I had heard about that…unfortunately, with a current flat I wasn’t going to shop around/have it delivered to save $100. Plus my wife was adamant in not having a used tire…who knows where it’s been!
I had made a bunch of phone calls earlier in this year to local “used tire dealers” and had no luck finding any in my size…
In my experience, the only dealers that have came back at my request for an aggressive discount asking for proof have been ones just trying to call me out because they think I’m lying, and then say they can’t match when I send the proof. Most deals I have done where I have gotten very aggressive numbers have came from me simply saying “here are the numbers I need to be at. I can be there in an hour to sign if you agree” and leave it at that.
Obviously this is anecdotal
I just replaced one tire on my wife’s XC90. Under $90 on bestusedtires.com with free next day delivery. And it wasn’t even patched.
When a customer lets me know their goal I actually prefer it. If I can get there, fantastic. If it’s past my limits then I will let the customer know how close I can get. There’s no reason for me not to give a deal if it’s within my capability. But there is a limit, and some clients you deal with do not understand that. At a certain point it doesn’t make sense to sell a car, even if the customer insists’ “I’ll come in and sign today.”
Which is totally reasonable. I have no issue with a dealer that says “no, I can’t do that.” I’ll move on and find another that can. If everyone says no, I’ll readjust my expectations. I don’t like dealers that pull the whole “well send me the other dealer’s offer” and then balk at that when I do.
Well I guess it depends because I feel the reason they ask for proof with something on paper is because a lot of times dealers are very misleading with quotes and keep everything very open ended.
For example , salesperson says $2,000 down versus $2,000 total out of pocket and the customer is under the interpretation that they are the same thing. Quote could not be accounting for taxes, DMV, first months payment etc. The proof of the quote on paper at least provides some sort of justification for the manager running an aggressive deal because like other Industry Folks have mentioned, buyers are liars.
This mainly applies I guess to the less educated bunch but I have had plenty of customers (I am in the business) tell me that they are being offered: X,Y, and Z and it turns out they are just reading word for word an advertisement on a dealerships website 
I guess I don’t understand why it really matters if they’re lying or not. You can either do the deal or you can’t. If you can’t, but you’re not that far off, counter with what you can.
Do you really make much headway with customers that are lying/have quotes they don’t understand by trying to get them to send an offer and then dissecting it? I can’t imagine the conversion rate on deals like that is high. If I’m wrong, then obviously it’s a worthwhile strategy.
Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I believe lying is a bad thing.
Regarding asking for a quote from the customer. I rarely do this, but if I am going to beat some crazy deal, It gives me more leverage to present the deal to management.
A different perspective, if the customer can ask me to dissect every piece of my deal with full transparency isn’t it only fair I can ask the same?
To the OP, I don’t believe in test drives anymore. I have never test driven any car I have leased, and any car I have test driven I did not end up leasing.
Yes, lying is bad, but it happens all over the industry from both sides, so you can either address the deal at hand and move on with life, or try to call out a buyer which doesn’t help the deal out.
If it gives you leaverage for the manager, that’s great. I’d assume you’re at a number that’s pretty close to where you need to be then, and you’re asking for the quote because you think it’ll get you there. To me that’s different than people that ask for a quote just to call someone’s bluff. There’s very different motivation going on.
As for your different perspective, I understand what you’re getting at (and I appreciate the transparency you offer), but no, I don’t think it’s the same. If I’m doing business with you, I expect transparency in the transaction between us. I don’t expect transparency in the transaction between you and a different customer. Your deal with them is your business, not mine.
Yes I do make headway like that actually, it’s more so geared towards the “non-leasehackers” but I can’t tell you how many times I ask a customer to get something in writing from the dealership and all of a sudden the numbers magically start going up and up.
I’m in the broker business so it’s my job to dissect dealership quotes especially if I’m quoting somebody my bare cost on a vehicle which is typically thousands below invoice and they are apparently getting thousands below that.
A dealership will tell a customer whatever they want to hear in order to get them to make a commitment and then once they make the commitment they start playing with numbers.
I have no problem telling a customer they are getting an amazing deal and I can’t touch the numbers but if they weren’t given anything in writing and apparently are getting unheard of pricing then I feel have every right to ask them to provide me with some sort of written offer that shows it’s a real deal.
