It’s the American Way to Sell Cars
I couldn’t help but overhear a friend on the telephone the other day, talking to a car salesman. As best I could tell, he was trying to nail down a price on a car his mother-in-law was buying. For a minute there, it sounded like he was trying to crack the da Vinci code.
His voice started rising, along with his exasperation level. He ended the conversation without resolution and immediately went into cool-down mode, as if he’d just spent 20 minutes on a stationary bike. He looked as if he could use a chair massage.
The poor guy. Although American-born, he seemed unaware of how car salesmen operate in this country. Giving a price over the phone would be a rookie mistake. You could get run out of the business for making a bonehead play like that.
My friend’s anguish might have gone unnoticed, except that my car has 102,000 miles on it. There’s an alleged oil leak somewhere near a mystery gasket deep in the labyrinth that someday could halt the car in its tracks. Fixing it would cost $500, because the leak is so hard to reach. This is what I’m told, but I’ve looked under the hood and the car’s insides don’t look all that impenetrable to me. Five hundred bucks sounds like a lot of money to plug a leak.
Translation: 2004 may be a car-buying year.
Like a lot of people, I don’t find that prospect very appealing. Car salesmen hate to hear this, but I think most people would rather avoid them.
It doesn’t help that the sales staff masses right outside the showroom door, like a pack of wolves waiting for a deer. Then, as soon as the deer steps onto the lot, one wolf breaks from the pack and approaches. If he senses that you’re uninformed and pliant, you’re done for.
Obviously, we joke at the salesmen’s expense because it’s the American way and because most of us don’t understand their business. We don’t understand why that last $50 is so darned important to them. But maybe for them that extra $50 or $100, multiplied by a number of customers, is the difference between a good month and a bad month.
If we knew that, maybe we’d be more understanding. Maybe we’d treat them like we do the picketing grocery workers -- with a combination of sympathy for their plight as well as a healthy fear of them.
My fear goes back 30 years. Looking to buy my first car at 22, I walked onto the lot and asked a salesman how much the Camaro in the corner cost. He told me the sticker price and I bought it. Would it have killed him to say, “You know, young fellow, you can negotiate the price?”
I’m sure the boys in the showroom got quite a laugh. I know I always get a laugh from friends when retelling the story.
These days, more and more people buy cars online. It’s the wimpy way out, which is why I’ve used it to buy my last two cars. Over the years, I’ve known people who actually enjoy the give-and-take with the folks at the dealership. They think it’s fun.
I don’t call it fun, but it is the American way. It keeps the economy going and stems the tide toward a more impersonal world. Why not let a salesman, eager for the hunt, have a little fun at my expense?
I called a dealership at random to get a salesman’s two cents’ worth. I thought it’d be helpful to learn how they go about their business and why they never seem to know what their manager will sell a car for. I didn’t hear back.
Sometime this year I’ll try to work up some courage and enter a showroom. Most likely, I’ll buy online. My hope, though, is that the rest of you support America by visiting a dealership in 2004.
There is this message of hope: I asked my friend how things turned out for his mother-in-law. “The salesman finally came down on the price,” he said. “She bought the car.”
Dana Parsons’ column
appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-782, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
