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Author
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Topic: Women buying a car - serious topic
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sillygoil
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6884
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posted 10 March 2005 11:32 AM
In hopes of not having this thread go into Kyoto and alternative transportation methods that should be used instead of vehicles with an internal combustion engine, I would like to hear from women who have purchased a vehicle from a dealership in the last couple of years.I just bought a new car - love it. It's a puddle jumper (Honda Civic), but I have to tell you - the experience of buying a car was a pain in the ass. I went to four dealerships and was told everything from, "we'll wait until your husband comes in with you before we negotiate" to "here is our service department and it's soooo important that you get your car serviced regularly." You would think that dealerships might have an interest in treating female care buyers as if they are actual car buyers and not children. Very patronizing. I actually got fed up with the treatment at one dealership and asked to speak with the general manager. I informed him that his sales staff treated me in an offensive manner and I explained what happened. I asked if it was the policy of the dealership to have female car buyers come in with their husbands prior to making a deal.. Anyway, the dealer apologized and said that it is a long time systemic problem in the business and dealers are not prepared to invest in ways to rectify it. Call me crazy, but this isn't something that would be hard to rectify - it's also bad for business. What are your experiences?
From: Little house on the prairie | Registered: Sep 2004
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miles
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7209
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posted 10 March 2005 11:44 AM
My wife had a similar rude experience a couple of years ago. Mrs. Miles needed a new car and so after research etc she picked out what she wanted and went to the dealership. After talking with the salesman for a while and getting no where I happened to arrive. I had a job interview and got there late.Anyways, when we started to negotiate price etc for the second time the salesman looked only at me and would not even talk to her. Well Mrs. Miles looked the guy in the face and stated that I was not working at the time and that since she was working and it was "her money" maybe the guy should talk to the one that would be writing the cheque. He did not know what to do. Did not apologize or even attempt to. She got up and left the dealership and we bought the same model but from a different dealership. After we purchased she phoned the GM of the dealership and complained. The GM said he would make it up to her. The GM sent her a coupon for 3 free oil changes. Well Mrs. Miles does not like being patronized so she sent back the coupons with a note that basically stated that it was too little too late. And that the dealership should have their staff take a course in how to talk to woman in the 21st century.
From: vaughan | Registered: Oct 2004
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nister
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7709
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posted 10 March 2005 12:47 PM
I worked at a VW dealership [office manager]. The way you are treated often reflects corporate attitudes. VW, back then, was often dismissive of North American car buyers in general. In Germany, you bought a Beetle, brought it back for a clutch reseat after 600 miles, and then you were pretty much out of warranty. They made allowances for the North American market by providing a limited warranty, and a grievance system. The salesmen were "preaching to the choir" when dealing with the public; essentially, there was the Beetle, Super Beetle, and Bus. Anyone who visited the dealership usually meant to buy one. Women were a large part of sales because of a savvy PR campaign and because a Beetle cost $1,595. Not a lot of haggle room there. GM salesmen would knock off 5% before they finished introductions. The hard work? Rolling back the next 3%. If you got any deeper into their margins you probably shopped at Xmas. Try to haggle at month's end, year's end. Are women treated poorly? You betcha. The salesmen I knew were immature assholes. Your best defense is to know your stuff.
From: Barrie, On | Registered: Dec 2004
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scooter
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5548
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posted 10 March 2005 01:02 PM
We're also in the market for a car this year. We've visited a VW, Mazda, and Subaru dealership in the 'big' city north of us. We dealt with three old white guys. The VW bulls**t was aimed at both of us. It was not sexist, just outrageous at how much servicing was going to cost. The other two salesmen were great. Both spent time trying to find out what my partner (female) wanted in a car, what I wanted in a car, and what 'we' wanted in car. Both wanted us to understand not only the price of the car but how much it was going to cost to maintain the car. We still have a few more dealerships to visit in the next few months.
From: High River | Registered: Apr 2004
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HeywoodFloyd
token right-wing mascot
Babbler # 4226
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posted 10 March 2005 01:31 PM
quote:
Originally posted by sillygoil:
Glad to know I am not alone.  One thing that helped me negotiate my car deal was to buy the dealer invoice online. If you want the link I can post it here.
I would like to see it.
From: Edmonton: This place sucks | Registered: Jun 2003
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nister
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7709
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posted 10 March 2005 05:58 PM
The Bump: Salesman senses mark has been shopping around for awhile, is tense and defensive. Gives mark the "buddy treatment", like slipping him/her the wholesale, and gets them to sign an offer at a ridiculous price point. Mark knows it takes two signatures, so nothing ventured... salesman has no intention of honoring contract, although sales manager signs it. "Congrats!" Tension drains, shoulders drops, mark pats himself on back, and bonds with car. Salesman pulls the rug out; sorry, sir, you can have the car for $700-900 more. Mark gives in.
From: Barrie, On | Registered: Dec 2004
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smokingeatingdrinkingprohibited
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7699
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posted 11 March 2005 08:40 AM
I don't think that I am writing this in defence of salespeople - but expressing an explanation. There is of course no good excuse for treating people without respect.Working is sales very often has to do with making a commission. We're in the shop for 20-30 minutes to make a purchase; these people are there 40 hours a week. They probably care about nothing more than making a sale. So, with time at a premium, if I was trying to sell something I would focus my time & attention on the people who walk into the store & who look like they have a lot of dough: the guy in the suit, the 50ish women dressed well. And absolutely NOT the 17-year-old boy in a hip-hop outfit, or the girl who looks like she's 19. It's stupid but I can see where these people are coming from.
