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We sold our vehicle because the monthly payment, insurance, gasoline, and parking costs were adding up to about $1000 a month. I planned on downgrading from an

We sold our vehicle because the monthly payment, insurance, gasoline, and parking costs were adding up to about $1000 a month. I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit. I visited three dealerships in my area. The experience was horrible at all three. I consider myself a decent person, but I now judge people who work in car sales or car sales management and not in a good way. Anyway, it’s been a year since we sold that vehicle. Our total transit costs this year have been < $1000 according to mint. Luckily we use a combination of mass transit and just walking places. The mass transit in my city isn’t that great, but it’s still thousands of dollars cheaper than the hassle of car ownership. There’s no way I’d pay $40K-$50K for a vehicle to buy a Tesla. That being said, I hope the dealership model dies and these blood sucking, anti competitive conmen have to fall to a more honest way of living.

lflux 8y ago
I had my credit union's car purchasing department handle my car purchase. Did everything over email - I told them what I wanted and in what color, they did the legwork to find a dealer that had what I wanted. Emailed me a quote, then the dealer delivered it to my door. No haggling, no visiting dealers, just email and signing some papers.
- miketery 8y ago
  What sort of credit union offers car purchasing service? what other services do they offer?
  - lflux 8y ago
    A bunch in the bay area. I use San Francisco Federal, but they use PatelCo CU's service.
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    My bank and credit union both offer car buying services via TrueCar (which my bank actually owns around 10% of so they really encourage people to use it). In my case I paid around 5% less for my car than the "best" price I was able to get by visiting a dealer and going through the traditional song-and-dance routine. It seems like one of the big benefits is that they make it really easy to check the prices at a bunch of dealers. I don't remember if they actually offered any substantial saving at my local dealer compared to the price I "negotiated", but I was able to find a dealer that was willing to do a cheaper price around 70 miles away.
- throwaway98121 8y ago
  How did you get a decent price? My employer offers a similar service as part of the benefits program. You print out a piece of paper, take it to the dealer, and get a prenegotiated price. Sounds amazing in theory until you do more research and realize you’re still paying $1000s more.
  - lflux 8y ago
    I emailed a bunch of dealers before my CU told me this service existed and got quotes, and they were competitive. It differed like, $500-1000 from what area dealers were offering and i was willing to take it. So, some legwork with a throwaway email address, but still very sofa compatibile.
    - throwaway98121 8y ago
      I emailed dealers and no one wanted to work over email. One even flat out wrote back saying they don’t send quotes over email because they know i will just shop around for a lower price.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        I found the same thing. Everyone wanted you to come in so they could play their games. Still not that bad if you’re just making a cash on the barrel purchase but I did have to visit dealers.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      I did that successfully in 2001 but in 2014 nobody would give me quotes over E-mail.
  - joshfraser 8y ago
    The only way I know to get a good deal is to walk into a dealership, know exactly which car & options you want & say you're paying cash & are willing to pay $100 over the manufacturer's invoice. They'll cut the nonsense and take the deal. 90% of the games begin when you finance the vehicle at the dealership. Don't want to put $2000 down? Let's just add another year to the term. Or how about we add $50 / month to the payment? I watched in shock as salesmen would come back with increasingly worse offers in terms of total cost and customers would leave happy thinking they were great negotiators. Americans are shockingly bad at math.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Costco has a similar arrangement.
- hueving 8y ago
  If you're willing to pay the dealer's quote, then car salesmen will love you and you'll have a great time at a dealership anyway. The entire bullshit process begins when you try to get a price that doesn't have thousands of extra dollars in for the dealership.
  - Jarbooski 8y ago
    And how is that different than paying full pin at Tesla?
    - throwaway98121 8y ago
      Tesla has a fixed price on all vehicles. With dealers, each dealer has their own price and will haggle the crap out of you, try to up sell you things you don’t want, and even be shady with the actual paperwork that you have to read and reread carefully to ensure there aren’t any surprises. Tesla doesn’t do that. It’s a fixed price. Although I wouldn’t drop 35-50k on a new vehicle for their base models, I respect Tesla for eliminating the hassle of working with dealers.
  - lflux 8y ago
    Sure, if the quote is out the door, but it never seems to be from what I've seen. This was "Here's the price excluding title transfer including delivery"
    - csa 8y ago
      Here is what I do, and it works well: 1. Call the dealer and ask for the internet sales manager. 2. Tell the manager exactly what you want (many people are not able to do this accurately and consistently). 3. Ask for the out-the-door price. 4. Repeat for any number of dealers that you are willing to drive to. 5. Buy from the dealer you choose. I usually get several quotes within $100 or so of each other. At that point, I just pick the place with a low price and in a location that I prefer to pick up my car.
