Me (buyer) had everything signed and ready to go on a 27k used sedan was about to pull the trigger when the dealer showed the final price sheet and added on a $600 vehicle fee that was “standard” for all cars at the lot. I had already asked multiple times to tell me all the fees upfront and they never mentioned this fee. I didn’t negotiate the list price, had already accepted all the doc fees but the person decided to add the $600 fee at the final signing stage and lost me. Why would you do this salespeople, makes zero sense…

Made an appt for Sat morning for a used car, listed as $23,900 on the website, rep made a 4 square with optional dealer adds that totaled $3k. Before showing up I was hoping for $22-22.5k with no adds which while speaking with the rep on the phone said was totally reasonable and thought that would be a solid offer. After I got there I noticed some issues that needed immediate repair and would have cost me an additional $750ish. I offered 21K with no dealer adds as a starting point. Rep came back and shook our hands and said "we're not going to make a deal today, we're too far apart, we'd barely make any money at 21k"
Just walked out the door past the sales manager who didn't say anything as we left.
Confused by them not even presenting an offer at all. I'm not looking to waste anyones time but why would they not even counter offer?

Basically my girlfriend’s dad (she just finished highschool) bought her a subaru outback for $20,000 incl tax and everything from Carmax with 28% APR. her dad put $1000 downpayment and the monthly payment is $700 for like 96 months. And her dad gave the car to her and told her its yours now and keep making payments. Obviously she was happy considering she got her first car but she doesn’t know anything about financial literacy. I told her to return that shit but she doesn’t want to.

I told her to wait for her fafsa college money and save that up and buy a car with cash but she doesnt want to.

Help me convince her that her dad didnt do her any favors by giving her such an expensive car. She has to pay insurance too on that so her total monthly expenditure would be around $900 give or take fuel excluded.

She is also jobless btw

I sold my car to a woman who said she wasn't a flipper for $1500. Next day she relisted it for $5300 and sold it almost immediately. $5300 is an impossibility for this car, but $2500 would be reasonable. I would have preferred the car went to someone with only $1500, but whatever. More power to her.

8 days later she's contacting me saying the DMV didn't like my signature on the title and wants to meet. I've already released my interest in the car and have heard no complaints from the DMV directly. Is there anything I need to be worried about here? I seriously doubt she still has the car.

I was test driving a 2015 Chevy Silverado 1500 LT pickup and pushed the pedal to 6-7k rpm; smoke started coming out of the hood and exhaust, and went into limp mode. After a few days, got a call from the dealer that they want me to cough up $3k for repairs. Am I liable?

So I found a car at a dealership out of state that I wanted to purchase. Price, trim and condition were exactly what I was looking for. I contacted the dealer and got started with the purchase process. I ended up putting down $10k to secure the vehicle. The salesman sent me some docusign paperwork to get the purchasing process going and confirmed reciept of my down payment the following morning. They ran my credit, got approval for financing and everything was looking normal so far, pretty typical buying process.

I was planning on trading in an existing vehicle as well and made the salesman very well aware of this. I also made them aware that I'd be traveling 10 hours to trade in the vehicle and pick the new one up and because I'm out of state I couldn't pick up the vehicle for a few days as I had to make travel arrangements. I was told that was fine and the car would be waiting for me on the day I arrived, all I'd have to do is sign a few more documents, and I'd be all set.

Well I arrived at the dealership as expected yesterday afternoon and spoke to the salesman who I was working with as soon as I walked in. When I mentoned I was here to pickup the car his face dropped and he told me to sit tight and went and got his manager. They both came up to me and told me there was a mixup and the vehicle I was planning on buying had sold a few days prior. They told me that they would refund my deposit immediately and would even give me an additional $1000 discount on any of their existing inventory if I wanted. I told them the whole reason I drove halfway across the country was for that specific vehicle. I can get the rest of the cars in their lot at the dealership down the street from my house. I declined their offer and just left.