From: Glasgee | Registered: Dec 2004
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Américain Égalitaire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7911
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posted 11 March 2005 10:22 AM
No defense of commissioned salespeople from me. If they don't treat everyone with the dignity they deserve than fuck em, they're scum. And in my experience most of them would sell their grandmothers into white slavery for a big commission. If that's your ethos of life, you're welcome to it.Car salesman IMO are the lowest of the low. And that comes from 25 years of experience. Last car purchase, I made it perfectly clear that they had to deal with the house accountant, even though it was to be my car. They were smart enough to take my advice or they would have lost us for sure. Its fun to see her work on them. Nothing frazzles them and we got a good deal on the last of the model year on the lot. They knew we knew what they could do and we knew they HAD to get rid of this car. Homework is always the key to success of buying a new car. But man, if I had the power I would enact several laws that would force wholesale draconian changes on the car retailing industry. They would have to post the actual invoice and markup - no bullshit --- on every car among other things.
From: Chardon, Ohio USA | Registered: Jan 2005
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Rebecca West
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1873
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posted 11 March 2005 01:46 PM
Not that long ago I went to a futon store to buy my youngest's first bed. I was there with Tommy_Paine, whose van got the bed from the store to my house. The sales guy immediately approaches him, and he directs him to me, the bed-buyer. So while I'm telling the somewhat uncomfortable sales guy what I want, Tommy's wandering around the store looking at things, patiently waiting for me to wrap up the transaction.I get to the counter, and the sales guy asks me to call Tommy over to pay for the bed, assuming, despite the fact that I'm clearly the consumer, that because I happen to be in the store with a male person, that the male person will be paying. This sort of scenario is common as dirt, and just serves to re-emphasize to women that, outside of beer commercials and music videos, they're largely invisible. It's like saying to women every day of their lives, "unless you're buying groceries, shoes, or weight-loss products, you're, like, so under my radar it ain't funny." And it's really frustrating, because we've got all this legislation that's supposed to guarantee equity and fair treatment for women, but it's the sum of these little annoying incidents, day in and day out, that really sucks the wind out of us, because of course you can't legislate attitudes, and attitudes are alot harder to change than laws.
From: London , Ontario - homogeneous maximus | Registered: Nov 2001
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The Hegemo
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5176
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posted 11 March 2005 03:41 PM
I bought a car last year. I did ask my father to come along with me, since this is the first car I've bought for myself, and because I thought it might cut down a bit on the trying to screw me over because of my gender stuff.I went to Saturn first, the salesman was very cool, talked to me and not my dad. We test drove the Ion and I liked it, but I felt funny about going for the first model we looked at (long story, but I pretty much could choose between a Toyota Corolla, Saturn Ion, or Ford Focus and that was it), so I said we should go check out the Toyota dealership, as I'd previously had a Corolla for a decade. We got there, they were very busy, when we went up the counter, the guy on duty said we'd have to wait at least half an hour to talk to a salesman, and he addressed the conversation to my dad. We walked out and went back and I got the Saturn. I loved my Corolla for the most part, but I had almost universally bad experiences any time I had to deal with a Toyota dealership for service. Several of them just tried to rip me off so blatantly, I still get angry thinking about it (I will give props to the one good Toyota dealership I dealt with -- Gateway Toyota in Kingston). I don't know for certain it was because of my gender, but those experiences combined with the Toyota salesman last year talking to my father instead of me really sealed it for me as far as Toyota's concerned.
From: The Persistent Vegetative States of America | Registered: Mar 2004
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smokingeatingdrinkingprohibited
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7699
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posted 13 March 2005 02:54 PM
The info in this thread must be worth it's weight in gold to any corporation's research dept. There's that old story that for every letter a company's complaint dept. recieves they treat it like 40-50 letters, because that's at least the number of people who felt the same way but didn't bother writing in. With competition at an all time high, where everyone's fighting for your business, you figure they'd take stuff like this into acc't. Also, makes me wonder what the hell kind of education system/society we have when salesMEN still treat women this way. (Being of a visible minority, now I know why my Dad insists on putting on a tie when he's running errands like this. Or, why people patronize shops of owned by individuals of the same ethnicity. What a Fu*%ed up situation). 
From: Glasgee | Registered: Dec 2004
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Boom Boom
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7791
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posted 13 March 2005 03:29 PM
Over 35+ years I've brought vehicles from BMC (Austin Mini Cooper, from British Motor Corporation, before they went out of business in Canada), Toyota (Tercel and truck) Honda (CRX Si), Ford (Escort wagon), and now Mazda (B3000 truck). Never a problem with any one of them. But you really have to know exactly what model and colour you want, exactly what options, and a range that you're prepared to pay, and be prepared to walk if you don't get what you want. Before I brought my Mazda last year, I went to every truck dealer in Sept-Iles, was treated rudely especially by the Ford dealer (they said they had a waiting list of customers for their trucks, Sept-Iles is a real truck town), the Chevy and GMC dealers wouldn't budge on prices, the Toyotas were just too expensive to begin with, the Mazda guy actually went under the figures I went to him with, and he was an okay guy to boot, and I got an automatic for the same price as the standard shift. The 2005's were unloading in the parking lot, so I guess that helped me get a deal on a 2004.
From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004
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