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The last three vehicles I've bought, from three different Toyota dealerships, the options, color, etc. were negotiated completely over email, no phone calls or
by downut 3y ago
The last three vehicles I've bought, from three different Toyota dealerships, the options, color, etc. were negotiated completely over email, no phone calls or physical dealership visit. I always pay cash and I never trade in. At the end of the process, which wasn't excruciating, I asked for and received, in each case, a price fixed to the penny. In each case I quite brutally asserted, multiple times for each purchase, that if the price was even 1 penny more than the agreed on price stated in email, I was going to walk, even though I had to drive at least 100 miles in two cases. When I sat down at the dealer, I reasserted my guarantee that if the price was even 1 penny more, I was going to walk.
We still had to sit through videos and the standard sales pitches for the undercoat, etc. Can I shout now? Lasting an hour. For the last Prius they said well this particular vehicle has an optional security registration or some such that is installed in the car. I said remove it. Maybe two minutes of harrumphing about how I am exposing myself and I got quite acidic actually. Well whatever they actually did the price I wrote a check for was exactly what we had agreed to over email.
Now I don't actually care if what you like to do in your non-work time is to sit through car dealership sales pitches for nonsensical stuff, but I don't. And I want the option not to have to burn my time for this. It really is a wonder how normalized for many people it is to feel how pleasant it can be to sit through add on advertising while doing some sort of necessary activity where at the conclusion I'm going to write a check for tens of thousands of dollars. They're so helpful! Rather than what it is, which is time theft, condescendingly done.
- ghaff 3y agoI'm not a fan of car dealerships but, in the category of things you pay $10s of K for in cash (other than maybe expensive travel bookings), car purchases are actually pretty low effort relative to most things so long as you don't need financing. Certainly don't deal with builders/contractors.
- downut 3y agoSo it turns out in the last year I have sold a remodel problem house and bought another all the way across the country. We could drill down and ask why my sold house tilers were so awful. To the point I paid to have it all Boschhammered up and replaced with engineered wood. Delaying the move. How about not. Why would you point to the dysfunction of another unrelated industry as being worse to justify the stupidity of the original topic here? Old house sold for cash, "new" house bought for cash. Does anyone spending tens of thousands of dollars not value their time? I think they do!