      - 8y ago
- ghaff 8y ago
  In all fairness that does assume you don’t care about test driving etc. but in general if you don’t have dealer financing needs, are happy to do a private sale or donation for your trade-in, and know what you want and will pay, the dealer experience is mostly just mildly annoying even if you buy a car from one.
  - lflux 8y ago
    Right - I knew exactly what I wanted since I had driven the car as a rental.
clircle 8y ago
Can you elaborate on your horrible experience? I bought a new car for the first time this year. I went to the Toyota dealer with my wife, we drove three cars, and decided the Corolla iM would be enough for 95% of our needs. We came back the next day and filled out all the paper work. Of course, they did try to get us to buy a bunch of pointles s addons and insurances, so it was annoying to have to say "No" over and over again to those.
- throwaway98121 8y ago
  I knew what car I wanted and had looked around online to figure out what was a great price vs an acceptable one price. I called three dealerships in my area and confirmed if they still had the vehicles I’d seen in their inventory on their website. They did and wanted me to come down immediately. I gave my email address and asked if we could continue over email. I made clear I wanted to settle in the final out the door price and I would come ready to purchase. All three sent me promotional material over email. When I inquired about the final out the door price, one ghosted me, and the other two stated I would have to come down because it depends. One of them finally emailed me again with a full quote and OTD price including all taxes. I went into the dealership where the salesman kept playing a game of going back and forth with me and the sales managers office. You see, he could not offer the original OTD offer, as it did not include some paperwork fees, delivery fees, and one other item, that pushed the cost up by another $1200. I told him I’d honor the OTD cost he quoted me. So he walks to his manager, comes back, goes back, comes back, with me flat out declining each time. This went on for an hour until I left. I gave my final price and then just got up to leave. The sales person changed tactics and tried to get me to take another car which had another 10k miles for about $500 less, which I didn’t want. I then spoke to one other dealer over the phone who called me back within a day with the OTD price for a new Civic. I went to the dealership, but oh no! They just sold that car. They want me to look at an Accord instead. I leave.
  - FireBeyond 8y ago
    > I called three dealerships in my area and confirmed if they still had the vehicles I’d seen in their inventory on their website. A new bait and switch technique I saw with a friend. Once they had him interested, they changed the location of the vehicle on AutoTrader to be about 250 miles away (so it wouldn't show up in default searches) and they could claim "they didn't have it any more" (and then of course say "no, you're mistaken, it's not that price", or "I'm not seeing the car you thought you were looking at...").
joshfraser 8y ago
I worked for a month in college at a car dealership and it was every bit as shady as you think. My boss asked me to help him pass the drug test by loaning him some urine (I declined). One time after closing the sale of a car, the shop swapped out some damaged parts and claimed the new owner was responsible. It was at night so he hadn't noticed the damage before driving off the lot. There was also a nonstop flood of white-lies to try and build rapport with customers. Every salesman had a kid the same age as the customers or a cousin who worked at the same company. I was relieved to get out of there & started working at a software company instead. Despite how much I hated the job, the sales skills I learned there have served me well.
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  Every salesman had a kid the same age as the customers or a cousin who worked at the same company I had a sales manager at a used car dealership tell me he went to the Air Force Academy (my alma mater) after he asked about my college. Little did he know we have a "secret handshake" of sorts, which he was completely clueless about. Ended up calling him on it and he backed off of his high pressure sales bullshit.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    Tell me you didn't give that lowlife a sale.
    - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
      Well I "gave" my salesman the sale, the manager was just overseeing the whole place and would interject randomly to the consternation of his actual salesmen who were perfectly cordial.
hyperbovine 8y ago
> Luckily we use a combination of mass transit and just walking places. You certainly do not live in Michigan then.
apercu 8y ago
You have to check, recheck, and check again with stealerships and then they purposely take forever to do things to wear you down and the slip B.S. back in to the paperwork, when called on it acting like it was an accident. I hate buying cars.
- FireBeyond 8y ago
  Oh yes. I bought a vehicle with AudiCare. The dealership tried putting it on the invoice as "Other Aftermarket". When I went to use AudiCare the vehicle wasn't registered and they said that that fee was for a "second key" (even though it was 2-3 times the cost of a replacement key, and matched to the dollar the amount for AudiCare). Even when I showed them a photo of their breakdown pre-invoice that said, "AudiCare $xxx" and I'd signed it next to the sales managers signature they still balked at honoring it until I made enough of a loud fuss in their showroom in front of other customers.
