be fun though if you have time…“okay so I can send you oever the same thing, which you don’t want to do which is fine, and you can send me something i don’t want, or we can move on, you are a store, you don’t have the product I want in stock, that’s okay. But you’re not gonna convince me to buy some socks instead…”
Yeah- In February I was trying to make a deal with a dealer who had 50+ 2023 Ioniq 5s on the lot and it was nothing but what you describe.
I hit up a Nissan dealer about Ariya. “What’s your best drive off amount?” (I know this is not the hacker suggestion, but it worked for me this time) They got right back to me with a nice deal, no time on the phone, made an appointment, signed and drove off in less than 30 min.
TL/DR- what you describe is the norm but there are better dealers out there.
Don’t take it personally, it’s just business transaction. Construct your deal on LH calculator, put it on spreadsheet and email them to the dealers. Either they are willing to deal or they brush you off. Thanks them and move on. No need to burn bridges unless they’re really rude. IME, the rude one is the lower rank salesman/gatekeeper. The GM, GSM & Sales manager is better at responding the email because they know you will close if they can meet your number.
Yep. Email them if you can. Most dealers have a company profile section on their website with emails of sales managers. Sales people are there to, you know, SELL. You don’t need to be sold. You know what you want. If you can skip that middleman altogether it makes the process exponentially better
Umm no, you have option and just need to know how to navigate them. Have you dealt with Tesla? Good luck dealing with them if your tesla has any issues.
