Absolutely bonkers experience at the dealership today

This is actually very encouraging to me.

"Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here!"

(I think she was talking about car dealers)

 

As someone who has lived in Florida for many years now, I will offer this advice: don't waste your time with Florida dealers. Get on leasehackr.com, find a broker, and save money and stress. They specialize in lease deals, but most are perfectly willing to sell as well. They are completely transparent with you and take care of you through the process. You'll want to find Jim on the forum. He lives in SoFL, but has dealers in the northeast and can help you get the truck shipped down. My Tundra is being shipped down in early February. Stadium Toyota in Tampa also posts deals on there, but their inventory is stripped right now. Most charge a fee; it's worth it.

 

You wouldn’t happen to be “Jim” on leasehackr.com, would you?

 

I have always heard that parts and service is where dealerships make their money. Somebody is blowing smoke up our asses.

 

I'm not Jim. I wish I was because he seems very successful. Anyways, any of the brokers on there will treat you far better than your average Florida dealer. Salespeople here suck, incentives suck, and there's a ton of dumb money to go around.

 

Don’t be coy, Jim. All are welcome here.

 

My name isn't Jim, it's James.

 

my grandfather’s name was James. Everyone called him Jim

 

Ya don't say

 

I’m glad you explained this. Earlier this morning, I was puzzling over your username given that your name is Ted.

 

I’m sure you realize how little this clears things up…

 

The handful of times I walked into a Toyota dealer to look at their trucks the experience was abysmal. Completely full of themselves.

 

Not at all really but the front and back end of the stores are actually unrelated businesses usually sharing nothing but the name and General Manager too.

The GM really has the most say and control over the overall nature of the place and depending on how they run things it can be a nice or really not nice experience going in to buy a car there.
Some GMs will want to see and sign off on every deal made and it can be for quality of experience and/or max profit obviously but a lot of them do try to make sure you are well taken care of and it will vary from location to location and also depends on who gets to make final calls on a deal.

Seeger Toyota is a great example of this as the location where Kung is seems to have that rep for paying attention to the customer and the main location maybe not so much at least since Tom passed and direct control of the Front and Back ends was split out of the Family mostly.
On the other hand there are guys working there a long time that I know who are just normal guys that are attentive as they realize they still have to "Sell" the deals,an art which is hard to teach new people these days and even tougher to police and keep going it seems.

Not all dealers are big parts sellers but many are and at the same time the Service Departments are usually the biggest profit center at the store.

Service and Pre-Owned actually but again Sales is a different business altogether too.

 

Only way I've purchased new vehicles was to take a build sheet to a dozen different dealerships "Fleet Managers" not the sales managers. I had my insurance company get "Dealer Cost", not MSRP. Then asked all the fleet managers to compete to see who could get closest to actual dealer cost. Ended up paying about $500 over dealer cost. This was years ago, pre-covid, so not sure if this tactic still works, but saves dealing with dipsh$% sales guys at all. I don't think I could actually stomach buying a car from a sales guys, never had a good experience with any at the new car dealers. Now, brokers, and guys running nice mom and pop used lots, I've had some great no-pressure customer service from. Personally when I pick up a gen 3 its going to be a 2025ish, and I'll try and go this route...

 

I also had very strange dealer experience this morning. A local dealer website showed about 6 new Tundras in transit but it showed 1 in stock. I drove by and lo and behold it was accurate. There she was parked right out front, no "sold" or "reserved" signs on it. Silver and nicely equipped with Off Road package and one of the higher tech or advance packages. ~$57,000 MSRP on the sticker. I parked my Tacoma right next to it, got out for a good walkaround, and NO SALESMAN even bothered to come out! Maybe it was already sold but I don't think so.

 

Sounds like the dealerships in my area of So Ca. as well. They seem to hire uselesss kids to sell you a 60k truck. I was shopping for a Rav 4 Limited for my wife, all they could thell me was "Good Luck" , not one of them was willing to help me with anything.