mrdoops 8y ago
What's stopping existing car companies from doing direct sales like Tesla? Removing barriers to customers giving you money is generally a win. How many Tesla's were purchased in the last year that wouldn't have been if the stressful dealership was in the way? How about a subscription / lease deal where they ship you the new model every year? Sell a cheaper tier for the 2nd year used vehicles. Do telemetry on driver safety and charge accident-prone drivers more! Replace/bundle/improve car insurance while you're at it. Are there regulatory hurdles preventing this for a company like Ford or Toyota? Is it just organizational momentum stalling these changes?
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Regulation. Most states don't permit car sales without a dealership.
- zwily 8y ago
  What’s stopping them? Laws in pretty much every state. Laws that have been one of Tesla’s biggest pains. They’ve managed to overturn some of them, but most the time they just get special exceptions carved out for them.
- zem 8y ago
  there are (good and proper) laws to prevent a car company from having a dealership network that is entirely dependent on them, and at the same time competing with that network by doing direct sales. since tesla doesn't have a dealership network they should technically not fall under those laws, but regulations tend to be 'no' by default (again, probably for good and proper reasons, since there are tons of incentives to game the system otherwise) edit: as per this comment, seems i was wrong about this just being regulators saying no by default: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18772642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18772642
- shwoopdiwoop 8y ago
  Volvo is doing exactly that, it’s called Volvo Care if I’m not mistaken and includes some newer cars, service, maintenance, winter tires etc in a monthly fee.
mixmastamyk 8y ago
Looking thru my papers last night I noticed another forgotten cost, moving and parking tickets, traffic school, and fees that double every twenty days if not paid promptly. No other government service occurs within an order of magnitude as quickly. Our city is particularly predatory in that regard so I can expect a couple every year even though I drive only once a week.
Zanni 8y ago
For those that haven't had the Tesla experience, it's a refreshing change of pace. They don't have dealerships, only showrooms and service centers. You can schedule a test drive at a showroom (or online), and your rep will be happy to help you configure your car right there if you decide to buy, but you can also go home and leisurely plan your configuration over the internet. You can see the price of every option before you add it, and when you're through, you get an exact total that you can pay through the website. No pressure, no haggling, no upgrades. When your car is ready, you pick it up at the service center. That's it. The cars aren't cheap, but the buying process is the most pleasant I've ever experienced.
- Jarbooski 8y ago
  So how come I read people on Twitter asking Elon why they were forced to sign papers before being able to see the car they bought? Or having to follow a delivery damage checklist to make sure they don't buy damaged goods? That's unheard of in my life of buying cars from anyone else.
  - vvanders 8y ago
    Why is a damage checklist a Tesla specific problem? Bought plenty of cars(and trucks and tractors) where I went over them at delivery. Found more than a few things of which were sorted out by the dealer at the time.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Jarbooski 8y ago
      Buyers are literally warning each other to look for specific things that should be caught by QA, because if you leave the lot, Tesla won't fix it. This isn't "make sure there are no marks!", it's "make sure all the bolts are there!". Unheard of. Again, look for yourself, the information is public.
      - 8y ago
zamalek 8y ago
You will hit these problems when you deal with salespeople on the floor and not salespeople in an office. That being said, here's hoping you never have to own a car. I'm stuck burning dinosaurs and it sucks.
Zhenya 8y ago
Meta question: why did you use a throwaway account for this?
- throwaway98121 8y ago
  I created it a while ago and just kept it since.
phil248 8y ago
As a general response to all of the hatred directed at dealerships, I'd mention that I've experienced none of this nonsense when leasing a car.
- vkou 8y ago
  I've experienced none of this nonsense when buying a 4-year used car at a dealer. I came in, did the test drive, the sticker price was reasonable compared to craigslist, I bitched that the tires were on their last legs, argued down $400, wrote a cheque, and was done. The most time-intensive part of this process was signing all the paperwork, and playing telephone games with an insurance agency. I'd still, for all the obvious reasons, prefer to shop and buy on-line.
Jarbooski 8y ago
>That being said, I hope the dealership model dies and these blood sucking, anti competitive conmen have to fall to a more honest way of living What an ignorant comment. A huge portion of dealerships are small business owners in small towns. Honest, middle class people who care about serving customers. This is all beside the point that Tesla has in no way proven their system works. In fact, as time goes on they are adopting dealer methods. There's a reason for that; people want to deal with locals.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway98121 8y ago
