It’s obvious you seem to think there are no decent dealers, dealerships or salespeople in existence. I’ll be the first to admit there are bad folks in the car business. Just as there are in insurance, real estate, law, medicine...so to put a fine point on it why are dealers obsolete?

Okay, I don’t see any facts or criticism just short smart-ass quips. Just looking for you to back up what you’re saying. If you can’t, no worries.

All of the ones dealing with buying and selling cars...so, why all the hate? I’m honestly asking. Bad experience every time you bought a car from a dealer?

I have read all your posts, why all the hate?

The concept is transparency, and working closely with the internet sales people at a dealer group, I can tell you that in this market, at least in the area we are in, being the transparent dealer actually put you at a disadvantage, to the point that we’re actually getting away from providing hard numbers in e-mails…

Hi Tom. I am an Internet Sales Manager at my dealership.

Sure - I get that - but driving 2-3 hours to save $100 generally defeats that $100.

As a dealer, I do not fault anyone for shopping online. In fact I blame the failure of customer service, specially at the dealer level, to be the reason for shopping online. I do think that this article is fair however off based. The ultimate reason we buy online is because we perceive the value is greater to just…

As a person that loves music and cars, I can best summarize my search for a car like this: When I go shopping for a guitar, I want to play it. I want to see it, I want to hear it. I want to hold it in my hands and see that it fits exactly what I am looking for, because wood and handcrafted instruments can vary greatly…

So when something goes wrong on that pre-owned car and your sales person says you’re SOL, was it worth the $300?

But in the end, most customers spend way more time than that, have a horrible experience everywhere they go and then try and blame the people trying to help them.

I’m not sure you are completely correct on some of these statements. I tried to reply to an earlier post but it disappeared so I’ll ask the same question again. Could you please break down what holdback is and what the dealer incentives not on the invoice are?

I work at a dealer. The reason that inter salesman suck at their job is the same reason they suck at the dealership. It is because they know almost nothing about the cars that they are selling.

I work in marketing at a dealership and have so much to say about this. Those little pop-up chat windows are annoying to us too. Apparently they’re some sort of ‘package deal’ that comes with our website management programs. So annoying.

MY favorite thing is, when they come in and don’t want to waste time... Guess what? neither do I. Time comes to talk trade, “do you have an idea what you want for your trade?” Yes, I understand the customers fear by telling me that number... but you know what? If you tell me that number, we can not dick around for…

I can’t speak for all dealerships, but when you come here to pay invoice, as 85% of our customers do (we are in a town where about that number of the population qualify for GM Employee pricing) you pay INVOICE. Yes, there is a number which varies model to model and trim to trim that GM will pay us to sell the vehicle.…

Why would I want to buy a car without any human contact or a chance to view the goods in person? My most recent two car purchases—my used XJ8 VDP and (just last week) my 2008 Quattroporte GTS—would never have found a new home were it not for the good vibes I got in the course of long dealer visits. Both were high-end…

Buying online requires trusting some entity with your financial details. I don’t think that trust will ever be widely extended to vehicle sales. There’s also security and tax concerns for large transactions.

Working in sales for the past 3 years, 9 out of 10 people who either go straight to the internet dept. or even come in to the dealership do not actually know what they want. It’s very rare someone actually knows what they want in a new car. Nearly every internet lead that comes in has to be reevaluated by the sales…

The American public wont let it be one-price, cause they will wander around for weeks trying to cut ant’s dicks in half , beat that one-price to save $3.00 @ month. A dealership rarely wins that battle because the consumer is going to throw a trade into the deal when he shows, and he will certainly want retail plus…