Hey, Mr. Car Salesman, Bail Out This!

The current recession seems like a good time to buy a car.  Everywhere you look, commercials are screaming 0 % financing,  $0 down payments and rebates the size of an AIG Executive’s Golden Parachute.  Yet the truth, as is often the case, is not that simple.  Like hedgehogs and O.J. Simpson, car salespeople are locked into a pattern of behavior they are powerless to change.  Financing, rebates and recession aside, they’ll still try to hump you. 

It starts when you enter the dealership.  “Hey there, good afternoon.”  A lie.  “We’re not making any money on this.” Big Lie.  “Our best offer.”  The lies continue.  “The restrooms are down the hall.”  Right, in another building.  It’s not that car salesmen are bad people, they just can’t help themselves, anymore than a rat can ignore a glob of peanut butter.  Therefore, to emerge victorious in the primordial battle between sales predator and whatever money you have left in the bank, we suggest the following strategy. As you enter the dealership, inform your sales predator (don’t worry, they’ll find you) that you hate the internal combustion engine, never owned one, never will.  In fact, you don’t even have a license.  You’re merely killing time until your Sierra Club meeting starts down the street. 

The sales predator will be stunned, but recover quickly.  This is the challenge they have been waiting for their entire professional lives, including that stint selling times shares in a condo community on the hurricane side of Haiti.  First, they will try to sell you an electric car, which you must immediately reject, expanding your hatred of the internal combustion engine to every four wheeled death trap on the road.  Still, the predator will continue to preditate.  Undaunted, he will try to sell you a hybrid, a vehicle with outstanding fuel efficiency, a mini-car, a motorcycle, a moped, whatever he’s got on the lot.  All you have to do is keep insisting that you hate cars, never owned one, never will.  This will enflame the predator, who will then call in reinforcements, the Wizard of Car Dealership Oz, his General Manager, Hal Wicklinski.  “What if we could get you into a car for a great price?  A once in a lifetime deal?” Hal will ask. And with those words, you will know you have them. The predator’s ego has been engaged.  In his mind he’s already regaling colleagues, family and friends with the story of how he sold a car to a person who hated cars, had never owned one, and didn’t even have a license!  This vision will drive the sales predator to continue to lower the price, call in favors from the bank or other dealers, do anything within his power to force you into buying a car.  He will lose all perspective, all judgment, all business sense.  He will get you exactly what you want, for the price you want to pay, in a color you like, and throw in the GPS. Victory will be yours, including the factory installed Bluetooth.

Caution:  The sales predator will know that he has lost, yet firmly believe that he can still eek out a victory before you drive off the lot.  Whatever you do, say “no” to the undercoating.