Date:         Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:52:18 -0400
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject:      Re: Exciting things happening at Van-Again!
In-Reply-To:  <9c07b0c56607.432948d7@gci.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

> Ron, I would disagree with your assessment of this statement. 
>  I know from firsthand experience(20+ years in the auto 
> industry, mostly in dealerships) that automobile sales people 
> often are trained to say that they have a buyer for your 
> vehicle.  When they use this line they are referring to their 
> company's used car purchaser....They do not want to admit
> this to the seller because it may remind them that the dealership
> is in business to make money and will mark up the price when
>  they sell the vehicle


I've never worked for a car dealership, so I must defer to your experience.
My only personal experience has been from a consumer standpoint. On the few
occasions when I have asked a car dealer for a quote on buying my car, of
course they have lowballed me by picking apart any flaws in the car - that I
expect. But they have always been up front that it was THEY who were
offering to buy the car. They have never tried to make me believe that they
were acting as a go-between for a fictional buyer who had already offered a
fictional price and put up a fictional deposit.  From what you are saying, I
guess this sort of ploy is much more common than I realize. Of course that
still does not make it ethical. 

I should reiterate that I am NOT bashing Ken in any way (as I said, I have
the highest regard for him) and know little of PTH themselves. You are
saying that this sort of deception is the norm in the used car business -
not just accepted, but actually encouraged, and even made part of their
training!  So I guess it's the norm that disgusts me. And people wonder why
used car salesmen have such a sleazy reputation!  

Before I turned my hobby into my business and started the Bus Depot, I spent
many years as a buyer and product/sales trainer in the consumer audio
industry. Of course a lot of time was spent teaching salespeople techniques
for upselling, closing sales, winning over buyers who were "on the fence,"
etc. (as well as technical training, of course).  But in that industry (at
least at that time) it was NOT the norm to encourage salespeople to mislead
the customer in any way, or use carefully worded sentences to imply things
that simply weren't true. Contrary to the belief of some, you do not have to
lie to be an good salesperson. But the temptation is there for those who are
ethically challenged to begin with, especially if they work in an
environment where it is tolerated or tacitly encouraged.

I had a similar reaction to an article I recently read in a leading
automotive repair trade magazine. A repair shop owner commented on how he
had diagnosed a troublesome problem on a new customer's car in five minutes
with a few specific steps, while two other shops had spent hours unable to
track it down. You'd think such a report would elicit praise. Quite to the
contrary. The columnist for the trade magazine replied by warning the
mechanic not to diagnose problems (correctly) too quickly when a customer is
looking. He said it makes the job look too easy and does not allow the
mechanic to fully bill for the value of his expertise.  Basically he was
saying that the mechanic should have futzed around under the hood for
another 20 minutes after actually finding the problem (presumably on the
customer's dime, and time) just to make it look good. To reiterate, this is
a major trade magazine's own columnist advocating this behavior, not just
someone writing in!  In the very next issue of the same magazine, another
columnist wrote an article decrying how the auto repair business has an
undeserved reputation among consumers for recommending or billing for
unneeded repairs. Maybe it's because one of their own trade magazines
advocates it!  Go figure!  I fired off a letter to the editor making this
point. Not surprisingly, it wasn't published.

To me, the "everybody does it" explanation, even if accurate, doesn't really
excuse it. (No offense intended to you, Mark. I know you're just reporting
the facts, not responsible for them.)

(Rant mode off... :-)

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  www.busdepot.com
  (215)  234-VWVW

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