  I’ve bought 5 brand new cars in my life time. All vehicles were purchased in small towns in Kansas, Texas, and Tennessee. During that process, I dealt with over a dozen dealers. Every time, it was the same shady practices. My comment reflects my experiences. Considering your comment history attacking Tesla in this larger thread in favor of dealers and this particular comment, I assume you are affiliated with some dealer. Calling me ignorant doesn’t solve any problem. If you are a stakeholder in a dealership business, try raising the bar a bit and provide an honest, hassle free and upfront experience to your customers. By attacking a frustrated customer (who isn’t a customer anymore because of the crooked sales tactics), you’re not helping your case.
lloydde 8y ago
Your post reminded me that I’m still smarting from my used 2017 car purchase last year. The windshield is pitted and replacement is the only real option and is expensive. We couldn’t see the speckling. We really noticed in the summer.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Have you checked to see if insurance will cover the windshield? In Massachusetts, cracked or "unsafely" pitted windshield is zero deductible.
sytelus 8y ago
Just bought new Honda from the least known shady dealer in the town and even they were so crooked. They added in Karr Security Alarm for $999. It's like buying PC with malware. Then they tried to push paint protector for another $400. Again complete scam. As I refused all these, their finance guy tried to push Century Automotive Services after-market service contract for $2400. Again complete waste. I told them I don't mind paying money but at very least they should be giving something actually useful like tinted window or Satellite radio. They guy starred at me with blank. It is mind boggling that even mega brands like Honda are not able to tame these snake oil salesman. Honda literally gives away monopoly over entire region to them. Can't they simply require them not to engage in these practices? Why is this so hard?
- ams6110 8y ago
  Those aftermarket warrantees and add ons are nearly pure profit. That's why they push them. They probably make more selling the warranty than they do selling the car itself.
  - sytelus 8y ago
    This doesn't happen with other franchises like McDonnalds or Subway or 7-11. These franchise owners are not allowed to load up snake oil on customers, they deeply care about brand experience and all goods+services are tightly controlled in exchange for monopoly over some territory. Many of these franchises don't even have huge margins or profits. Car manufacturers somehow aren't able to do this.
    - slowmovintarget 8y ago
      McDonalds is a real estate company that happens to also sell an occasional hamburger. The FDA requires that hamburgers not be cooked in snake oil.
      - jjeaff 8y ago
        McDonald's corporate makes a lot of money on real estate. But every franchise is making it purely on those "occasional" burgers. It is that revenue that pays for the real estate.
ams6110 8y ago
> I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit. If you're buying used, I would recommend to never bother with dealers. Buy from a local private seller. I've also heard CarMax is OK but I have no first hand experience with them.
smsm42 8y ago
There are places where you can't get by on public transit. E.g. most of the Silicon Valley. And I had pretty good experience buying my car via a site where I could configure it online, get price from a dealer (online), come in, see them honor this price (which was not the best possible but quite ok) and get a car without an exhausting sleazy spiel. Unfortunately, this was years ago and the site that did it is long dead. I still think it was a great model, however I can understand how families like mine buying a new car once per 10 years (maybe) or so can't sustain a viable business model, while sleazy car salesmen deliver the $$$$, so however I hate this, they have much better chance to survive than honest and customer-friendly buying experience.
- drdeadringer 8y ago
  > There are places where you can't get by on public transit. E.g. most of the Silicon Valley. I am in Silicon Valley and I have been doing fine on public transit for several years now even if I ignore the very occasional rental [taxi, uber &c, car rental]. What "most of Silicon Valley" are you meaning? Is there an element of "what I want where I want when I want at a moments notice" in your statement? Something else I'm not understanding that necessitates me owning a personnel vehicle?
  - smsm42 8y ago
    > I am in Silicon Valley Within a short distance of San Francisco, I presume? Do you have a family? Kids? > What "most of Silicon Valley" are you meaning? Anything not within short distance of BART station, basically. All of San Jose, Cupertino, Campbell, Los Gatos, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto (excluding maybe Stanford campus), Santa Clara, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, etc. > Is there an element of "what I want where I want when I want at a moments notice" in your statement? If by "moment's notice" you mean getting somewhere within 30 mins vs. getting there in three hours, if you're lucky and no mass transit failure happens - then yes, "moment's notice". > Something else I'm not understanding that necessitates me owning a personnel vehicle? Yes. It's literally not possible to do simplest things - like buying groceries, getting to doctor's appointment, going to work, eating out (and I don't mean Michelene starred restaurants, I mean local sushi joint within 2.5 miles of your house), etc. - using public transit in most of SV unless you are prepared to spend literally hours on commute, and you're good at walking distances. If you're lucky to live in SF, some parts of Berkeley/Oakland, etc. - possible. If you live in San Jose and have a family - nope.