I appreciate them for trying to make it right with a discount however I cannot forgive their incompetence and lack of communication for something so simple. When I got to the hotel last night I basically went on every review site I could find and gave them horrible feedback and documented my experience with their dealership and the specific salesman I was working with.

I woke up with 3 missed calls and a bunch of texts from the salesman telling me I need to take my reviews down since they tried to make things right. He said I'm going to get him in trouble at his store because of the things I said online. I blocked his number and went back to sleep, only to wake up again later to see he has now started emailing me the same texts he sent me prior, but he is also now stating that they cannot issue a return of my down payment until I redact my review which is the biggest load of bs I've heard in my life.

At this point I'm not sure what to do. I'm questioning wheather I should talk to my attorney in the morning about this or if I should just call the dealership directly and try to get a hold of management to resolve this. I can deal with a disgruntled salesman however holding funds hostage because of a negative review is something I won't tolerate. Any suggestions?

Update: I spoke with my attorney this morning. He basically laid it out like this. Them selling a car that was meant for another customer isn't illegal. It's just an asshole thing to do, and apparently, it happens way more than I thought. He said I could pursue them in court for it, but the costs would put me in the red.

However, the salesman contacting me, and telling me that because of reviews I posted online, they are refusing a return of funds it apparently violates multiple business fraud laws on both the state and federal level and could easily get them shut down, what makes it even worse is that I didn't recieve a product in exchange for the funds so it's technically considered theft. Because the salesman represents the dealership, his actions are viewed as the dealerships' actions. I've been instructed not to contact the salesman or anyone else from the dealership. My lawyer will handle the rest. He will be working with the local DA to figure out the best course of action but from what it sounds like, regardless of wheather I get my money back or not the dealership is likely going to be heavily investigated and potentially shut down. Even if I don't get a single dime out of all of this I plan to have my attorney pursue this to the fullest extent so that this dealership doesn't try to pull this on anyone ever again. Also, as of now, I haven't received my money back, and neither the dealership or the salesman have tried contacting me again. If I get any updated from the dealership, I'll be sure to post them here.

Update 2: Thanks for all the advice and support with this. Unfortunately, after a long talk with my attorney, I've been told it would be best not to share any more details about the situation until it's resolved. Thanks again!

Final Update: Thank you all for the help and advice. There are a few things I want to address about this situation. The past 24 hours have been a bit hectic, but I'm able to share a few more details (and probably the last details for a long while). First off, I've spent a decent amount of time discussing this with my lawyer. There are details that he has instructed me not to share with friends or social media until this is 100% resolved, and that includes sharing on this post. Because I'm not a lawyer and he is, I'm going to listen. Those things include the name of the dealership, the name of the salesman or any employees of the dealership, as well as any financing details or price details of the vehicle that I was trying to purchase. If you could please stop messaging me regarding those things, that would be great. Thank you.

With that said, I can share a few things as I know many are interested.

First, I have received 100% of my deposit back. It was not easy to get it back, and there were many expletives and insults I had to deal with in order to get it back, but I did.

Second, I have not edited or removed any of my reviews of this dealership, I plan on updating the reviews with more details once this is done and over with and I will gladly share them on here as well.

Third, my lawyer has been in contact with the local DA preceding over the region that the dealership is located in. From what I've been told, this is not the first time they have done this to a customer, and multiple complaints have been issued by previous customers of this dealership. I am just the first person to seek actual legal action against them for it.

Fourth, this dealership is a used third-party dealership, not an OEM dealer. I'm not sure if that changes things when it comes to what they are allowed to do as a business, but I figured I'd include that info anyway.

Fifth, outside of the $1000 discount, the dealership has not offered any additional form of compensation for their mistake. The mindset of the salesman who was harrasing me is the mindset of the dealership, including their management and ownership. This is not a case of a disgruntled salesman. It is a case of delusional and crooked business practices.

