Worst dealership/salesman experience?

Maybe not the worst, but very recent while buying my new Tacoma.

I walk in the lobby after looking down the row at Tacomas, plainly and clearly visible from the lobby where desks of salespeople are scattered.
One guy addresses me and I can tell he's new.
His obviously tailored suit and Eldridge tie knot gave that away. I'll give him credit for that, because it was a very tasteful and well put together outfit.
He asks if I needed any help. I told him I was just out looking at the double cab long bed in Sport trim in the first row and would like a price. This after showing my wife the difference in the bed lengths by where the wheel well begins.

He taps on his keyboard and says there are none in inventory.
I told him I just looked at one and its parked right where he can see it.
Little bitch gives me a look like, " Well obviously, you don't even know what you're looking at", and does me a favor by saying hell double check.
" Nope.....none here."
The way they are parked, all one had to do is look at the backs down the line, also, just looking over his shoulder would have revealed the wheel well not starting immediately behind the cab.
He refused to even look around being the smug idiot he was coming off as. Couldn't even take the time to turn his swivel chair around.

I told him, "Ok then.....I guess you don't have what I'm looking for even though I can show it to you in 3 seconds."

Went to another dealership and got 12.5% off a OR without haggling with a sales guy who was really cool.

 

Oh wow, thanks for the detail......

 

Thats what a salesman told me. Especially where I live, (albuquerque) people really do steal cars during test drives

 

All car dealers across the country keep very little fuel in their vehicles, it's intentional and for their gain. It discourages long test drives - less time for you to notice dislikes or defects, less time off the lot where others can't see it, less wasted salesman time on joy rides.

If you're a serious buyer, be prepared and willing to buy a few gallons. Pull a $20 out if they get pushy and suggest a fill-up. Don't let a low fuel light cut your drive short. When your spending that much money a long drive a few dollars in gas is worth it to improve your buying position.

 

During my time in car sales I don't recall ever being told to cut a test drive short, especially in order to keep people from noticing defects or developing dislikes. And while I was not encouraged to go on hour long test drives, it was not uncommon for a test drive to last between 15-30 minutes. I found that regardless whatever new vehicle that people were test driving it was probably going to be in better shape than whatever they drove to the dealership.

I think the more likely case is that if manufacturers had to fill or put in a fair amount of fuel in each new car their profits would be effected in a negative way. And I suspect they really do not want to ship cars with full or mostly full tanks of gas. In the rare occasion there might be a fire aboard the ship then that extra gas would provide way too much fuel for the fire.

I do agree with taking your time on the test drive and using the vehicle in a manner that you will be using it if you owned it. But you should never have to put your own money into a car during a test drive. The dealership should have no problem putting gas in the tank. If they do then I would find another dealer to work with.

 

If you've had the experience of driving a Kia in recent years, then you'll know better than to buy one.

I made the mistake of renting one earlier this year. After miles and miles of unpredictable steering convulsions, its "advanced" driver assistance technology managed to totally disable the brakes on well-sanded hard-packed snow. I watched in horror as we slid slow-motion into a then-stopped oncoming vehicle at 3 mph, knowing that even a 1950s car with bald tires could have stopped just by locking the brakes, which was sadly not an option in the Kia.

Almost 10k in damages to the Kia from my 3mph collision, whereas the other vehicle essentially needed touch up paint.

At a dealership, I would walk away from any sale that didn't start with a proper test drive, fuel included. That means everything from normal driving to panic braking and evasive maneuvers.

Of course, I'd expect them to have run my credit by this point as well, to establish my interest and ability to complete the sale, and to filter out deadbeat joy-riders and tire-kickers.

But this mentality won't get you into the seat of a supercar. When I bought my wife's mustang, we got to the point of "what can we do to complete this sale today?" and I offered that a test drive of the shelby gt500, sitting just outside the sales office, would seal the deal. I didn't even ask to be in the driver's seat, I just wanted to experience the absurdity of riding in such a ridiculously overpowered vehicle. But as I gestured in its direction, I could see the salesman's heart sink, as he informed me that test drives were not an option for the gt500, even for serious buyers (which I was not). And sure enough, its odometer read something like 0.4 miles, he even let me sit in drivers seat as a consolation. So I'm sure wealthier customers had been denied the experience of driving this forbidden fruit as well.

So instead we spent another few hours haggling over the final price of our shitty v6 mustang.

But without doubt, we had plenty of time (and fuel) to test drive that car to our heart's desire, and it was delivered with a full tank of gas.

