The dodgy car place

We loved the WRX, but the kids are getting bigger which made it seem like the car was getting smaller.  In the boot, we could fit the double pram but not really anything else.  Eventually, we want to take the kids camping, which requires a lot of boot space to hold all of the camping gear.  We also don’t want to have to cringe in fear of scratches every time one of the kids reaches out and pretends to draw with one finger on the car.

We checked with a bunch of used car dealers to see what sort of trade in price they’d give us for the WRX.  They were all pretty much the same.  And way less than we could get by selling it privately.

Until we went to the hyper guy from a well known used car lot.  The salesman did his job very well.  I’d spoken to him a few days before, and came back to see if they had anything suitable for us.  Maybe a station wagon.  They had one in the lot for $5,000 more than we wanted to spend, but that didn’t stop him from getting us to look at it.  He got us to test drive it too.

“I don’t want to waste my time or yours,” I told him.  We didn’t want to spend that much.

“When we’re making deals, we like you to have already driven the car so that if the price is the only obstacle, we can try to work something out.”

They were still valuing the WRX, so we had some time to kill anyway.  We drove the car in turns.  One of us had to mind the kids after all.  Lucky for us, they also had a playground there for such an occasion.

We did really like the car.  But it was still over our self imposed budget, and still 3 grand more than we could get the same car (although 2 years older) for elsewhere.

The salesman brought us inside to talk deals with the boss.  Apparently the salesman’s job is just to get us set on a particular car.  Someone else takes over after that.

“We can trade your car in for $27,ooo,” the overly hyper boss told us. 

“No, we can get more privately.” I told him.

“What are you after?  You want a car, and then what are you looking to get back?” He asked us.

“We want a car and $20,000 back.”

“And there is no way you’d take less?”

“NO.”  I told him “We already have another car lined up that we like for $10,000, and then we can sell the WRX privately for at least 30.”  We had just been to another dealer, and we did like an SUV there, and were going to go back if we didn’t get something here.

“Ok, the car and 20,000.  Deal.”  He held out his hand and we shook it.  We were kind of waiting for him to shout gotcha or something like that, but instead, he wrote out the paperwork, and the deal was done.

“You’re really lucky that I’m here today, I gave you retail for your car instead of wholesale, but I want it for myself.  I want to race it.”  He showed us video of him racing on his phone.  He said he was going to repaint it, and put a new engine in.  He said he’d give us tickets to his first race in it. We were ecstatic that our WRX was going to such a good home, to be driven fast and crazily like it’s meant to be.

We drove our new used wagon home with instructions to bring it back after the weekend so they could fix the locks.  Two of them weren’t working.

When I dropped the car back off, they gave me a different one to drive whilst the repairs were being done, and I went on my way.  A few days later, I went back in to pick it up while Aaron was at work.

“Come in and sit down, I want to have a chat with you.” A man I’d never seen before told me when I came back.

I sat down and waited.  He came back a few minutes later.

“There is a problem with your deal.” He told me. “You were given too much money for your trade in.”

“I’ve already signed the paperwork, the deal is done.  I’ve put in my notice of disposal for the WRX, I’ve changed my insurance to the wagon, and I have all of the paperwork to say that the deal is done.”

“You’re not going to work with me on this at all then?”

“No, a deal is a deal.  If I didn’t get that much for the trade in, we wouldn’t have done the deal.  We had another vehicle lined up, and we were going to sell the WRX privately, and the only reason that we didn’t is because Wayne gave us a good deal.”

“Yeah, too good of a deal.”

“I thought he was the boss.  He told us that he was going to have the WRX and that he was going to race it.”

“It’s not his to have, he should have bought it from you privately if he wanted it.  He’s not the boss, he was just the assistant manager. I am the manager. I am the boss.”

“Do you have a copy of this paper?” He held up the paper with all of the car details, the price, the trade in price, and the signatures.

“Yes.”  He looked a bit flustered.

“Do you have the one that goes to the RTA?”

“What does it look like?”

He held up a piece of paper.

“Yep.  I have that one too.”   I could tell I was winning the battle.

“He shouldn’t have made that deal, he gave you too much.” He seemed to be trying a last ditch effort to get more money out of me.

“Well, that’s not my problem, he told us what he told us, we believed him, we made the deal, we signed the paper work, and that is that.  It’s a done deal and it’s legally binding.”

He went back out of the room to make another call.  I could hear him asking what he should do, followed by “so just wish her luck then and thank her very much?”

“You got a very good deal.”

“I know.  That’s why I took it.”  I could tell that he was getting annoyed with me and my stubborn-ness, but I wasn’t about to be bullied by someone over something that is not my fault.  So they wouldn’t make any commission off my WRX.  That’s not my problem, maybe they need to train their deal makers a bit better.  When I was a travel agent, I had to pay for it out of my commission if I made a mistake that cost extra money.  And so I should.  It’s not the customer’s fault.

“Well,  enjoy your new car, I wish you all the best.  Can you at least send a few customers our way to make up for the good deal that you got?”

Seriously? After you tried to bully me and were rude to me? You want me to tell my friends how great you are? Um…no.  I would have.  I was planning to write a post about how fantastic this car dealership is (which shall remain unnamed because the salespeople themselves are very hardworking and do a good job, and it’s not their fault and I don’t want to take sales from them just because their boss is an ass), and how I got such a great deal bla, bla, bla.

And I still would have, if the manager would have sat me down and told me that I got a very good deal that shouldn’t have been done, but instead of trying to get me to pay more money, said congratulations on your new car.

Turns out, the assistant manager made a lot more dodgy deals that day.  The salesman said he won’t be getting any commission from any of his sales all that weekend and the assistant manager won’t be coming back.  I do feel bad for the salesman, as I said, he was very helpful, and it was not his fault.  Why should he have to pay for it?  He wasn’t the deal maker.

As for our cheque for the difference between our car and the one we bought? I’m still waiting for it.  And I’d better be receiving it soon or they certainly haven’t heard the last from me.  Dodgy buggers.

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Copyright 2013 Sheri Thomson