Have I Got a Deal for YOU!

Say "car shopping" to some people, and they groan and climb back under the covers where it's safe. "Call me when it's over!" is their battle cry.

For these people, car-buying is a long, drawn-out, dissatisfying process that leaves them financially, emotionally and physically drained. Frankly, it's a lot like a colonoscopy, without the entertaining flatulence.

For some of us, though, car-buying is an invigorating process, complete with hours of research and preparation. A true car-shopper walks into a dealership prepared for battle. That consumer knows everything about the car - list price, invoice price, what the manufacturer is giving the dealer as a sales incentive, what residual rates are, what the money factors are, etc. He or she is a fair player who tells the salesman exactly what is desired and expected, and then both parties begin the dance.

Today I went off to war, with the family in tow, equipped with reams of knowledge and tactics, and arrived at a dealer who informed us straight away that they have a strict "no haggle" policy, and they post their best prices on the windshields of the cars in their lot. Receiving that kind of news is like getting ready for a blind date and then finding out the blind date is actually with your sister.

I was crippled with ennui.

We drove the car and liked it, and the salesman insisted on telling us how his dealership is different, how competitive their prices are, and how he doesn't get a "commission" for selling cars, but rather a "volume incentive."

Does anyone actually believe this garbage?

These guys are great at sharing statistics to back-up their claims, too. We were informed that "64% of car shoppers don't like to haggle." My response to that was 78% of all statistics are made up.

What kind of spineless worm walks into a car dealer and accepts the dealer's price at face value?

The goal of a savvy car-buyer should be to leave the dealer with as little profit as he'll accept. In the "haggle free" arena, because the price isn't being tested, the profit is quadrupled. Of course the car dealer doesn't want to haggle; he's making a fortune on every deal by not negotiating. Don't buyers recognize this?

The car salesmen in the haggle-free environment are pretty lackluster, also. They're just "order takers" spewing words off a script. Our saleskid today actually read us his pitch straight off a flip chart.

The first item on the chart was "we value your time." How can they possibly value our time if they're going to wantonly waste it by forcing us to sit through a flip chart presentation?

Several pages later, he got to "payment options," and the chart actually listed "cash." Was that entry really necessary? Are there people out there who are not aware that a purchase can be made with cash? Really??? This just proves what insipid sheep they believe their customers are.

Finally he asked the magical questions: "what do you expect to receive from your trade-in and what kind of payment are you looking for on your new car?" These are ridiculous questions. After all, if I was to be perfectly honest, I'd reply that I want at least double what my vehicle is worth as a trade-in, and I want to remit one, single lonely dollar each month as a payment. For the sake of perpetuating a productive relationship, though, I shared my expectations for a trade-in, based upon statistical facts I'd compiled, and also provided a payment ceiling, again, based upon research and hard-data.

Even though the dealership valued our time, it squandered more than thirty minutes of it to come back to us with answers: the trade-in was $3,000 less than expected, and the monthly payment was $240 more than our ceiling. Apparently, this dealership was not only a "haggle-free" zone, but a "listening-free" zone, as well.

At no time were any actual facts provided to validate their numbers, just more fabricated statistics and dismissive comments about our own data.

We left.

Two hours later, we leased a new car ... from someone else.

Dealership #2 greeted us candidly: "There are eleven days left to the month. I have a quota and things have been slow. If there's a deal to be made, we'll make it."

Armed with the same facts and expectations, we convinced this dealer to offer us a fair value for our trade-in, and we negotiated a sales price that netted them a $500 profit. That's how this stuff is supposed to work!

The mere existence of haggle-free car dealerships proves there's a conspiracy against the spineless segment of our society.

In years past, if one didn't wish to negotiate with a car dealer, he, or she, merely paid the sticker price. Everyone knew the sticker price was an inflated rip-off, so the commonly held contention was anyone who paid list price was a rube.

Somehow, the auto industry marketing wonks have convinced an entire segment of the car buying community that paying a slightly marked-down version of a list price is acceptable. It's as if they're telling these weak-kneed buyers: "Here's a token discount, so you can tell your friends you got a deal and didn't pay list price, even though everyone here at the dealership is going to point and laugh at you when you walk out the front door with your new set of car keys." And people are buying into this!!!

Please, folks, don't encourage car dealers to implement such obscene business tactics. Caving into this behavior will just validate the process, and then more dealers will move in that direction. If that happens, some day, there will be no more haggling at all, and these final bastions of the free market process will die.

Worst of all, without negotiating, there's no need for true sales people, so car show rooms will be filled with pitch-quoting sales drones, instead of slick, competitive, negotiating adversaries. When that happens, the world will start spinning on a different axis - the market for plaid sports jackets will evaporate, and cheap gold jewelry and chest hair will vanish soon thereafter.

Next time, before you venture into that churning caldron known as the dealership salesfloor, ask yourself: "Am I a negotiator, or a spineless jellyfish?" If you're not up to the challenge, don't disgrace the process by succumbing to price fixing. Instead, accept your lot in life, and purchase a used moped on E-Bay (all things considered, you'll probably prefer the "buy it now" option). You may even want to take the next step, and simply take the bus from now on. The roadways are a competitive arena, and if you can't negotiate the price of your car, you're probably not appropriately equipped to negotiate your way through traffic with the rest of us.