From: ah190@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Stuart Pearl)
Newsgroups: rec.autos
Subject: Dealer Prep Ought to be Road Kill!
Date: 8 Jan 1993 17:37:05 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc10.ins.cwru.edu


Just what is "dealer prep" anyway?

I just got back from negotiating on a Sable and can't remember the
last time I was this aggravated.  Classic situation of the sales rep
not being able to deal with me, so the "closer" was brought in to mop
up the opposition (me).

My wife and I had played with the numbers in the Dell New Car Price
book for several hours before going to the dealership.  The prices had
already been verified by dealer #1 a few days ago, so we knew the
facts were right.

I fired up Lotus, prepared my dealer quote sheet and made my offer on
a car that we'd order from scratch from the factory - nothing off the
lot that had been costing the dealer interest, insurance, etc.  The
rep I sat down with had only been working there for 2 months and had a
hard time dealing with all of my factory invoice prices.  After the
initial chit chat h e took my price sheet "to have my manager look it
over." I was offering them $235 over factory invoice - this was in
addition to the year end hold back they'd get later ($300-$400).  I
thought that was fair since all they'd have to do was fill out some
papers, assemble the roof rack and wash the station wagon upon
arrival.

When the manager arrived he seemed exasperated with me and immediately
added $250 for dealer prep.  Naturally, he also attacked my "dealer
invoice" price list.  "There's no way I'm going to pay for a $250 car
wash," was my response.  I thought so-called dealer prep went was a
thing of the past.

He insisted that even on an ordered car the mechanic had to assemble
the roof rack (true, but that's in the price of the car as far as I'm
concerned) put on the wheel covers ( he tried to sell the alloy wheels
which don't have wheel covers) and wash that "special solution" off
the car with solvent after arrival.  "What special solution is that?"
I asked.  "We put that on the car at the factory to protect it during
transport.  You wouldn't want to have to clean it off yourself would
you?"  What was this guy talking about anyway?

When the manager started whining about his small profit I again
pointed out that he'd be getting the 2-3% factory hold back at the end
of the end the year.  "But what if Mercury decides not to give me that
this year sir?  You know, they could even discontinue the Sable next
year and then where would I be?"  I couldn't believe this crap!
"Look, the twin brother Taurus just became #1 in American sales and
you've admitted you can't keep Sables on the lot.  Don't tell me
they're going to dump a money making winner!"

We argued back and forth but I refused to budge on dealer prep.  By
that time there were three salesmen in the manager's office trying to
convince me now to buy an option package since "you're getting all
these additional features at only a few hundred bucks more."  My wife
had already taken the kids home, not wanting to expose them to this
ugly seen.  The manager's math became obscure at this point as he
neglected to add in several hundred for the station wagon features I
wanted that weren't included in the package.  They just couldn't
believe that I didn't want to buy one of their big luxurious option
packages.  They insisted that I was buying a stripped Sable that would
be worth little come trade in time.  "I don't care, this is how I want
the car."  But that's how they make their profits; bundle in a bunch
of features that folks normally wouldn't buy -markup on the options is
typically around 18% while the base car is 15%.

The whole process was insulting to me - the fact that we'd done our
homework well just seemed to incense the hell out of them.  But
the biggest B.S. was that high dealer prep; isn't that just pretty
much an "add on" these days to jack up profit?

-stu
-- 
                   ---===<<< Stuart Pearl >>>===---
                           Cleveland, Ohio
                      ah190@cleveland.freenet.edu
                         --------------------