Don’t Be Afraid of Car Dealerships

If your parents and grandparents have warned you about the experience they’ve had at car dealerships in the past, you can be thankful those experiences are unique and generational.
In the automotive world you find today, you won’t have to go to the dealer looking for a battle of wits or worry that you have to negotiate a price. There may be a few small dealers that still have some questionable practices, but most of the locations you visit will offer you an experience that will make you feel right at home.

Outdated Practices We’re Thankful Are Gone

The Information Monopoly

Before the days of CarFax and the Internet, car dealers had a virtual monopoly on the information of a vehicle. If you were purchasing a used vehicle, it could be a lemon and then become your headache to deal with. Considering the Lemon Laws in some states, you can see how difficult it might be to find a resolution to buying a car that wasn’t dependable.
Today, we can find nearly everything we want to learn about any car before making the purchase. Your local dealer team knows this and will often help you understand the good and the bad of all models for sale.

The Hard Sell

Previous generations of your family might tell you about visiting car dealerships where salespeople were pushy, giving long speeches about their products, and then pressuring them into a purchase right away. This is known as “the hard sell,” and it’s a terrible tactic. It was often used to capture commissions that would boost the income of the salesperson.
Thankfully, many dealers now pay their staff an hourly wage and forgo the commissions that were once attached to vehicles. This means less pressure on them to push you to buy vehicles. The entire dealership benefits from a sale, not just the one salesperson.

Teaser Pricing

You might still run into some dealers that have teaser pricing to get you in the door. Hopefully, that isn’t the case for most of the locations you visit. This is technically a bait and switch scheme with a “too good to be true” price offered for a vehicle that isn’t available when you visit the dealership location.
In the market we have today, it’s important that dealers offer you a transparent pricing structure, especially when you have easy access to the internet and any number of other dealers with which you could work.

Low-Balling

Have you ever visited a dealership and found a low price for a vehicle but chose to compare to other locations and think it over? When you come back from visiting the other car dealerships, has that price changed for the worse? This is what low-balling is, and it’s not something that should ever happen.
Thankfully, most of the dealers you’ll find want to provide you with an amazing shopping experience. This starts with pricing that is transparent, easy to understand, and unchanging. You’ll be glad to see that the practice of low-balling is another generational item that has become extinct.

A Fake Environment

Some dealers used to have their sales teams randomly move cars around to make it look like they were cycling through the inventory much faster than they were. This created a fake environment of a place that’s full of life and buzzing with sales activity.
Today, most car dealerships focus on offering a team-oriented approach to serving customers and not on how busy their location seems to be. They want to make you the focus of the experience and help you have the new vehicle you want to drive at the right price.

Questionable Testimonials

While car dealerships can’t control what their customers write in online reviews and product testimonials, you should question vague sentences that don’t give you specific information. When a vehicle is advertised as “great for families,” the next few sentences should expand on that idea for you.
Not every salesperson is going to be an expert regarding the vehicles they have on the lot. Because of a team-oriented approach which has become more the norm than in the past, you can expect to have your questions answered with specific information, even if your salesperson doesn’t know how to answer your inquiries.

The Fine Print that’s Damning

Part of the team at your local dealer is the financing team. While most contracts still contain the unpopular “fine print,” you’ll want to ask questions and read this area to make sure you’re only paying what you agree to pay.
Today, much of that fine print contains the legal terms that are covered in the larger print paragraphs above. You should still read this area of your contract and understand every aspect of your deal, but you won’t have to worry about hidden fees in the fine print.

Bait and Switch

There used to be many ways that car dealerships would use this tactic to bring you into the location and then sell you something that’s much more expensive than what you wanted to buy. Sellers focused heavily on your desire to commit to a vehicle they took you out for a test drive in, without much leeway or movement away from that product.
Today, we have online tools, amazing communication options, and dealers that want to ensure your pleasure with the shopping experience and the product you buy. It’s not likely you’re ever going to see a bait and switch technique at a reputable dealership.

Adding Useless Items to Your Vehicle

Almost every new model you see on the lot of car dealerships has some form of dealer-installed add-ons; these are not the useless items that we’re talking about. When you see added pricing for VIN etching or security features, those are the types of items that don’t bring you any benefit.
Many times, the dealer-installed items you see on the vehicles today are added to every model of that vehicle and don’t add much, if anything, to the price. This means you could benefit from some extras that might not have been added when the vehicle left the assembly plant. Just another way your dealer is trying to take care of you.