Where Are The Car Salesmen To Avoid?

Don’t let the nightmarish vision of pushy and annoying car salesmen ruin the wonderful experience of buying a new car. There are a few things to keep in mind to spot and avoid bad car salesmen. We can’t blame them all, sometimes the dealership’s sales manager is the one holding the whip and even the best of people will do desperate things to keep their jobs. In most cases bad car salesmen are often the product of bad dealerships. The BuyingAdvice team has developed tips to avoid bad card dealerships.

Before You Go
Like all facets of the car buying experience, doing your homework on car dealerships ahead of time can save a lot of hassle down the road. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to help you identify bad dealerships before you leave your home. DealerRater.com and DealerShipRatings.com both offer user reviews of dealerships, along with discussion forums. Another tip is to see if the Better Business Bureau has any complaints on file about your local dealerships.

When You Arrive
Another way to evaluate dealerships is to ask for their Customer Satisfaction Index scores once you get there. These scores are based on manufacturer-issued customer surveys. The CSI score is not a definitive measure of the dealership’s quality, but it gives you extra information to work with, and lets the car salesman know that you’re in the know.

Beyond these preliminary measures, there are a number of things to watch for when you get to the dealership.

• Lurking Salesmen
  If you see the salesmen outside the dealership ready to charge at you with fierce determination, that’s a sign that they are under a lot of pressure from their superiors. This will in turn make it hard to get honest responses from the salesmen since they will be blinded by the urgency of making a sell.

• Pushy Salesmen
  Don’t forget you are the customer and a salesman is there to serve and help you. If the salesman is pressuring you to make a decision quickly, be frank and warn the salesman that you’ll leave if you are in any way forced to commit before you feel ready to. The salesman is there to help you find the car you need and not just push for a sell.

• Bait and Switch
  A classic tactic of high pressure sales. This can take many forms, such as, “The advertised model isn’t available,” an attempt by the car salesman to switch you to a model you don’t want. Salesmen are trained to sell what’s on the lot, but the dealership can order your specific model from the manufacturer.

• Opportunistic Salesmen
  Salesmen will often try to sell you the car they want to sell and not the car you need. Consumers that enter a dealership without a clear idea of what they are looking for are easily lured into this. If you come well informed to the car dealership this won’t be your case. Write down a list of things and features that are essential for your new car. Make sure the car you are being offered meets most of the features on your essential’s list.

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