 

LOL... has anyone seen the new Toyota TV commercials where they pitch this great "new" idea of configuring a vehicle how you want and bringing it to the dealer to ...OK, I'll say it... order? Of course they didn't use that word. Kind of reminds me of those stupid Liberty Mutual commercials where you only pay for what you need... like you do with ANY and EVERY insurance company when you pick your coverage limits. All this rebranding... it's all too funny.

 

Well...so I did want to make one observation.

Used to be salesmen/women would absolutely *HOUND* you to the point where you almost felt you either had to leave, yell at them or beat them up to get them to leave you alone. We PRAYED for them to leave us alone...now they are!

I'm being somewhat facetious; but I do hope that we don't confuse a hands-off, easy approach with indifference. (Not saying you're doing that, @raylo; more likely they were actual jerks, and if so, f*** 'em and feed 'em fishheads.)

 

Actually, I now believe that the thing was sold or committed to another customer since it was gone from the website listing this morning. Not to worry, I wasn't going to buy it regardless. But LOL... I say that... but if they had made me an offer I couldn't refuse, who knows? Not sure we will get back to that sort of thing anytime soon.

 

I thought it would be easier to buy using Costco or Sam's Club Car buying program. NOPE. At first the email communication went smooth. Arranged an appointment to pick the exact one on the lot. It's a lot different when you're physically there. Tried to pull a fast one and give the final sale sheet with totally different numbers and additional costs. Said to sign here to start the sale process. I said nope i'm going down to the other dealer and they quickly changed their tune. Unbelievable.

 

So, did you get one using Costco?

 

I had a similar situation just last week when I'm going to put a deposit on a incoming limited crewmax fully loaded truck was like 60 grand then he goes here I want to show you something. Walks me over to another truck that they were about to deliver and shows me the dealer add-on package nitrogen tires window tint door edge guards and some fancy wax all for the low price of $2,026 lol. I said no that's all right I'll go to another dealership He's like but was selling it he had MSRP nobody else does that. I said no you're not You're selling it $2,000 over MSRP because you're adding a bunch of bullshit that I don't want. He's like well you're not going to find anything less anywhere else every dealership has add-on package I said nope not all of them proceeded to call two dealers that I know for a fact don't do that place the deposit with one on an incoming truck He called me the next day and was like you ready to buy that truck I said nope I found one already. He was in shock I said see Not everybody's a crook.

 

My mum, sister, and a couple friends have brought me to do the dealings because i’m an intolerant little shit. And was trained in interrogation tactics and lie detection in the military so the sales weasels get real squirmy, real quick.

 

I’m not sure “lie detection” is needed when talking to a car salesman. I just start there and work my way backward.

 

Youre not wrong..

 

This the part I love…when dealers let a sure fire sale walk out the door. In more normal times a while back I was trying buy a vehicle at a local dealer and the sales manager would absolutely not meet my bottom line price. I walked out, bought something else somewhere else for a better deal.

A few weeks later the first dealer dropped the price on the vehicle I originally wanted below what I offered! I had to call the sale manager to give him shit about it and the arrogant bastard seemed to not care at all.

 

I got my Tundra from a "Jim" via leasehackr.com. He worked with dealers in Pennsylvania. Read where he moved to Florida. So we are probably talking about the same guy...!

 

I usually call the dealership and ask for the internet sales manager, or I do an online inquiry and get the internet sales manager. I do all my haggling online or on the phone sitting on the porch with a coffee or a beer. Once I get to where I want to be, they send a copy of it and at my convenience I go to the dealership to pick the vehicle up.

The only time I spend any amount of time at any dealership playing the musical salesman game is when I am undecided and out doing test drives of different vehicles. And I almost never buy from the dealerships I use for that purpose. I have dealerships that (pre covid) have good inventory but are terrible as dealerships, I go there to see and drive what I need to, have a little fun screwing with salespeople heads, leave the lot, block their number. I then go home after I have decided what I want and contact the internet sales manager from the dealership I want to deal with.

The last 2 vehicles I bought, I could not tell you what the inside of the dealership showroom looked like since I never had to walk thru the door. Keys and internet guy met me at outside, drove the vehicle and left.

I only go in dealerships if I need some entertainment.