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Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

detroitnews.com

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Re: Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

#21

Post by hyperbovine »

throwaway98121 wrote: post #3

We sold our vehicle because the monthly payment, insurance, gasoline, and parking costs were adding up to about $1000 a month. I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit. I visited three dealerships in my area. The experience was horrible at all three. I consider myself a decent person, but I now judge people who work in car sales or car sales management and not in a good way. Anyway…

> Luckily we use a combination of mass transit and just walking places.

You certainly do not live in Michigan then.

Re: Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

#22

Post by throwaway98121 »

clircle wrote: post #13
throwaway98121 wrote: post #3

We sold our vehicle because the monthly payment, insurance, gasoline, and parking costs were adding up to about $1000 a month. I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit. I visited three dealerships in my area. The experience was horrible at all three. I consider myself a decent person, but I now judge people who work in car sales or car sales management and not in a good way. Anyway…

Can you elaborate on your horrible experience? I bought a new car for the first time this year. I went to the Toyota dealer with my wife, we drove three cars, and decided the Corolla iM would be enough for 95% of our needs. We came back the next day and filled out all the paper work. Of course, they did try to get us to buy a bunch of pointles s addons and insurances, so it was annoying to have to say "No" over and o…

I knew what car I wanted and had looked around online to figure out what was a great price vs an acceptable one price.

I called three dealerships in my area and confirmed if they still had the vehicles I’d seen in their inventory on their website. They did and wanted me to come down immediately. I gave my email address and asked if we could continue over email. I made clear I wanted to settle in the final out the door price and I would come ready to purchase.

All three sent me promotional material over email. When I inquired about the final out the door price, one ghosted me, and the other two stated I would have to come down because it depends. One of them finally emailed me again with a full quote and OTD price including all taxes.

I went into the dealership where the salesman kept playing a game of going back and forth with me and the sales managers office. You see, he could not offer the original OTD offer, as it did not include some paperwork fees, delivery fees, and one other item, that pushed the cost up by another $1200.

I told him I’d honor the OTD cost he quoted me. So he walks to his manager, comes back, goes back, comes back, with me flat out declining each time.

This went on for an hour until I left. I gave my final price and then just got up to leave. The sales person changed tactics and tried to get me to take another car which had another 10k miles for about $500 less, which I didn’t want.

I then spoke to one other dealer over the phone who called me back within a day with the OTD price for a new Civic. I went to the dealership, but oh no! They just sold that car. They want me to look at an Accord instead. I leave.

Re: Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

#23

Post by apercu »

throwaway98121 wrote: post #3

We sold our vehicle because the monthly payment, insurance, gasoline, and parking costs were adding up to about $1000 a month. I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit. I visited three dealerships in my area. The experience was horrible at all three. I consider myself a decent person, but I now judge people who work in car sales or car sales management and not in a good way. Anyway…

You have to check, recheck, and check again with stealerships and then they purposely take forever to do things to wear you down and the slip B.S. back in to the paperwork, when called on it acting like it was an accident. I hate buying cars.

Re: Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

#24

Post by ghaff »

throwaway98121 wrote: post #19
lflux wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I emailed a bunch of dealers before my CU told me this service existed and got quotes, and they were competitive. It differed like, $500-1000 from what area dealers were offering and i was willing to take it. So, some legwork with a throwaway email address, but still very sofa compatibile.

I emailed dealers and no one wanted to work over email. One even flat out wrote back saying they don’t send quotes over email because they know i will just shop around for a lower price.

I found the same thing. Everyone wanted you to come in so they could play their games. Still not that bad if you’re just making a cash on the barrel purchase but I did have to visit dealers.

Re: Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

#25

Post by apercu »

jaimex2 wrote: post #5
rmason wrote: post #2

Michigan legislators waited until 2 am to pass a controversial law not allowing Tesla to setup showrooms in the state. The state's car dealership organization and General Motors spent big money to make this happen. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15360613/unplugged-michig... Tesla already has a tool and die operation in Grand Rapids. They've even expressed interest in acquiring a closed GM plant in Detroit yet the…

If that isn't corruption I don't know what is.

Yep. That's corruption.

Re: Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

#26

Post by gnicholas »

clircle wrote: post #13
throwaway98121 wrote: post #3

We sold our vehicle because the monthly payment, insurance, gasoline, and parking costs were adding up to about $1000 a month. I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit. I visited three dealerships in my area. The experience was horrible at all three. I consider myself a decent person, but I now judge people who work in car sales or car sales management and not in a good way. Anyway…

Can you elaborate on your horrible experience? I bought a new car for the first time this year. I went to the Toyota dealer with my wife, we drove three cars, and decided the Corolla iM would be enough for 95% of our needs. We came back the next day and filled out all the paper work. Of course, they did try to get us to buy a bunch of pointles s addons and insurances, so it was annoying to have to say "No" over and o…

Not parent, but we also had several bad experiences test driving cars in the bay area. One common theme was that reps didn't want to let us see more than one vehicle. This happened at both the Toyota dealership in Palo Alto and the Hyundai dealership in Burlingame.

