so i visted a chevy dealer and a dodge dealer...
 

i was curious yesterday and had some free time, so i decided to check up on/about the new camaro. I went to Hawthorne Chevrolet. Of course i took the SS there.

I talked to the one salesman, and yes as well all know they are taking orders now, however they dont have any pamphlets or advertisements just yet, once they get something they will be mailing it to me. I told them that im not buying just yet, but will be ordering a 2011 model. I then asked the big question, whats there stance on pricing.. they are only asking sticker, no markup whatsoever. So thats good news for anyone looking for a local north jersey dealer. I am pretty sure paramus chevy will most likely be marking them up, i hate that place. anyways, the guys at hawthorne were very nice and i recommend them to anyone.

now for the dodge experience... on the way home i passed a dealer with 2 challengers and a srt10 viper out front, so i said what the hell... i rolled into the parking lot, caged and barely idling like my SS does, lol, i parked and walked up to the one srt8 challenger, like i know its been said to death, but its huge. The salesman came up and said "nice car right"... i said "eh". lol. he repeated me "eh?" i said "its big" haha. now my friend had a charger R/T and it was impressive for what it was, i even ook it once and found kasey and gave him a ride, i believe he was impressed too. so i then looked at the challenger R/T .. the front seats i like much more than in the srt8, and i checked out the car from all angles. I walked around the whole car, almost needed to rest halfway through... lol, and those mirrors wtf they are the size of footballs, no joke. The trunk... is like 7 feet wide. The car hanestly reminded me of the size of my first car, a 73 dodge coronet( see i am a mopar guy at heart) expect this new car was bigger than my coronet, lol. i asked the salesman about markup.. he said they were getting 20k on the '08 srt8s, but not anymore, 34k for the r/t , and 44k for the srt8. 370hp and 425 respectively. I then looked at the viper and he said, "being in the service you cant afford that with ur salary".. that pissed me off. i then told him i have 3 camaros a vette a dodge ram, a denali and the new sky(which i had to tell him what a sky was). i mentioned my 01 camaro and he's says "they still made them then?" i explained they did and he responds, "oh so the cars are like my eldorado... 2002 last year and 2 door too"... i said "no". haha, Finally, i couldnt resist asking 1/4 mile times.. the salesman said the r/t is 5.7 .... yes, u read that right, i wasnt gonna corretc him till he finally said oh wait thats 0-60, like 10 seconds later. My sky does 0-60 in 5.5 so wtf. lol. anyway, he said the RT does 14 in the 1/4 and (in his exact words) "im not positive on the srt8, but i'd say it closer to 12 or 10." ... With that i had enough and said to have a nice day. i fired up the SS, pulled out fot he parking lot and rolled onto the highway.. and i sure made my presence known as i drove away... even though i dont think bouncing off the 7.2k rev limiter through 1st and 2nd would be called driving... loud and some tiresmoke is an understatment... haha

You mean you made a regular exit .:lol: On a more serious note, you'd think that with a performance car, you would think the salesmen would be prompted to know some performance stats, no?

Ha....Salesman often don't know much about the performance aspects of their cars. I don't remember the specifics of it, but Tim and I had a very funny discussion with a salesman at a Pontiac dealer about a lightly used NHRA edition T/A they had for sale a few years ago.

- Justin

haha i might have to go dodge shopping with my buddy today. he gets a kick out of test drives, i could use a good laugh too.

LOL awesome storry paul

:lol: I wish I was there to see that

What sparks in their mind to say to a potential customer AT ANY point in their discussion with them taht they couldnt afford a car. your trying to sell a car. For all you know they could havea fat stash from a relative passing away, and you wanna buy a sweet car. i cant believe they would say something like that, especially to someone in the service. Paul, you were in the right to give him a swift kick in the nuts.

My friend Simon went out and test drove a Chevy Cobalt SS supercharged, and he wasent that impressed. the sales woman was like not impressed? He said yeah, the SRT-4's are a little quicker, and better feeling. She says these Cobolts are way faster then those SRT-4's. to which at this time he knew it was complete B/S cause his girlfriend owned a SRT-4, and he drove it periodically. He said thanks for the test drive, and began to walk away. She said wait, you just test drove the car, you dont wanna buy? he was like no. She gave him all this **** about not buying it after test driving it. He just walked away.
I mean hello, isnt that why its called a test drive, to see if your intrested in it?

