ok enough about california's cultures, north/south etc. please.

 

Yep. I am usually the guy that does well but I have watched people get SCREWED from stupid little options or just plain being overwhelmed. I will never forget a guy who was just saying yes to stupid packages and add-ons, after 5 min he was agreeing to like 7k of useless stuff.

 

Yes, just bypass the F&L guy altogether if you can, nothing but blatant ridiculous ripoffs he’s “selling”. The salesman will do it all if he wants the commission bad enough.

It also annoys me when they know nothing about products. That SL500 I almost bought, the guy didn’t even know it was a convertible. He looked at me funny when I said I wanted the hard top removed so I could check the soft top operation. Who doesn’t know a Mercedes SL is a convertible?

 

I have never had a salesman who knows the engine offhand yet alone any intricate details of even mainstream cars......I am shocked they sell anything but then again I don't buy cars like the vast public does.

 

I don’t either and that’s fine by me.

 

Its not for everybody. The guy who taught the first sales course I ever took put it best, "there are way easier things to suck at than this"

Totally agree. Most salespeople are good, honest people. What fails them in the car business is the system.

 

Its because you can't make any money, and its a horrible business. If you could make great money you would attract higher quality salespeople.

Although, in this market car salespeople can do very well, but typically nothing compared to more lucrative sales positions, thats where good salespeople go.

The guy who sold me several of my Lexuses, great guy, just used a low income housing grant to buy a home slated for low income buyers. Thats a guy who sells luxury cars for a living.

 

A good car salesman can easily bring in 6 figures. But yes it is not an easy job to make money with. My father was a sales manager for a very popular name and (and expensive) office product(s), whole different ballgame. You want a sales job that requires a degree, most of the time.

 

Thats not totally accurate. The ELITE car salespeople bring in six figures, not simply good. If you are good enough that you can make $100-$150,000 selling cars, you can make $300-$400,000+ selling something more lucrative, and you will build a residual pipeline that is almost impossible to build selling cars. It requiring a degree isn't necessarily the issue. I would tell people outside of Real Estate, sell B2B and not to the general public.

This is all in a normal market. Right now, good car salespeople are making way more than normal because there is so much more profit per unit.

 

Right, and there are only a handful of “elite”, or standout salesmen out of however many they have. I would imagine car salesman hours would be absolutely horrendous as well.

 

That has been my experience, too. You and I pretty much agree on that.....but the ones that aren't (and they are definitely out there) can be a PITA to deal with. The most arrogant salesperson I ever met sold VWs....along with arguably the nicest one, who also sold VWs. Toyota/Honda salespeople were also a PITA to deal with, decades ago, but that's changed somewhat as those two makes no longer necessarily dominate the reliability-rankings. BMW and Mercedes people were also quote snooty and aristocratic decades ago, but that also changed as the Japanese luxury makes took away at least part of their business. As a group, Saturn reps were probably the most customer-friendly....and customers knew that, because of the company's list-price policy, everyone got treated the same way...no one was played favorite or got a screwing. Porsche dealerships were perhaps once the worst for arrogance, but I can't comment on them lately because I haven't had much contact with them lately......my last Porsche review was on a Boxster some years ago.

 

I remember the time a Merecedes salesman slammed the door in my dad's face lol

 

I don’t have any issue with salespersons. I think most of the complainers are just weak. Have no self confidence where they can’t say NO. Also, people have to understand that other people want a car you might want....person willing to pay the most almost always wins the deal.

it is just a bad time to be buyer right now. And direct model doesn’t save you either as Tesla prices are up 34% over one year. Corporate greed

 

I saw a new tactic by the dealers that I didn't ever see before. I found an ID.4 fully loaded for sale at a dealership, so I decided to purchase it because I didn't know when my Ioniq 5 would get here. I could always sell it later and could probably break even as I get the $7500 tax credit. So I pushed the purchase option on their website and it had me order it. So the sales guy calls me back and says that the way their ordering works is that they send my order form to VW and I have to wait about 6-9 months for the car to arrive. The car is at MSRP.

I told him that the specific car was in inventory so I thought I could get it immediately. He basically told me that the one I see was the showroom car and has a $10k markup! VW doesn't allow for markups if you order through dealer but if the customer cancels, they are free to markup their cars. So they use the showroom car to get the customer to order it (unbeknownst to the customer) and then they tell you about the whole process....this way, the dealer gets excess cars to markup. Very sneaky.

 

Dang, that sounds so shady.