And in hindsight, I'm glad they didn't let me test drive a faster car, because even our base-model mustang turned out to have more power than I could handle, and I nearly crashed it a dozen times before its first oil change. Thank god for stability control, and for its speed governor.

Now that I know a bit more about driving faster cars, I can't wait to buy a 500+ HP midlife-crisis-mobile and crash it into a tree while trying to do a sick burnout.

 

My first used vehicle (F150 4x4 RC w snowplow welded on) was a complete disaster of a purchase so once I got my first full time job out of college with a verifiable salary, I decided to purchase a new F150. This was 1997, the year of a major redesign and early days of the internet, I was in my early 20's and had infinite time to read. I obsessed about every option, memorized every price and knew my option packages by their codes, every paint color and wheel option, all thanks to Edmunds.com. I walked into a large volume ford dealer somewhere in the middle of Long Island, I honestly don't remember which one, armed with paperwork and all the time in the world, with the intent to special order exactly what I wanted (MT Supercab F150 4x4 v8 in black w OR).

One mistake I did make that first trip, I went in early on a weekend, not an giant error but predictive nonetheless. I state my intent to a tall man who I come to find is the sales manager. He instantly reads me and passes me off to his "truck expert" who was the only female salesperson I saw on the lot. I'm sure he thought he'd confuse and fluster me by leveraging the talents of an experienced woman, and though I can't say I found her unattractive, I was laser focused on the result.

I dictated exactly what I wanted to order, corrected her mistakes as she went, explained exactly what was in each option package, and pretty much ran circles around her as she filled out the DORA (I think they may have used paper and pen at that stage). I stated clearly that I'd like to pay $300 over invoice for their efforts which I thought was fair, literally all they had to do was handle the paperwork and I had done all the math myself dozens of times before walking in. Signed, placed $500 deposit, went home happy.

I get a call a few days later, there's a problem, Ford won't make a longbed supercab 4x4 with OR package, you have to go short bed to get OR (sound familiar?) so I go back in to resolve. I say I'd like the difference in price to change to short bed because this was their mistake, they are the experts, they should know if the vehicle I ask for is possible to order that way or not. The price difference wasn't significant, maybe about $800 if I'm remembering properly, for a $25k purchase. They say no, they aren't happy with the price I negotiated and they won't reduce it. This time I'm talking mostly with the sales manager. He spent a good portion of time venting about the Internet, how every customer thinks they are an expert now, blah blah blah. I say I just want to pay $300 over invoice and get the truck I want, I'm handing you the sale. Bottom line, he says no price changes, so I say OK and request a refund of my deposit. I stand there waiting for at least 15 minutes (young and nowhere to be, nothing to do, all my friends at this point in time were at least a 2h drive away) maybe even 20 minutes. Finally he looks down at me standing there from his perch at the desk and asks what I'm still doing there. I say I'm not leaving without my deposit. He cuts the check immediately and hands it to me and I walk without anyone saying another word.

I then took my copy of the DORA to a nearby dealer, told my story, asked if he'd like to make the deal that I wanted, he said sure. Cool as a cucumber, no pressure, completely straight deal. I couldn't believe the difference, what a great life lesson. Not even sure he took a deposit from me, I honestly don't think he did.

Interestingly, I wound up canceling that order when I got in a 9 car pileup on the Belt parkway soon after while in my sister's caravan transporting a washer for a co-worker who's girlfriend was unbuckled in the front seat and hit the windshield. I kind of freaked out after that experience but both my co-workers were cool about it, my insurance company paid their medical, and I went back to the dealer after the truck had arrived and bought it off the lot anyway, the salesman said it happens a lot, he was still totally chill.

Then, in 1998 I moved from Long Island to San Francisco and lived in North Beach with a MT F150 supercab (with a really nice custom stereo I spent hundreds of hours installing including a custom bandpass sub box center console which required me to hack off the factory armwrests and re-cover the seats with matching grey cloth.) It was rather difficult trying to park a MT F150 on the streets in SF and also difficult seeing over the hood on hills so I rarely used it (no front/rear cameras back then). I wound up selling it after it got broken into inside the parking structure I rented a spot from, thieves really messed it up and sadly ruined the sub center console with bolt cutters and saws just to get at a $200 woofer. They also trashed my amp rack, cut my battery cable, destroyed the locks, and used bolt cutters to remove the rear seat back. Wound up replacing it with a 2000 Tacoma 4x4 xtracab MT w OR from the Alameda Fleet manager, Mr. William Lam, since retired, sorely missed. I've learned to find the fleet manager whenever possible, it's a good way to get past the bs and talk directly to someone who knows the most about the products and cares the least about purchase price.