Asshats. What a dumb ass thing to say, what if you were gonna buy a Viper? People are so retarded.

I guess this happens more often than I thought. My wifes aunt went into a Mercedes Dealer after she went to the Gym, so she wasn't dressed to the nines. She stood around for 10 minutes waiting for someone to help her and then finally walked out. They went elsewhere for there benz.

if i were you i would have choke slammed that guy for saying something like that

i havent seen a challanger yet lol

and you don't want to.

The dodge dealership by my house, dick greenfield dodge, where I bought my charger from has 4 challengers. Nice cars but their too small for me :) I prefer 4 doors

I have, and besides the big brembo brakes, the nice paint color, and power numbers coming from between those fenders, its just like all other dodge cars, unecessarily big, heavy, and overpriced. there's SUV's out there that are lighter then the challenger!!!

I always shop for cars in sweats & t-shirts, I like to see how I'm treated. Unless I'm there to test drive a car I have no intention of buying, then I dress it up a bit.

When I was at Ford, there wasn't a single person at the dealership that knew anything about the Mustangs. And I'm not even talking about the Saleen's and Roush's, I'm talking about the base GT's and even the V6's :lol: Most dealership salesman aren't enthusiasts, they just sell cars cuz it makes them money.

there is no reason for them to know, most people going in have already researched the car.... oh the power of the internet!

That happened to me once. I went to the Audi dealer in Eatontown/Long Branch on Rt. 36, I think it's Shneider Neilsson. I walked in with 15 grand in cash looking to pick up an new S4 and nobody would help me for 15 minutes, they just sat behind their desks and looked at me. So I went to the BMW dealer next door and drove away with a new 330i, making a stop at the Audi dealer to park it out front for a few minutes with the temp tag in the window.

Most dealership sales people are just that, sales people. They don't know dick about the products in front of them, they just try to read, match, and push, people towards a purchase that pads their paycheck.

I hav worked retail sales before without knowing anything about what I was selling, and I sold a lot of stuff. Can you imagine me selling computer software? Well, I did it. How about a guy like me that doesn't even watch TV much less know how they work averaging 6 sales a day, it happened.

You don't need to know anything to sell cars because most people just look at the "2 P's", Price and Pretty. Very few consumers know anything about what they are looking at, especially big mysterious cars. The average person off the street would know more about Voodoo than the car they drive. lol

-Tim

Agreed. I know a lot...probably too much..about the tires I sell.
I tell customers this, and they just go "uh..whatever, how much".

Some customers, ones that tend to actually care, want to hear what they are getting. I just dont understand how people in general can just spend upwards of 500-600 to over a thousand dollars without looking at a product, forget about reasearch, or even want to know what they are getting for that money.
Maybe thats why as a nation we are in the place we are today.

I really wish most salesman would just hand you the keys and let YOU make the decision how nice the vehicle is. Most of these guys should not be in the car business, period.

heh mopar

next time you're in a dealership, ask for a "walk around". he should be able to walk you around any car on the lot and tell you about it (even though some things are the same no matter what the car) and he should climb into the trunk at some point. the final stop is the driver's door, where you tell the person to have a seat and then you close the door on them, continuing to talk as you walk around the passenger side. quiz them about what you just said (with them in the car and the windows up) and they shouldn't be able to repeat a single word you said. then you say, see how quiet the cabin is...

if he can't do the walk around, then he is not a true car salesman.

i always volunteered for training classes whenever they came up. sure, it was time off the floor and by extension money out of my pocket, but i found the info i was able to pick up made me better than the rest of the lot apes, and therefore able to make more profit per car. anyone can say, here, drive it. want to buy? giving a thorough presentation and actually building value in the car made my paychecks fatter than the others who sold more units than i did.

this knowledge also allowed me to sell computers, believe it or not. i just used the same approach, although obviously there was no where to walk, you still "walked" them around the computer and its peripherals.

you have to know what you are selling in order to make a proper presentation of the product.