Car salesmen, as a class, have a reputation that is not entirely favorable.  Considering their history, I can’t say that it is entirely unearned.  On the other hand, it is also not entirely their fault.  Now, I know what you’re going to say, it seems like everyone today is a victim.  While that may be true, understanding their circumstances isn’t making an excuse for their behavior.

Car salesmen are not the problem.  They are only a symptom of the much more pervasive disease plaguing our society.  That disease is greed, a main tenet of the pandemic of debilitating capitalism.  I do not begrudge car salesmen a living—everyone has to eat, everyone needs shelter, everyone needs healthcare.  It is the corporate-dominated system in which we exist, where men are forced into economic servitude and indoctrinated into an ideology that places individual economic achievement above the welfare of their fellow citizens, that allows car salesmen to justify high pressure sales and usury.

It is within the midst of this disease-ridden society that we find ourselves with the need for transportation.  Because not only must we work to meet our most basic daily needs, but typically we are geographically distant from our places of employment.  Since neither the government nor our corporate masters tend to our needs, we must seek shelter where we can afford, rather than where it is convenient and efficient to support our economic survival.  And since neither the government nor our corporate masters provide convenient and efficient public transportation, it is implicit on the individual to acquire transportation, often having to forsake basic necessities to do so.  Usurious car payments are extorted by lending institutions enabled by the willingness of car salesmen to bind the economically indentured worker to the corporate master in a toxic relationship of spiraling debt and abuse.

So what’s the best you can do in this situation?  If you must purchase a vehicle, here are some suggestions to try and survive the process.  It’s all about psychology and about remembering that you are dealing with minions of a corrupt corporate culture.  You can only win if you believe that they need you more than you need them, even if, in truth, you have little choice.

• A vehicle is a tool, like a hammer or a drill. If you think of it in any other way—like it is a status symbol or a chick-magnet or compensation for some physical inadequacy—then you have already lost the fight.
• No matter how wonderful or perfect the vehicle is, don’t fall in love with it until after the negotiations are complete. The car salesman must believe that you don’t care and are ready to walk away at any moment.
• Even if you have little choice about where to go and what to buy, remember that as the consumer you own the process. Never weaken, never give in, until you have a deal you can live with.

Car salesmen play a game of tag team to wear you down.  One salesman, “Mr. Friendly”, will show you different vehicles, demonstrate their features, and take you for a test drive.  A second salesman, “The Closer”, will tag in to discuss money—with an emphasis on what you can pay rather than the final, total price.  This approach to the negotiation appears deceptively simple, because it is.  Deceptive, that is.  In fact, no matter how much you plead, the final cost will never be presented to you—until it is too late.

Once The Closer feels you are sufficiently confused, tired, and brow beaten enough to be receptive to the contract price, “The Finance Guy” will tag in.  And for him to be effective, he needs to get you alone, off the showroom floor, and into his lair.  The Finance Guy’s job is to get you to sign the final papers and sell you on the value of a myriad number of add-on’s, including an extended warranty.  But not to worry, because all these extras, although they will raise the final price of the vehicle, the monthly payments won’t increase because the term of the loan is extendable.  Same payments for just a few months more. What could be easier?

The whole idea is that you never really tally up the complete cost of the loan, including the interest.  Few of us want to face the fact that our great deal has grown by a factor of ten.  (Oh, did I forget to mention the additional fees for tax, tags, dealer prep, and other fees ad infinitum?)  The overhead costs—the costs of doing business—are passed on directly to you.

The moral of this is to NEVER STOP QUESTIONING THE COST.  Got it?

And now for a case study.  I recently bought a new car.  No, I won’t mention where I got it from or even what brand it is.  For this, it doesn’t matter.  Trust me, by the time we closed on the car, there were enough hurt feelings to go around without calling out specifics.

So, it all began one Saturday.  My wife and I went car shopping, intending to buy.  The brand of vehicle was recommended by our trusted mechanic.  Other than that, we were open to trying out what was available.  And that is how, on that hot, sunny day we wound up at the dealership.  Here’s how it went down.

