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Comment by jakewins | Hacker News Reader

I’ve bought vehicles at both US and EU dealerships; the EU sales process was; they showed me the vehicle I had seen on their website, we drove the car, then we haggled a bit and signed contracts. US sales process was much more akin to how I imagine time share sales scams work - when you think you’re done, the gauntlet of high pressure multiple-rooms-with-increasingly-“senior”-managers has just started.

It took nearly two hours of people telling me I was an idiot for not taking the extended leather steering wheel warranty etc before getting out of there.

Both of these experiences were at official Hyundai dealerships.

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Interesting. I've only bought car in EU (in Mitsubishi dealership in Poland) and it was BY FAR the best customer service I've received in my life. The salesman was thoughtful, listened to me carefully, knew the product well, didn't try to push anything on me. It was pure pleasure. I was kind of sad that one has to spend $15k in order to warrant a customer experience this good.

Hyundai dealership in Norway: Came to check the car in person and to ask couple of questions. Without any pressure dealer asked me if I wanted to take it for a ride. I agreed reluctantly, expecting that he will be joining. Nope, he just handed me the keys and asked to take a picture of my driving license. I loved the experience so much I ended up buying the car on the spot.

> expecting that he will be joining. Nope, he just handed me the keys and asked to take a picture of my driving license

To be fair, this was my experience buying a Subaru in Wyoming. The paperwork was then signed, I pushed back on one or two fee line items, they were removed with apologies and I was offered a beer.

I bought a new subaru in wyoming with a personal check and my address registered to general delivery with a similar experience. I was so surprised they didn’t make me get a cashiers check or verify the check.

I did later get screwed by the dealership when I was tired of doing my own maintenance after having replaced the timing belt on my truck and let the wife take it in for service and they literally replaced every fluid in the vehicle including brake fluid on a 2 year old vehicle, a $900 service.

in my experience almost all dealers take personal checks, they can get the car or money back from you pretty easily if there is a problem with the check

little harder when I had no address, or employer they could look up

In my early 20's, I briefly considered getting a new car, or maybe leasing.

Insurance would have been more than the monthly car payment, and when I expressed that $400/mo wasn't awful, but $1,000/mo for a car was a non-starter, the guy was seriously like "Well, do you want to eat food, or have a car (with lighted cup holders) to get to work?" and "If you can't afford rent, you can sleep in the car!"

That's still one of the dumbest conversations I've ever had.

I’ve bought 4 US cars (not by choice!) in the past 5 years and every single time it’s like your EU experience. 3 of the times I just shut the finance guy down immediately about the warranty crap. I already know the exact car plus options I want and how many other dealerships in the East Coast have them.

Ordering a BMW was an even more pleasant experience and haggling for 6% off was easier than when I did it with my Jeeps.

> I've bought four cars

> I just shut the finance guy down immediately

> Ordering a BMW

These facts paint a pretty obvious picture of why car buying is a much more pleasant experience for you than most: you have experience, you have options, you don't have a lot of patience, and you are willing to loudly signal those things "immediately," leaving no metaphorical door open for a metaphorical foot to slide into.

If someone else is reading this it's worth taking into account when you deal with a higher ticket item than you usually would: in those situations, being polite is a huge disadvantage and a good salesperson will take a mile for every micrometer you give them.

My wife got the BMW and I got 2 Jeep Grand Cherokees. I also helped buy a Toyota. I think the Jeep guy played more games but it was still less than 1 hour from test drive to price agreement.

Ah but you're doing it backwards. Signal that you're a sucker for big insurance packages and they'll lower the price of the vehicle to ensure they get that juicy warranty deal from you. Only then do you change your mind and decide that you don't actually need it.

This doesn’t work because they just go back and change the price to the original higher MSRP.

What you have to do is agree to financing (with no prepayment penalties) in exchange for a discount, and then, before you get the first bill you pay the car off in full.

Isn’t this also a win/win ? The dealer still gets their financing kickback?