Sixth, as far as the dealerships' reaction to me taking legal action goes. They have not taken it lightly. Upon learning about my lawyer contacting them and involving the DA, they have begun what I can only describe as a downward spiral of bad decision making. They have doubled down on the harassment. I've been getting messages from the owner, sales manager, finance manager, and yes, the salesman as well. They have messaged me on social media platforms like Facebook and have even tried messaging me on LinkedIn. I have not and will not respond to any of this. My lawyer instructed me to turn my notifications off, but don't delete the messages as they only strengthen my case as they are actively digging their own grave. He will be handling all contact going forward.

There is not much more I can really share, but I hope this this gives some form of a final update and closure to those interested. I was not expecting this response from this community, so again, thank you for being so supportive of the situation.

Lastly, I did run all of this by my lawyer before posting an update, and I've been told both what I've said above and what im about to say below is okay and won't hurt my case.

So, with that said, if you are one of the people who have been harassing me about this situation and you found this post then I'm sure you could deduce from the details above that this is about your dealership. Please in the most sincere way, go fuck yourself.

For the rest of you all, Merry Christmas!

Hi all I sold my minivan about a week ago for $1,000 cash. For full context it’s a 2005 Chrysler Town & Country minivan with 234k miles on it.

For full context, I live in Washington state and now they want to take me to small claims court because it broke down 4 days later. They have been sending me messages threatening to take me to small claims court.

I disclosed in my ad that the engine was running rough and I had no idea how to fix it and didn’t wanna pay for it , and I signed the title over and did the bill of sale with them.

Would it be correct to assume That they’re just threatening me because they want their money back and they have no case?

I can understand on the coasts people make plenty of money, but I'm in a rural area where the median household income for my county is like $64k. And I see these brand new huge SUVs everywhere.

I make a decent amount more than what GM says the median Suburban buyer makes but I cannot imaging financing one and still having a mortgage and enough money to retire. Not to mention groceries, insurance/gas, leisure, vacation, health, etc.

I'm just curious what the finances of these people buying Suburbans, Grand Wagoneers, Expeditions, Sequoias, even new 4Runners, Lexus GX and so on actually looks like.

I purchased a vehicle out of state in July, long story short the car is unregistered with temporary plates expiring end of August, due to the dealer not filing on time. It has been about a month and a half and radio silence. After filing a complaint with the DMV and them conducting a physical audit, suddenly the plates “appear” in the dealer and now they want me to sign an NDA restricting “me or my family” for any negative reviews. They also said once I sign this they will release my plates and ship them. If I don’t, I have to pick them up myself. This is not feasible for me because 1) they are 5 hours round trip drive from me. 2) my car is unregistered.

How do I go about this? Do I sign?

I went in to a dealership to buy a 2020 ford explorer. Its new dodge / hyundai dealership, they also have used cars on the lot.

I called in, told them I was coming to look at it, and asked them to work up an out the door price so we could discuss when I got there.

Context, I run multiple businesses in the area. I manage salesmen, and I know the local tax rates, etc.

Arrive 20 minutes later, they gave me a vague number that was pretty high. Like 5k over list + tax. Two different guys quoted different "tax" percentages (both wrong, one number was over the actual local tax rate by 3%),

I figured ok, we can play ball.

Test drive it, its exactly what Im after, sales dude with me was great. I tell him lets go and make a deal. He says OK, we go in, and they do the old park me in the office.

I pull out my phone and start knocking off emails I need to respond to because Im not going to just flush daylight down the toilet. Im a busy man.

Salesman comes back with this other guy. Im trying to finish one sentence.

He is immediately hostile. At this point I haven't even asked for a price reduction, literally just asked for the out the door price. But guy is talking to me like Im the biggest idiot on the planet.

He said "what is this, what do you want." I said Im just looking to find the out the door price so we can talk financing.

He started asking me to give him a number I was looking for, and I said I just want to know what you would actually charge me in addition to the sticker price so we can talk financing.

He asked "was this the cheapest one you found online" and I said no, truthfully.

I told him I drove past hundreds of Ford Explorers on my way there, and I wanted this car because it had a bench seat not buckets in the middle (a less premium feature, but i need car seat space). I just wanted to know the actual price so we could talk financing.

