Amusing car dealer/car show stories

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vat_man

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Just thought I'd share this, and provide the opportunity for members to share amusing stories from the world of looking at and buying cars.

In November of 2000, my partner and I attended the Sydney Motor Show 'with malicious intent' - ie. we had decided to trade in our 3 yo Vectra and were looking at cars on an 'intent to purchase' basis (although we weren't buying at the show).

Just to give some background on my domestic arrangements - I'm in finance, my partner is in IT (project manager). I'm doing okay, but she earns neatly double what I do - so when we go to dealers it's a bit of a double act - they have to sell me the car, and then arrange with her how to pay for it. A tribute to the guy at the Subaru dealership we went to - he picked straight up on that without mentioning it.

So anyhoo, although we were about 75% decided on the super Sube, there was still a short-list of cars to be checked.

One of the cars on the list was the Citroen Xantia (outsider, before you ask). We look at it, and the late 50ish salesman rolls up and explains the pneumatic suspension - looking straight at my partner he says 'and the suspension lowers so you can get the shopping in the boot more easily'.

Time stood still for a second.

My partner stared very intently at the gentleman for a moment and walked very deliberately to the front of the car (I seem to remember thinking I could smell something burning).

I eased up to the fellow and told him how much she earnt. He said 'oh...' and quietly wandered away to help another couple.

Very funny - she wasn't actually that worried about it, but needless to say we didn't go French this time....
 
when i was looking for the pajero, i took an 89 hilux ute for a test drive. the rear right rim collapsed. wasnt exactly the most fun ive had in my driving experience. never looked at another hilux.
 
Well, at this years STL car show, I went with my dad and his bro(very funny guy, both of them together usually results in crying laughter...)and my mom, and so we're looking at this Pontiac Concept car, and the ladys explaining the colors(the spokesperson you know, not like a salesman), so she's saying "This car comes in many beautiful colors, such as (I'm making up the names cause I forgot them)Blaze red, sky blue, and " right at that and my dad says "Puke Green", fairly loud and the lady did a double take, my dad and his bro got out of there laughing their heads off. I'm sure the Pontiac people didn't find it funny but it was great cause the car was ugly...
 
Last year, I was going to pick up a friend from work. I got there early, so I thought I'd stop at the Honda dealer across the street and see what they had. A salesman came out when I was looking at a used Accord with about 40K miles on it and listed for over $14K.

I took it for a test drive, and he started the high pressure sales stuff. So, I told him I wanted to test drive one of the new Coupes. He then went into that spiel that new cars lose over 20% of their value when you drive them off the lot. I told him that that was the problem. Here he had a car not only driven off the lot, but had been tooled around for 40K miles and was still only discounted about 20%. He decided to "talk to his manager." I decided I'd better go get my friend.

I checked on the place with the Better Business Bureau anyway; they had an unsatisfactory record. When the salesman called back, I let him know what I thought of his business practices.


Anyway. better story because it wasn't me. A friend in college liked to occasionally amuse himself by taking sports cars for test drives. He went to a Corvette dealer, saw the salesman do something under the dash, then ask if he wanted to take it out. My friend was blitzing along in the thing, with the salesman doing his spiel, when he looked down and said, "WAI...WAIT... THE ODOMETER'S NOT MOVING!" To make the story short, the salesman eventually offered to sell the car slightly below cost if he wouldn't tell anybody. My friend decided to tell everyone he knew.
 
Originally posted by Sertsa
Last year, I was going to pick up a friend from work. I got there early, so I thought I'd stop at the Honda dealer across the street and see what they had. A salesman came out when I was looking at a used Accord with about 40K miles on it and listed for over $14K.

I took it for a test drive, and he started the high pressure sales stuff. So, I told him I wanted to test drive one of the new Coupes. He then went into that spiel that new cars lose over 20% of their value when you drive them off the lot. I told him that that was the problem. Here he had a car not only driven off the lot, but had been tooled around for 40K miles and was still only discounted about 20%. He decided to "talk to his manager." I decided I'd better go get my friend.

I checked on the place with the Better Business Bureau anyway; they had an unsatisfactory record. When the salesman called back, I let him know what I thought of his business practices.


Anyway. better story because it wasn't me. A friend in college liked to occasionally amuse himself by taking sports cars for test drives. He went to a Corvette dealer, saw the salesman do something under the dash, then ask if he wanted to take it out. My friend was blitzing along in the thing, with the salesman doing his spiel, when he looked down and said, "WAI...WAIT... THE ODOMETER'S NOT MOVING!" To make the story short, the salesman eventually offered to sell the car slightly below cost if he wouldn't tell anybody. My friend decided to tell everyone he knew.
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Did you manage to let the police know about that little piece of information?

The worst dealership expreience was looking at older civics. I hate the headlights on the new ones, and wanted one of the DOHC models instead of the SOHC. Well the model that I was looking at (1999) was proced MORE than it was in 99. I was quite supprised. This seems to be common honda practice, as other SEALERSHIPS had the same prices listed...
 
there was this one timwe when my family lived in england....we went to a :volvo: dealer in shorts and t-shirts, and they totally ignored us...thats not right

but eventually my mom got her 960 :)
 

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