lflux 8y ago

I had my credit union's car purchasing department handle my car purchase. Did everything over email - I told them what I wanted and in what color, they did the legwork to find a dealer that had what I wanted. Emailed me a quote, then the dealer delivered it to my door. No haggling, no visiting dealers, just email and signing some papers.

miketery 8y ago
What sort of credit union offers car purchasing service? what other services do they offer?
- lflux 8y ago
  A bunch in the bay area. I use San Francisco Federal, but they use PatelCo CU's service.
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  My bank and credit union both offer car buying services via TrueCar (which my bank actually owns around 10% of so they really encourage people to use it). In my case I paid around 5% less for my car than the "best" price I was able to get by visiting a dealer and going through the traditional song-and-dance routine. It seems like one of the big benefits is that they make it really easy to check the prices at a bunch of dealers. I don't remember if they actually offered any substantial saving at my local dealer compared to the price I "negotiated", but I was able to find a dealer that was willing to do a cheaper price around 70 miles away.
throwaway98121 8y ago
How did you get a decent price? My employer offers a similar service as part of the benefits program. You print out a piece of paper, take it to the dealer, and get a prenegotiated price. Sounds amazing in theory until you do more research and realize you’re still paying $1000s more.
- lflux 8y ago
  I emailed a bunch of dealers before my CU told me this service existed and got quotes, and they were competitive. It differed like, $500-1000 from what area dealers were offering and i was willing to take it. So, some legwork with a throwaway email address, but still very sofa compatibile.
  - throwaway98121 8y ago
    I emailed dealers and no one wanted to work over email. One even flat out wrote back saying they don’t send quotes over email because they know i will just shop around for a lower price.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      I found the same thing. Everyone wanted you to come in so they could play their games. Still not that bad if you’re just making a cash on the barrel purchase but I did have to visit dealers.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I did that successfully in 2001 but in 2014 nobody would give me quotes over E-mail.
- joshfraser 8y ago
  The only way I know to get a good deal is to walk into a dealership, know exactly which car & options you want & say you're paying cash & are willing to pay $100 over the manufacturer's invoice. They'll cut the nonsense and take the deal. 90% of the games begin when you finance the vehicle at the dealership. Don't want to put $2000 down? Let's just add another year to the term. Or how about we add $50 / month to the payment? I watched in shock as salesmen would come back with increasingly worse offers in terms of total cost and customers would leave happy thinking they were great negotiators. Americans are shockingly bad at math.
ceejayoz 8y ago
Costco has a similar arrangement.
hueving 8y ago
If you're willing to pay the dealer's quote, then car salesmen will love you and you'll have a great time at a dealership anyway. The entire bullshit process begins when you try to get a price that doesn't have thousands of extra dollars in for the dealership.
- Jarbooski 8y ago
  And how is that different than paying full pin at Tesla?
  - throwaway98121 8y ago
    Tesla has a fixed price on all vehicles. With dealers, each dealer has their own price and will haggle the crap out of you, try to up sell you things you don’t want, and even be shady with the actual paperwork that you have to read and reread carefully to ensure there aren’t any surprises. Tesla doesn’t do that. It’s a fixed price. Although I wouldn’t drop 35-50k on a new vehicle for their base models, I respect Tesla for eliminating the hassle of working with dealers.
- lflux 8y ago
  Sure, if the quote is out the door, but it never seems to be from what I've seen. This was "Here's the price excluding title transfer including delivery"
  - csa 8y ago
    Here is what I do, and it works well: 1. Call the dealer and ask for the internet sales manager. 2. Tell the manager exactly what you want (many people are not able to do this accurately and consistently). 3. Ask for the out-the-door price. 4. Repeat for any number of dealers that you are willing to drive to. 5. Buy from the dealer you choose. I usually get several quotes within $100 or so of each other. At that point, I just pick the place with a low price and in a location that I prefer to pick up my car.
    - 8y ago
ghaff 8y ago
In all fairness that does assume you don’t care about test driving etc. but in general if you don’t have dealer financing needs, are happy to do a private sale or donation for your trade-in, and know what you want and will pay, the dealer experience is mostly just mildly annoying even if you buy a car from one.
- lflux 8y ago
  Right - I knew exactly what I wanted since I had driven the car as a rental.