We shouldn't have been flagged as non-serious buyers because we have plenty of money to buy the cars we were looking at, live in an expensive town, and we weren't looking at fun-to-drive cars. We were about to have our first child and were going to buy a family car. And we drove onto the lot in a new car that we'd just purchased!

Nonetheless, the reps only wanted us to see one vehicle. Only after insisting did they let us see a second vehicle (and at the Hyundai dealership we were literally shown this one by the janitor, not a sales rep).

We were so turned off by the whole experience that we ended up buying our subsequent vehicles used from individuals. I'm sure I'll buy a new car again someday, but I don't look forward to the process.

Re: Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

#27

Post by Raphmedia »

clircle wrote: post #13
throwaway98121 wrote: post #3

We sold our vehicle because the monthly payment, insurance, gasoline, and parking costs were adding up to about $1000 a month. I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit. I visited three dealerships in my area. The experience was horrible at all three. I consider myself a decent person, but I now judge people who work in car sales or car sales management and not in a good way. Anyway…

Can you elaborate on your horrible experience? I bought a new car for the first time this year. I went to the Toyota dealer with my wife, we drove three cars, and decided the Corolla iM would be enough for 95% of our needs. We came back the next day and filled out all the paper work. Of course, they did try to get us to buy a bunch of pointles s addons and insurances, so it was annoying to have to say "No" over and o…

Bait & switch and fake feeling of emergency are the most common I've seen.

"Hurry, if you don't close the sale now on this vehicle it won't be there tomorrow."

...

"Oh, the vehicle you called for? Sorry we just sold the last, we only have the model with X and Y options right now. We could order the one you wanted but it won't be there until next month. Don't worry, I'll make you a deal, it will only cost you [original price * 1.5] and you will have all of those fancy useless options right now! We are friends here, you are lucky I don't offer that deal to just anybody."

That and trying to have you believe that paying cash for a used car will hurt you.

"Oh, you have $7k in your pockets for that used car we have on the lot? Keep your money! We offer such a low interest rate. Use that money for something you truly care about and leave with the car anyway! No, really... I would feel bad to take this money from you. Here, sign this and the car is yours." ... Loses all semblance of false friendship ... "Oh, you really want to pay cash? Alright. Let me call my supervisor and he will close the deal for you."

Re: Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

#28

Post by joshfraser »

throwaway98121 wrote: post #8
lflux wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had my credit union's car purchasing department handle my car purchase. Did everything over email - I told them what I wanted and in what color, they did the legwork to find a dealer that had what I wanted. Emailed me a quote, then the dealer delivered it to my door. No haggling, no visiting dealers, just email and signing some papers.

How did you get a decent price? My employer offers a similar service as part of the benefits program. You print out a piece of paper, take it to the dealer, and get a prenegotiated price. Sounds amazing in theory until you do more research and realize you’re still paying $1000s more.

The only way I know to get a good deal is to walk into a dealership, know exactly which car & options you want & say you're paying cash & are willing to pay $100 over the manufacturer's invoice. They'll cut the nonsense and take the deal.

90% of the games begin when you finance the vehicle at the dealership. Don't want to put $2000 down? Let's just add another year to the term. Or how about we add $50 / month to the payment? I watched in shock as salesmen would come back with increasingly worse offers in terms of total cost and customers would leave happy thinking they were great negotiators.

Americans are shockingly bad at math.

Re: Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

#29

Post by mrdoops »

throwaway98121 wrote: post #3

We sold our vehicle because the monthly payment, insurance, gasoline, and parking costs were adding up to about $1000 a month. I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit. I visited three dealerships in my area. The experience was horrible at all three. I consider myself a decent person, but I now judge people who work in car sales or car sales management and not in a good way. Anyway…

What's stopping existing car companies from doing direct sales like Tesla? Removing barriers to customers giving you money is generally a win. How many Tesla's were purchased in the last year that wouldn't have been if the stressful dealership was in the way?

How about a subscription / lease deal where they ship you the new model every year? Sell a cheaper tier for the 2nd year used vehicles. Do telemetry on driver safety and charge accident-prone drivers more! Replace/bundle/improve car insurance while you're at it. Are there regulatory hurdles preventing this for a company like Ford or Toyota? Is it just organizational momentum stalling these changes?

Re: Detroit News Vehicle of the Year is a Tesla

#30

Post by mixmastamyk »

throwaway98121 wrote: post #3

We sold our vehicle because the monthly payment, insurance, gasoline, and parking costs were adding up to about $1000 a month. I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit. I visited three dealerships in my area. The experience was horrible at all three. I consider myself a decent person, but I now judge people who work in car sales or car sales management and not in a good way. Anyway…

Looking thru my papers last night I noticed another forgotten cost, moving and parking tickets, traffic school, and fees that double every twenty days if not paid promptly. No other government service occurs within an order of magnitude as quickly.

Our city is particularly predatory in that regard so I can expect a couple every year even though I drive only once a week.

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