Unfortunately, this also rings true for dealerships looking at quotes you have sent them. I have had some many try to tell me all the reasons why the quote I sent is wrong, etc but just making stuff up.
Lol I guess it just depends on the dealership, if they can’t come close to the pricing it’s probably just the manager making a last ditch effort to save the sale and convince you that the deal isn’t a real deal. Depends how honest of a sales manager your dealing with.
Also depends on the legitimacy of the quote / worksheet because I’ve had customers present me with a crumpled piece of loose leaf paper that says $299 $0 down that looks like their toddler scribbled it.
Like I said, many dealerships like keeping everything open ended so that they can change things later on. I’ve sat in dealerships while waiting to pick up vehicles and you hear the crazy things they say all the time. Somebody will ask how much the taxes are and salesman responds: “yeah could be anywhere from $2,000 to $3,500”
Lololol update on this service call… Supposes to have tire mounted and balanced and a brake flush…
I leave with the loaner and 30 minutes later I get a call from the dealer that says they replaced the tire and test drove it and it’s pulling to the left so pay us for an alignment… Hmmmm no Thanks… But also I’m curious why you put the tire back on and drove it without spending the time to do the brakes while you have it on the lift…
Another half hour goes by and I get a call that everything is done and come pick it up.
Well I get in my vehicle and check the I drive and it still says that the brake fluid needs to be serviced… HAHA they never did it…
I go inside and the service advisor says oh so sorry they overlooked that line item. Lol after I paid for the service no less. To make it even better I called and got a rate of 103 and when I showed up they charging me 125. Didn’t care to argue about that. But case in point. Dealerships suck.
I am too lazy to read all this but have always believed customers can and should shop how they want; Dealerships can and should sell how they want. I have my department focus on customers who won’t become time-consuming deals.
Don’t blame the salesman if you’re unaware he (or she) got the price from a manager! IMHO the sales person wanted the lower price to get your business! Happens all the tine.
meh, I don’t get too worked up about stuff like that. You have to figure that approach works in a small number of cases, so it is worth it for them to give it a shot. If it is ok for a buyer to take a shot on a lowball offer for a car they are hoping a dealer would rather move at a loss than throw a birthday party for, it’s ok for a salesperson to take a shot on a high margin deal.
The only two things that really make me mad:
Outright lying or treating me like an absolute idiot. Don’t try to spend half an hour convincing me that this barebones, year-old S4 is worth $400/month more than the top-end SQ5 I’m currently leasing.
The “missing” keys game. If I ask for my keys back and want to leave, don’t make up excuses to stall.
Honestly, pretty much all of the luxury dealerships around here, while they don’t even come close to prices LH would consider “good” or even “acceptable”, at least are honest and professional and don’t pull crap like this. A few years back, however, I did have an Audi dealership so confident I wanted to pay > $1k/month for a base S4 that they “already started working on my trade-in” and it was a huge hassle for them to go get my keys back.
That is the extreme in the other direction (Failed Saturn model)
There could be multiple ways to purchase a vehichle… Similar to most mid-range items we buy an LCD TV. Actually similar to the used car market - tons of ways to buy a used car…
Multiple business models could actualy mean more opportunities to hack for new and used cars
Dealing with the public isn’t a picnic for sure. It would drive me nuts to try and talk rationally to some of these people with no concept of numbers, negotiation and personal respect.
I can sort of see both sides of the “Let me see the detailed quote to match” thing.
On the one hand, I can understand why a dealer would want to verify - even if the person isn’t outright lying or talking about some hypothetical deal they saw on LH, leases are still fairly complicated things and the person could be mistaken about some important aspect of it.
On the other hand, as a buyer, if I go have a dealer work hard to put together a deal for me, it feels… slimy? to then go shop that quote and see if I can save a bit more or maybe get a better color/option combo or closer dealer or whatever?
I think it depends on how much you work it.
I have leased two hondas where I have asked a closer dealer to match the offer of a further away dealer. In both those cases, all I asked them to match was the automated truecar numbers given by a dealer that I know spits out numbers significantly lower than everyone else. I don’t have any qualms about taking that dealer offer and shopping it around. I tend to shotgun out truecar requests when I get started just to identify which dealers to even bother contacting. If one is $5k more than everyone else, no sense in talking to them.
I do agree with you about taking one that’s been worked back and forth with the sales manager, etc and has had a lot of effort put into it though.