clircle 8y ago

Can you elaborate on your horrible experience? I bought a new car for the first time this year. I went to the Toyota dealer with my wife, we drove three cars, and decided the Corolla iM would be enough for 95% of our needs. We came back the next day and filled out all the paper work. Of course, they did try to get us to buy a bunch of pointles s addons and insurances, so it was annoying to have to say "No" over and over again to those.

throwaway98121 8y ago
I knew what car I wanted and had looked around online to figure out what was a great price vs an acceptable one price. I called three dealerships in my area and confirmed if they still had the vehicles I’d seen in their inventory on their website. They did and wanted me to come down immediately. I gave my email address and asked if we could continue over email. I made clear I wanted to settle in the final out the door price and I would come ready to purchase. All three sent me promotional material over email. When I inquired about the final out the door price, one ghosted me, and the other two stated I would have to come down because it depends. One of them finally emailed me again with a full quote and OTD price including all taxes. I went into the dealership where the salesman kept playing a game of going back and forth with me and the sales managers office. You see, he could not offer the original OTD offer, as it did not include some paperwork fees, delivery fees, and one other item, that pushed the cost up by another $1200. I told him I’d honor the OTD cost he quoted me. So he walks to his manager, comes back, goes back, comes back, with me flat out declining each time. This went on for an hour until I left. I gave my final price and then just got up to leave. The sales person changed tactics and tried to get me to take another car which had another 10k miles for about $500 less, which I didn’t want. I then spoke to one other dealer over the phone who called me back within a day with the OTD price for a new Civic. I went to the dealership, but oh no! They just sold that car. They want me to look at an Accord instead. I leave.
- FireBeyond 8y ago
  > I called three dealerships in my area and confirmed if they still had the vehicles I’d seen in their inventory on their website. A new bait and switch technique I saw with a friend. Once they had him interested, they changed the location of the vehicle on AutoTrader to be about 250 miles away (so it wouldn't show up in default searches) and they could claim "they didn't have it any more" (and then of course say "no, you're mistaken, it's not that price", or "I'm not seeing the car you thought you were looking at...").

joshfraser 8y ago

I worked for a month in college at a car dealership and it was every bit as shady as you think. My boss asked me to help him pass the drug test by loaning him some urine (I declined). One time after closing the sale of a car, the shop swapped out some damaged parts and claimed the new owner was responsible. It was at night so he hadn't noticed the damage before driving off the lot. There was also a nonstop flood of white-lies to try and build rapport with customers. Every salesman had a kid the same age as the customers or a cousin who worked at the same company. I was relieved to get out of there & started working at a software company instead. Despite how much I hated the job, the sales skills I learned there have served me well.

AndrewKemendo 8y ago
Every salesman had a kid the same age as the customers or a cousin who worked at the same company I had a sales manager at a used car dealership tell me he went to the Air Force Academy (my alma mater) after he asked about my college. Little did he know we have a "secret handshake" of sorts, which he was completely clueless about. Ended up calling him on it and he backed off of his high pressure sales bullshit.
- acct1771 8y ago
  Tell me you didn't give that lowlife a sale.
  - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
    Well I "gave" my salesman the sale, the manager was just overseeing the whole place and would interject randomly to the consternation of his actual salesmen who were perfectly cordial.

hyperbovine 8y ago

> Luckily we use a combination of mass transit and just walking places. You certainly do not live in Michigan then.

apercu 8y ago

You have to check, recheck, and check again with stealerships and then they purposely take forever to do things to wear you down and the slip B.S. back in to the paperwork, when called on it acting like it was an accident. I hate buying cars.

FireBeyond 8y ago
Oh yes. I bought a vehicle with AudiCare. The dealership tried putting it on the invoice as "Other Aftermarket". When I went to use AudiCare the vehicle wasn't registered and they said that that fee was for a "second key" (even though it was 2-3 times the cost of a replacement key, and matched to the dollar the amount for AudiCare). Even when I showed them a photo of their breakdown pre-invoice that said, "AudiCare $xxx" and I'd signed it next to the sales managers signature they still balked at honoring it until I made enough of a loud fuss in their showroom in front of other customers.

mrdoops 8y ago

What's stopping existing car companies from doing direct sales like Tesla? Removing barriers to customers giving you money is generally a win. How many Tesla's were purchased in the last year that wouldn't have been if the stressful dealership was in the way? How about a subscription / lease deal where they ship you the new model every year? Sell a cheaper tier for the 2nd year used vehicles. Do telemetry on driver safety and charge accident-prone drivers more! Replace/bundle/improve car insurance while you're at it. Are there regulatory hurdles preventing this for a company like Ford or Toyota? Is it just organizational momentum stalling these changes?