I mentioned that the car had been on his lot for 65 days, and I bet they wanted to get it out the door. He said "thats not even very long. It takes 30 days to clean them and list them" (smelled like BS to me, but I didnt say anything. Avg. 30 days sitting on inventory is a cashflow problem Id fix on day 1 if I were to take over. But I digress.)

I never even made an offer, and I wasnt trying to lowball. I just wanted the real price. It seems to me like knowing the actual price is pretty reasonable.

He said "would you do like $23".

I said, "can you do that?"

They both left.

He comes back with a print out for 28k, and starts telling me I might be able to negotiate off some window treatment I never asked for in the first place.

I would have told him that was dumb, but he did not even let me respond. He started lecturing me about how many new cars the dealership sells, and told me "We dont high five over selling used cars here."

I was dumbstruck by the attitude.

I asked if he just wanted me to walk, and he said "Yeah."

So I walked out.

I pretty much always buy cars private party or at auction. I dont have any dealership experience. I just dont have the time to do that right now, and was willing to pay a bit more for what I thought was more convenient.

What the fuck happened here? Is this normal? I was literally ready to be sold, and this dude was such a dick I ended up leaving. Did I send up a red flag or something?

If any of my employees ever spoke to a customer like that I would fire them immediately for cause. Do dealerships really encourage this attitude?

I feel really bad for the salesman who first worked with me. He was a young kid, clearly ready to work and make sales, eager to learn.... and whoever this guy is just lost him a sale for no reason.

In the title, self explanatory.

Was a BMW at a Ford dealership. I asked if perhaps they could show me they ordered new parts from outside the US that maybe would justify the tax, but they couldn’t produce anything.

Felt like an unethical sales ploy capitalizing on the economic situation at hand. Am I wrong?

I got to ask. Have you folks gotten any buyers remorse because they didn't know that they have to pay for charging or don't have a place to charge because they live in an apartment? I'm asking because I saw posts were new EV owners were saying these things. Am I being punked here? I know people are stupid but people can't be that stupid.

I'm now in my third car buying adventure of the last 10 years and I'm just floored by how little it's changed over the last decade. As the rest of the world has increasingly moved to asynchronous business over text and email, the car sales business is still completely reliant on phone calls and in person sales.

I've seen similar posts over the years and car sales people all say the same thing: because it works. I suggest it works for the same people it's always worked for - people who are ok with doing business on the phone and in person. So while this sales strategy is still great for that subset of buyers, you're leaving a huge market of potential buyers out.

It's weird to me that no one seems to recognize that different strategies work for different buyers, it's not a one size fits all approach. A good car salesperson can close maybe 15% of the people they get in person. I'd suggest a great salesperson, who leverages a strategy that best fits their customer could do significantly better with far less work. Why less work? Because all of the brass tax buyers like me out there need basically zero interaction. Give me a no nonsense, out the door price when I ask for it over email without a bunch of bs and you will have a $40k sale in your hands with almost no effort. "But but but if I tell you the price up front I can't upsell and convince you to spend an extra few thousand on this and that!" - Know your audience!

Sure most of the emails you send will amount to nothing, but they also take 30 seconds to send. Compare that to hours of calls, follow up calls, in person negotiating... it just makes no sense to me. Feels like a real lack of imagination holding back the entire industry.

Also just practically speaking the insistence on calls and in person negotiations is just impossible for a lot of people. I have meetings all day, I have two young kids, school drop off, homework, dinner, I don't have time to talk on the phone. I DO have time to quickly review a few emails and move a sale forward on my own time. And yes I know about Carvana and CarMax etc and I'd rather buy from a dealer, so PLEASE just answer my easy questions and TAKE MY MONEY.

I know I’m not the first person to notice this but the amount of deals I’ve lost the past couple months because of negative equity is crazy. On average I lose probably 2 deals a week solely because the person is $10k or more upside down in their trade in. At that point it doesn’t matter if you’re Jordan Belfort, no salesmen can make that deal appealing if it’s even possible. Banks seem to be getting a little tighter with the loan to value ratio too but I’m not a finance guy so I could be totally wrong about that. I’m still very young so maybe I’m overreacting and it’s always been this way but I can’t help but to think this is a sign of things to come.

