From: underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe)
Subject: Re: Car dealers
Organization: Miners for a Heart of Gold
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 04:33:01 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.010044.10439@tandem.com> ratan@stationd.storage.tandem.com
(Ratan Tipirneni) writes:
>...
>	We spent about 10-15 minutes test driving the car and then went in to
>negotiate the price.  The deal should have been very simple because I had 
>pre-approved financing,  knew what I wanted and knew what the car costed.
>We were in agreement over the price except for the additional cost of the
>Advertising Cost of $300 which the dealer wanted me to pay.  I made the
>salesman
>an offer and he said that it was very close but that I may need to raise it
>a little bit.  He went out of the office and came back with his manager.
>The manager was extremely rude and insisted that we pay a $300 fee for the
>advertising tax which I refused.  As he continued to be rude and obnoxious
>we just got up and were preparing to leave the dealership.  At this point the
>manager said something very abusive to us and used foul language, which
>really offended me and my wife.  

Can Mr. Tipirneni say, "redneck"?  I've noticed that there have been several
posts by foreigners who complained about bad treatment at dealerships.  I
suspect that there is a pattern.

I suspect that the "good ole boy" redneck mentality is at work here.

>I called the Toyota Corporate headquarters today.  They logged my complaint
>but told me that the dealers are independant businesses and that they would
>not be able to do much.   I would like to make a formal complaint to some
>kind of a consumer affairs organisation and was wondering if anyone knew
>what organisation that might be.  It seems like these people shouldn't be able
>to get away with something like this. 

Try the Better Business Bureau.  Toyota Corporate headquarters won't
do a thing.

>For those of you who live in the Bay area and may be interested, the
>dealership that I am reffering to is Steven's Creek Toyota. The funny thing is
>that 4 out of 5 friends to whom I narrated this incident to, complained of
>similar problems with the SAME dealer.  I wonder how they are still in
>Business?

Because people keep buying bloody Toyotas.  In this past year, every company
lost auto sales except Toyota.

Let's do an experiment.  Go to several automobile dealerships, from ones
that do well (like Toyota and Honda) to ones that do poorly (like Chevrolet
and Chrysler).  The salesmen at the losing-money dealerships are going to
treat people a lot better than the making-big-bucks dealerships.

Humbleness tends to make us all a lot nicer.

To a Toyota dealer, customers are a-dime-a-dozen.  If he loses your business,
then he can always find other customers because Toyotas are so bloody
popular.

Of course, once you've bought the car, all the dealerships suck.  Service
sucks--just plain sucks, no matter where you go.

>Ratan Tipirneni
>(ratan@storage.tandem.com)

By the way, I would suggest to Mr. Tipirneni that he avoid the Toyotas in
the future.  He should voice his opinion (of the Toyota sales experience)
with his pocketbook.

Honda's a better choice, anyways.
  
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