Moments after parking on the lot a salesman greeted us and asked what we were looking for.  We went into the showroom and our initial contact turned us over to “Mr. Friendly”.  In this case, “Mr. Friendly” turned out to be someone new to selling cars, and a genuinely nice person.  We talked, drove different vehicles, and felt no pressure whatsoever.  From my experience in past negotiations, this is an outlier.

However, once we decided to start talking seriously about making a deal, “The Closer” tagged in.  Hot and tired from spending a couple of hours looking at different cars, we sat down at a table in the showroom to discuss price and financing, but every time I asked for the price, all I got was “how much can you afford to pay each month”.  He would give us a payment amount, we would say no.  He would run up, touch the wall, and come back with a different payment amount.  This happened over and over again, and each time the payment went down, the number of months for the loan would increase.

Finally, I couldn’t stand to play the game anymore, so we got up and walked out.  Halfway to our car “The Closer” beckoned us back, assuring us that we could make a deal.

After round two, we did come to a deal—sort of.  By that time we had spent almost the whole day there.  We were tired, hot, and hungry—and not really in the mood for more games.  But more games were yet to come.

We were ushered in to see “The Finance Guy”—a hard sell, fast talking punk who pushed the add-ons.  Actually, he never got passed pushing the extended warranty.  In fact he pushed himself right out of a sale!  My wife had asked him lower his voice and slow down.  His response was for her not to disrespect him.  And while my initial impulse was crack his smart-ass face open, I thought better of it.  For the second time, we walked out.

This time they didn’t follow us, begging us to come back and finish the deal.

However, the next morning between church and going to lunch, we got a call from one of the managers, apologizing and assuring us that we could still make a deal.  We had a heart-to-heart about the punk.  I assured him that we had been close—that meant something different to him than it did to me—and we would be willing to come back, if certain conditions were met.  Among those conditions was that the extended warranty was included in whatever base price we negotiated.

Now, here’s where a couple of key things happened.

• I refused to go back to the dealership until my next day off. And no, I didn’t want to take the car home and get used to it.  I wanted them to wait for a week, each day contemplating that the deal had not been made.
• I arranged for financing unrelated to the dealership, so I could pay cash. Obviously, not everyone can do this and whether this really affected the final outcome can be argued either way.
• I went on-line to see what the resale value of the vehicle would be. It’s a given that a vehicle’s value drops dramatically the moment it leaves the lot.

When we returned to the dealership we were ready to negotiate, but as it turns out, they weren’t.  The first part was relatively easy.

• I want the warranty included in the flat base price. .
  • Fine.
• I want tax, tags, etc. all included in the flat base price.
  • Okay.
• I’m paying cash.
  • No problem.
• What’s your best price?
  • Here it is.
• Here’s my offer (the Kelly Blue Book resale value).
  • Dead silence.
• This is a negotiation.  This where I make an offer and you counter-offer, then we meet somewhere in the middle.
  • Dead silence.

Now the guy is pale and freaking out.  He is mumbling to himself something about, “if I give you this price, then I’ll have to raise the price on this other car.”

Then finally, he gets his original invoice for the vehicle—what he paid for it—to show me.  And I tell him that I’m not trying to keep him from making a profit, but after everything we’ve been through to get here, neither does he want to lose the sale—because I have nothing to lose.  There’s a dealership for another brand right across the street and I’m sure that they have a comparable product.

And then, after a drawn out moment of tension for dramatic effect, I tell him that we have a deal.  I got what I wanted.  He eked out some profit.  Life is good.

With the papers signed and the check written, we can afford to get excited about our first new car in eleven years.

You can take this for what it’s worth, as far as your own negotiations.  But the important thing to remember is to plan out your strategy before you get to the dealership.  Don’t take anything you are told at face value.  And never give up or give in when it comes to the price.

You may not be able to change the system, but every victory brings you closer to true freedom from corporate economic bondage.  Well, maybe not.  Now that you have your transportation, you still have to feed and maintain it.  But that’s another discussion for another time.

©Copyright 2018 by Kevin Fraleigh