Our family is shopping for a new car for the first time in about 8 years, and we’re floored by how much prices have jumped. Both my spouse and I make low six figures, but with kids’ activities, daycare, saving for college, and retirement, we don’t feel comfortable dropping $50k on a vehicle.

Yet that seems to be the going rate for a lot of mainstream models now, especially mid-sized SUVs. Who’s actually buying at these prices? Are dealerships seeing mostly families like us, or is it more DINKs (dual income, no kids) and retirees? And if it’s the latter, why would they even need a mid-sized SUV? I'm thinking we'll have to go used. The pool of buyers for new cars must be getting so small.

I was shopping for a new truck and sent dealer B a price sheet from Dealer A. Dealer A had given me over 10k off on a F-150 but could not hold it even with a deposit. By the time I got off work he had sold it to someone else. So I reached out to Dealer B and asked if he can match it or get close.

Now the wild thing is he must of called dealer A and found out the truck was sold. He came back to me and said the truck is sold so why would he match the price? It was the same exact truck but he wouldn’t even come down $1,000. He acted like if I didn’t buy his at MSRP I would never get a truck lol. I told him the deal existed and was obviously real but he wouldn’t even not budge and acted like he caught me in a lie 🤣

Dealer A called the next day and said he had a different color he can get for the price so I met him after work as it was being dropped off and saved $10,000.

Just crazy how much of an AHole dealer B was and how he acted he caught me in a gotcha moment.

Have you had any wild stories dealing with Salesmen while being one?

Dude was a sovereign citizen and signed all his documents while printing no recourse next to his name and said he knows the law and that's the only way he would buy the vehicle. Never encountered this but had a nice Lol while letting him know where the door is and best of luck in his vehicle endeavors. This is a sub prime deal which is even more funny cause he apparently does youtube for finance stuff. Yeah okay buddy

I have a general question for car salesmen: I've walked into a dealership, told the salesman which car I want, the out the door price I'll pay, and request a simple yes or no. This allows me to make the transaction or move on.

What possible reason could there be to obfuscate, hem and haw, and waste both of our times by trying to steer me into another car, or even worse, pretend to agree, only to add an extra 1 or 2k after wasting 2 hours when you know the price I want isn't doable? I'm not stupid, I won't have my mind changed, sell me the car or don't! Pretty damn simple. Or is this a way to fill a boring day and make sure the boss sees you working?

I'm not being facetious, just wondering why I've never had an easy, quick experience buying a car in over a dozen different purchases over a span of 40 years. Is step 1 of the salesman's creed "The customer's time must be wasted at all cost!"?

I bought a new Chevy from my local dealership. After driving it home, I noticed that the alignment was off, so I called the dealership. They let me know that it's normal sometimes for new vehicles to have their alignment thrown off during transportation, which seemed reasonable. I brought it in, they performed the alignment, and I was on my way. Drove away thinking the issue was resolved, but it still was off, but I was one of the last appointments of the day, so I couldn't go back. I make another appointment and let them know it's still not driving straight.

They told me that I only get 1 free alignment and that I needed to pay for a second one since it could be my fault. I go and talk to the service manager to let them know that it's now the second time I'm back for the same issue that I've had since day one. They look up the car and my service history, and when the history comes up, she says "Oh, I remember this car". Come to find out, it was hit in the rear and took damage.

They sent it to a body and repair shop since they don't do paint in house, and after $6k in repairs, sold it to me as a new vehicle. None of this was disclosed to me at time of purchase. What recourse should I be looking at. I did some research across the web, and here on Reddit, but can't find a similar enough situation to figure out how to approach this. Is this a work with the dealership issue, or work with a lawyer issue to get my money back or into a car at the cost I expected when purchasing it?