Nope if you do it too early they don’t qualify.

No the loan has a set time you have to meet before the dealer can get their kickback. Usually 6 months.

I have only experienced the US version firsthand, but hearing from EU friends, it seems the EU prices are more-or-less set in stone and the haggling potential in the US can get you a better deal if you are savvy and patient (and then say no at every “value-add”).

Of course that comes at the cost of customer experience.

The rule of thumb is that you can get a lot of stuff cheaper in the US, if you know what you're doing.

In Europe discounts are much lower, and prices are a lot more set in stone.

However, the key caveat here is that most people don't know what they're doing.

So in the US 80% of the population is robbed so that the 20% can take advantage.

In Europe everyone gets a worse deal, but it's never going to be super bad.

Pick your poison :-)

I was sitting at a table at a dealership in process of buying a car and overheard this at the table next to me:

"What's the best price you can give me?"

"Sir, we advertise our lowest prices up front so you don't have any pressure to haggle."

"You can do better than that price."

"... Let me see what I can do."

I believe he got a grand knocked off when it was all said and done.

There are 2 types of dealers in the US. Lowest price advertised volume dealers who will never give you the advertised prices because you’d have to be a Veteran/new College grad/AARP member and use their shitty financing just to qualify.

The other dealers focus a little more on the experience and will haggle a bit with you. They usually don’t use high pressure tactics but won’t give you the lowest price.

I called 15 dealerships asking about their best price out the door "RIGHT NOW" for specific VIN numbers they had on the lot and only had to yell at one salesperson. Once I got dollar figures, at each generation of the binary search I would call and ask if they could beat the lowest price of the prior generation. In the end I paid well under MSRP for that particular trim level and model.

I wish I had your patience, but I just don't. I find the entire process so insulting to my time and intelligence that I refuse to participate, especially after spending 6 hours -- 6! -- buying a specific EV in the Bay Area.

I also find the personalities of used car salesmen to be so grating that I'd rather do it all over email.

I did everything over the phone and REFUSED to come in until we had a firm price negotiated

Like the other poster said you can deal completely online/over the phone with the dealers internet sales team. I called around for my wife’s car but they would only come down $500 so we went with the original dealer to avoid wasting time.

> it seems the EU prices are more-or-less set in stone

Haggling is defiantly a thing in the UK you wouldn't buy a car for sticker price.

Prior to 2020 this was true; I think I got around 13% off my last new car. However since the pandemic shortages and with manufacturing delays, there is much less flexibility as the dealerships know the cars are going to sell either way. When I went to test drive a car recently I saw a couple getting a flat denial on any discount even after attempting to haggle.

Maybe they were actors employed by the store to discourage haggling among other customers by providing negative social proof

Those are next level psychological operations

COVID era supply was impacted and demand was high. US car dealers routinely sold cars way above MSRP too.

Car in the UK reminded me of this:

https://m.lingscars.com/

the mobile version isn't as good as the desktop one :)

https://www.lingscars.com/

Totes agree, I thought it was worth a look too, tho

Not to shill, but this is why I buy at Carmax. Prices are as listed, that’s the end of it.

> US sales process was; they showed me the vehicle I had seen on their website, we drove the car, then we haggled a bit and signed contracts. US sales process was much more akin to how I imagine time share sales scams work - when you think you’re done, the gauntlet of high pressure multiple-rooms-with-increasingly-“senior”-managers has just started.

So basically: it's a culture thing. High pressure tactics are entrenched on the sales culture side, and the customer culture has gotten used to tolerating them.

As an aside, IIRC, someone once told me that Japanese makeup is superior to and cheaper than Western makeup, because Japanese customers are picky and won't put up with less.

The concept of dealerships makes some sense to me: an individual retail customer has zero leverage with a mass market manufacturer, but they'll have more leverage with a smaller dealer, and the dealer will have more leverage with the manufacturer because they're buying far more than a single person. Though the actual implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

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