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Regulation. Most states don't permit car sales without a dealership.
zwily 8y ago
What’s stopping them? Laws in pretty much every state. Laws that have been one of Tesla’s biggest pains. They’ve managed to overturn some of them, but most the time they just get special exceptions carved out for them.
zem 8y ago
there are (good and proper) laws to prevent a car company from having a dealership network that is entirely dependent on them, and at the same time competing with that network by doing direct sales. since tesla doesn't have a dealership network they should technically not fall under those laws, but regulations tend to be 'no' by default (again, probably for good and proper reasons, since there are tons of incentives to game the system otherwise) edit: as per this comment, seems i was wrong about this just being regulators saying no by default: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18772642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18772642
shwoopdiwoop 8y ago
Volvo is doing exactly that, it’s called Volvo Care if I’m not mistaken and includes some newer cars, service, maintenance, winter tires etc in a monthly fee.

mixmastamyk 8y ago

Looking thru my papers last night I noticed another forgotten cost, moving and parking tickets, traffic school, and fees that double every twenty days if not paid promptly. No other government service occurs within an order of magnitude as quickly. Our city is particularly predatory in that regard so I can expect a couple every year even though I drive only once a week.

Zanni 8y ago

For those that haven't had the Tesla experience, it's a refreshing change of pace. They don't have dealerships, only showrooms and service centers. You can schedule a test drive at a showroom (or online), and your rep will be happy to help you configure your car right there if you decide to buy, but you can also go home and leisurely plan your configuration over the internet. You can see the price of every option before you add it, and when you're through, you get an exact total that you can pay through the website. No pressure, no haggling, no upgrades. When your car is ready, you pick it up at the service center. That's it. The cars aren't cheap, but the buying process is the most pleasant I've ever experienced.

Jarbooski 8y ago
So how come I read people on Twitter asking Elon why they were forced to sign papers before being able to see the car they bought? Or having to follow a delivery damage checklist to make sure they don't buy damaged goods? That's unheard of in my life of buying cars from anyone else.
- vvanders 8y ago
  Why is a damage checklist a Tesla specific problem? Bought plenty of cars(and trucks and tractors) where I went over them at delivery. Found more than a few things of which were sorted out by the dealer at the time.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Jarbooski 8y ago
    Buyers are literally warning each other to look for specific things that should be caught by QA, because if you leave the lot, Tesla won't fix it. This isn't "make sure there are no marks!", it's "make sure all the bolts are there!". Unheard of. Again, look for yourself, the information is public.
    - 8y ago

zamalek 8y ago

You will hit these problems when you deal with salespeople on the floor and not salespeople in an office. That being said, here's hoping you never have to own a car. I'm stuck burning dinosaurs and it sucks.

Zhenya 8y ago

Meta question: why did you use a throwaway account for this?

throwaway98121 8y ago
I created it a while ago and just kept it since.

phil248 8y ago

As a general response to all of the hatred directed at dealerships, I'd mention that I've experienced none of this nonsense when leasing a car.

vkou 8y ago
I've experienced none of this nonsense when buying a 4-year used car at a dealer. I came in, did the test drive, the sticker price was reasonable compared to craigslist, I bitched that the tires were on their last legs, argued down $400, wrote a cheque, and was done. The most time-intensive part of this process was signing all the paperwork, and playing telephone games with an insurance agency. I'd still, for all the obvious reasons, prefer to shop and buy on-line.

Jarbooski 8y ago

>That being said, I hope the dealership model dies and these blood sucking, anti competitive conmen have to fall to a more honest way of living What an ignorant comment. A huge portion of dealerships are small business owners in small towns. Honest, middle class people who care about serving customers. This is all beside the point that Tesla has in no way proven their system works. In fact, as time goes on they are adopting dealer methods. There's a reason for that; people want to deal with locals.

