I dealt with a five-star dealer and the internet saleswoman was highly recommended at my company and I had a five-star experience and she actually got me excited about the car after the deal was done it was a win-win-win situation and I recommend it.
Max, no one argues with this. But nobody held a gun to OPs head either. Why do we have Best Dealer list and not the other way? Because there are fewer good dealers/salespeople than the “bad” ones. So we help each other to find them. One only needs to walk-in into a random dealership and ask for a hacker quote to find a “bad” dealer. This is what OP (who tries to do his first lease, BTW) essentially did, and that was my point that got lost somehow. OP went for the BMW badge (IMO), not for a car and then got surprise of his life when found out there was no backup camera on his 320. And then blasts the dealer (in all caps) for that and everything else that gone wrong with his deal. People should not expect to get the deals posted here by dealers/brokers by working with a random salesperson, even at the same dealership.
1 Like
I think many newbs see these deals, assume anyone can get them at any time of year, and in any market, let alone any dealer/salesman they choose, and blame the wrong people when that’s not the case. Many of these deals are being at the right place at the right time, and are hard, if not impossible to recreate with frequency.
Likewise, what is often overlooked/forgotten, is for every one unicorn, there are hundreds of good/mediocre/bad deals. The ones found here are of a very niche number of the car buying public.
4 Likes
Also a lot of it is confidence in your knowledge of the numbers and the process, especially if you are doing anything in person, and to a lesser extent, the phone. If someone can sense that you don’t have a complete handle on any one thing in the formula they can try to capitalize on it. If you aren’t prepared to walk away or hold firm, it can be a little unsettling to have whatever you thought you knew be shaken up, dishonestly or mistakenly or not.
I never make in person deals, it is a lot of time wasted and results in mostly disappointment. I recently purchased a BMW from Shelly off a deal posted here and my experience was great. Was in and out in a hour, everything was negotiate over the phone, I had him run my app before I showed up and detail the car beforehand. The way I look at it is when the dealership is not making enough money on you or selling you a loss leader they aren’t as interested as they are when you are buying a car at a higher price.
Anyway do your research upfront, ask around at the forum, and you should be good.
Car dealerships are NOT all the same, in the smaller town where I grew up there were about 6 dealerships, two were great, two were okay, and two were horrible. I don’t care if all they sold were riding lawnmowers, you had to buy what was sold at the great or at least the average dealership - stay away from bad dealerships AT ALL COSTS.