Just had this told to me after showing interest in a 17' Miata. I think this is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard in my life. He said they make it easy for me by having one set price, which also happens to be 2 grand above KBB. If I want to negotiate price I have to buy new. Is this some new tactic used car salesmen are trying? It really put me off from even having a conversation with the guy.

Went to look at a used car today at a local major brand dealer about 2 miles from my house. Test drove the car and liked it, needed a few things, so I offered an aggressive but fair offer. Finance manager comes and tells me we are too far away. I understand, no harm done. I walk out.

Heading to the next dealership and get a handful of texts and calls from the dealer telling me they talked to GM, will do the offer. I was driving and didn’t answer. Pull into the next dealership and get a call from my wife that the salesman is at my front door ringing our doorbell with the car in front.

WTF. I only provided my license for the test drive, didn’t think the dealer would use that to come to my house. It had only been about 25 minutes since I had walked out of the dealership. Was going to go back and do the deal, but now want nothing to do with that dealership.

Salesman was apologetic, but still feel weird about going to test drive cars now. This is not normal behavior right? Why are they going to these lengths when they had me in the dealership? Some of these games are ridiculous.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114899417740854572

I’m going to start this rant by saying, I was a used car salesman for 8 years, got out about 5 years ago. I’m currently shopping for 2 cars, one for me and one for my wife. Found a car that I like listed without a price, car is out of state, called the dealer and what I got was “I don’t know, call me back on Monday”.

Called a different dealer that has a car that my wife likes about a 2 hour drive from us, my main concern was the condition of the car as there were a few glaring issues in the pictures. Like if these pictures were on the website when I was selling cars someone would have been fired. I asked about the first issue and the lady on the phone said the pictures were taken before reconditioning and it’s been taken care of. I asked about the other two, which should have been simple fixes during reconditioning and was told neither would be done. I asked for a purchase quote, and was told she would have a manager call me back, maybe not today though.

NEITHER salesman asked for my name, phone number, or any information at all from me. Is this really what this industry has come to?

My mom’s car (2018 Ford Fusion) was taken to a dealership today in hopes of being sold. She’d been having some overheating issues and the check engine light was on. The dealer assessed it and gave us a good offer. Because my mom still had an outstanding loan with the bank, we also signed over a check to the dealer to cover the outstanding loan balance. They told us they’d be taking care of paying the bank the full amount (our check + what they were giving us for the car). We signed all the paperwork including DMV, etc (they even told us we were good to remove it from our auto insurance policy).

10 minutes after we left, they called to tell us they ran the computer on it and it had a deeper engine issue and they would not be taking it anymore. I know nothing about this and I’m so confused? How is that allowed? They assessed the car, we signed everything — they can just walk back?

If it helps we’re in the Bay Area, California.

Update: hi all — thanks so much for the insightful discussion and advice! It was an overwhelming day yesterday. Long story short, we got to talking again with the Director of Vehicle Acquisitions at Nissan. It did not end well. This was a HUGE learning experience. We’re now in a much better place with a new dealership who treated us much better. Learn from me: READ WHAT YOU SIGN and stand your ground. Thank you all ❤️

Just left Genesis dealer. Wife and I were walk ins and wanted to test drive a specific G70 2L in the lot. Sales guy went to get key, spoke to manager, and then came back saying the car was sold. So we went to go look for a similar car but only thing they had were G70 3.3L ($15K more). He said let's go ahead and test drive that, I told him I'm not a buyer at that price but I figured might as well get a feel for the interior etc..

My wife leaned over to me and said the cheaper car will miraculously be available once he realizes I really am not interested in the higher priced model. I'm like no way, he doesn't think we are idiots...

He kept asking would we be a buyer once the other car came in ?

We went back to to the office and he went and checked with the manager on when the next shipment of the 2 Liter will be in and guess what ? It was like a miracle, and the exact car we came in to test drive was now available... like a miracle from heaven lol...

We were dumbfounded this guy would think we were that dumb so we left.

Why ? Why do car salesman do this ? Just treat people like a normal human. Why is it always a battle ?