deleted 8y ago
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throwaway98121 8y ago
I’ve bought 5 brand new cars in my life time. All vehicles were purchased in small towns in Kansas, Texas, and Tennessee. During that process, I dealt with over a dozen dealers. Every time, it was the same shady practices. My comment reflects my experiences. Considering your comment history attacking Tesla in this larger thread in favor of dealers and this particular comment, I assume you are affiliated with some dealer. Calling me ignorant doesn’t solve any problem. If you are a stakeholder in a dealership business, try raising the bar a bit and provide an honest, hassle free and upfront experience to your customers. By attacking a frustrated customer (who isn’t a customer anymore because of the crooked sales tactics), you’re not helping your case.

lloydde 8y ago

Your post reminded me that I’m still smarting from my used 2017 car purchase last year. The windshield is pitted and replacement is the only real option and is expensive. We couldn’t see the speckling. We really noticed in the summer.

ghaff 8y ago
Have you checked to see if insurance will cover the windshield? In Massachusetts, cracked or "unsafely" pitted windshield is zero deductible.

sytelus 8y ago

Just bought new Honda from the least known shady dealer in the town and even they were so crooked. They added in Karr Security Alarm for $999. It's like buying PC with malware. Then they tried to push paint protector for another $400. Again complete scam. As I refused all these, their finance guy tried to push Century Automotive Services after-market service contract for $2400. Again complete waste. I told them I don't mind paying money but at very least they should be giving something actually useful like tinted window or Satellite radio. They guy starred at me with blank. It is mind boggling that even mega brands like Honda are not able to tame these snake oil salesman. Honda literally gives away monopoly over entire region to them. Can't they simply require them not to engage in these practices? Why is this so hard?

ams6110 8y ago
Those aftermarket warrantees and add ons are nearly pure profit. That's why they push them. They probably make more selling the warranty than they do selling the car itself.
- sytelus 8y ago
  This doesn't happen with other franchises like McDonnalds or Subway or 7-11. These franchise owners are not allowed to load up snake oil on customers, they deeply care about brand experience and all goods+services are tightly controlled in exchange for monopoly over some territory. Many of these franchises don't even have huge margins or profits. Car manufacturers somehow aren't able to do this.
  - slowmovintarget 8y ago
    McDonalds is a real estate company that happens to also sell an occasional hamburger. The FDA requires that hamburgers not be cooked in snake oil.
    - jjeaff 8y ago
      McDonald's corporate makes a lot of money on real estate. But every franchise is making it purely on those "occasional" burgers. It is that revenue that pays for the real estate.

ams6110 8y ago

> I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit. If you're buying used, I would recommend to never bother with dealers. Buy from a local private seller. I've also heard CarMax is OK but I have no first hand experience with them.

smsm42 8y ago

There are places where you can't get by on public transit. E.g. most of the Silicon Valley. And I had pretty good experience buying my car via a site where I could configure it online, get price from a dealer (online), come in, see them honor this price (which was not the best possible but quite ok) and get a car without an exhausting sleazy spiel. Unfortunately, this was years ago and the site that did it is long dead. I still think it was a great model, however I can understand how families like mine buying a new car once per 10 years (maybe) or so can't sustain a viable business model, while sleazy car salesmen deliver the $$$$, so however I hate this, they have much better chance to survive than honest and customer-friendly buying experience.

drdeadringer 8y ago
> There are places where you can't get by on public transit. E.g. most of the Silicon Valley. I am in Silicon Valley and I have been doing fine on public transit for several years now even if I ignore the very occasional rental [taxi, uber &c, car rental]. What "most of Silicon Valley" are you meaning? Is there an element of "what I want where I want when I want at a moments notice" in your statement? Something else I'm not understanding that necessitates me owning a personnel vehicle?
- smsm42 8y ago
  > I am in Silicon Valley Within a short distance of San Francisco, I presume? Do you have a family? Kids? > What "most of Silicon Valley" are you meaning? Anything not within short distance of BART station, basically. All of San Jose, Cupertino, Campbell, Los Gatos, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto (excluding maybe Stanford campus), Santa Clara, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, etc. > Is there an element of "what I want where I want when I want at a moments notice" in your statement? If by "moment's notice" you mean getting somewhere within 30 mins vs. getting there in three hours, if you're lucky and no mass transit failure happens - then yes, "moment's notice". > Something else I'm not understanding that necessitates me owning a personnel vehicle? Yes. It's literally not possible to do simplest things - like buying groceries, getting to doctor's appointment, going to work, eating out (and I don't mean Michelene starred restaurants, I mean local sushi joint within 2.5 miles of your house), etc. - using public transit in most of SV unless you are prepared to spend literally hours on commute, and you're good at walking distances. If you're lucky to live in SF, some parts of Berkeley/Oakland, etc. - possible. If you live in San Jose and have a family - nope.