From: jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW)
Newsgroups: rec.autos
Subject: Re: How Accurate is the Blue Book?
Date: 20 Aug 92 18:13:58 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Reply-To: jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov
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{Car salesman's lament deleted}

You'll be pleased to know that on our last couple of purchases, my 
wife and I didn't shop numbers at all and only shopped cars to a 
limited extent. Figuring that any of the cars on our short list would 
be satisfactory, and that a price reasonably close to the going rate 
could be negotiated anywhere, we shopped salesmen.  Some examples:

* Middle-Aged Cliche Salesman and buddies lounging around showroom.
  Ignorant of product ("the all-wheel-drive version of this car
  won't be out for another couple of years, and why would you want it
  anyway?  It ruins the handling!").  Sticker prices a thousand or
  so higher than identical consortium product sold under another badge
  down the street.  It was a pretty afternoon, so we bade them goodbye 
  before we risked delaying their tee time or something.

* Mr. Hip, Slick, and Cool Uptown Dude in several hundred bucks' worth 
  of elaborately casual clothes and an array of gold jewelry.  He had, 
  in the showroom, THE car at the top of our short list, but wouldn't 
  listen to what we wanted, taking us instead on a tour of the cars he
  wanted to move.  This gave me an excellent opportunity, though, to
  scrutinize the stunning lists of dealer-installed options of high
  price and dubious value on most of their stickers.  We walked out
  after ten minutes without having sat in the car we wanted, and
  practically without having gotten a word in edgewise.  My wife told
  me, when we got out of earshot, that he reeked of dope smoke.  Too
  bad -- I really coveted his sweater.

  (A few months later, this dealership served several days' worth of
  penalty closures at the behest of one of the state consumer agencies
  for some assortment of scurrilous deeds that escape my memory. Hee hee!)

* Several hours' detour into a used car lot to look at some lease-
  return Blazers.  They all had something wrong with them which the
  salesman pretended didn't exist and then stonewalled about.  I'd
  have taken a chance on the best one until he started giving us the
  runaround about financing and mysteriously "forgetting" the agreed-
  upon price during his trips to the office to play good cop/bad cop 
  with the sales manager.  We figured out that, like many business
  people in our town, he had me pegged for Navy, i.e., a lamb to the 
  slaughter for overpriced lemons and Joey-and-Vito loan terms. One
  more afternoon gone from life and nothing to show but a headache.

* Skipped a major make entirely because a salesman was standing on
  the sidewalk shouting at someone who'd just left.

* Bought a car from a nice fellow who gave us a low-key discussion 
  and an indulgent test drive.  

* A couple of years later, bought another car from a different dealer
  whose test drive philosophy consisted of giving me the keys and
  saying, "Take it out on the freeway.  Go home and give your wife a
  ride.  The gas station around the corner will put five bucks' worth
  in it for you.  We close at 5."

There may be a lesson or two in here someplace, but I doubt many people
are willing to study and apply it.

--Joe
"Just another personal opinion from the People's Republic of Berkeley"
Newsgroups: rec.autos.vw