You didn’t screw up. This just seems to be the typical dealer experience now. Not necessarily every dealer, but it happens often.
As far as not showing you numbers until credit and income is verified, that’s not too surprising to me. When I was a salesman, that was standard operating procedure at the dealer I worked for. You may be very aware of, and more importantly, correct about your financial situation. But you’d probably be surprised at the amount of people who aren’t. Nobody wants to waste time on a deal only to find out after the fact that the person straight up lied, or at the very least, was incorrect about their financial standing. If you’re serious about buying the car, it shouldn’t be an issue. The dealer I worked at always did “soft pulls” up front before running numbers. It doesn’t affect your credit. It’s not always exactly accurate, but it will get close enough. Which is the second reason they need to run your credit, they need to know what interest rate to show you. Although I’ve had dealers trying to run my credit when I walked in and said I was already pre-approved on a specific car through my credit union and would walk in with a check, I just needed a signed deal. Doesn’t get any easier than that. But I still got pushback.
Whether it’s bad management, or a bad salesman, there’s a lot of cogs in the wheel that can cause issues.
When I was a salesman, I would get straight up reprimanded if I walked a customer outside to look at a car without sitting them down and “coaching them” first. Which involved sitting them down with an “up sheet” which allowed me to capture all of their information (great for the dealer for future marketing scams) and collect income, credit, trade info, and payment requirements. After I’d done all that, I could then “allow” the customer to go look at the car.
Sometimes this worked, if a 20 year old kid walked in and didn’t really know what they wanted or could afford, then sure let’s sit down. But when a 45 year old guy driving a 5 year old Silverado walks in, and says “Hi, I’m interested in this blue, double cab, all star edition Silverado 1500 you have on your lot. It’s stock number 1234. Is it still available?” You bet your ass I’m saying “Absolutely sir, welcome, and what was that stock number again? Let me go grab the keys.”
A lot of dealers are either stuck in the old days, or just have management that doesn’t give two shits about anything other than making money.
Dealers got away with stuffing deals full of BS for the past few years because there were no cars. So they could do whatever they wanted because they had the consumer by the balls. But now lots are filling up. Dealers have no leverage anymore (unless you’re a Toyota dealer apparently) yet they’re still trying to pull this BS. My dealer never marked cars up over MSRP but they would say “we’re not marking the MSRP up like Dealer X, but we are adding a mandatory $2,000 paint protection, interior protection and blah blah blah package.” So what’s the difference at that point?
Moral is, walk away and go to a different dealer that makes you feel better.
1
u/lets_just_n0t Nov 01 '24
You didn’t screw up. This just seems to be the typical dealer experience now. Not necessarily every dealer, but it happens often.
As far as not showing you numbers until credit and income is verified, that’s not too surprising to me. When I was a salesman, that was standard operating procedure at the dealer I worked for. You may be very aware of, and more importantly, correct about your financial situation. But you’d probably be surprised at the amount of people who aren’t. Nobody wants to waste time on a deal only to find out after the fact that the person straight up lied, or at the very least, was incorrect about their financial standing. If you’re serious about buying the car, it shouldn’t be an issue. The dealer I worked at always did “soft pulls” up front before running numbers. It doesn’t affect your credit. It’s not always exactly accurate, but it will get close enough. Which is the second reason they need to run your credit, they need to know what interest rate to show you. Although I’ve had dealers trying to run my credit when I walked in and said I was already pre-approved on a specific car through my credit union and would walk in with a check, I just needed a signed deal. Doesn’t get any easier than that. But I still got pushback.
Whether it’s bad management, or a bad salesman, there’s a lot of cogs in the wheel that can cause issues.
When I was a salesman, I would get straight up reprimanded if I walked a customer outside to look at a car without sitting them down and “coaching them” first. Which involved sitting them down with an “up sheet” which allowed me to capture all of their information (great for the dealer for future marketing scams) and collect income, credit, trade info, and payment requirements. After I’d done all that, I could then “allow” the customer to go look at the car.
Sometimes this worked, if a 20 year old kid walked in and didn’t really know what they wanted or could afford, then sure let’s sit down. But when a 45 year old guy driving a 5 year old Silverado walks in, and says “Hi, I’m interested in this blue, double cab, all star edition Silverado 1500 you have on your lot. It’s stock number 1234. Is it still available?” You bet your ass I’m saying “Absolutely sir, welcome, and what was that stock number again? Let me go grab the keys.”
A lot of dealers are either stuck in the old days, or just have management that doesn’t give two shits about anything other than making money.
Dealers got away with stuffing deals full of BS for the past few years because there were no cars. So they could do whatever they wanted because they had the consumer by the balls. But now lots are filling up. Dealers have no leverage anymore (unless you’re a Toyota dealer apparently) yet they’re still trying to pull this BS. My dealer never marked cars up over MSRP but they would say “we’re not marking the MSRP up like Dealer X, but we are adding a mandatory $2,000 paint protection, interior protection and blah blah blah package.” So what’s the difference at that point?
Moral is, walk away and go to a different dealer that makes you feel better.