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aliens8443

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
So, when i first went to look at the compass at the dealer, about a month ago, this salesman comes up to me asking me if i was interested (typical) and he was really hyping up the car, telling me that it was the limited ("the best one we carry"), blah, blah, blah. anyways, i told him that my wife drives a liberty and that because of the gas mileage we had thought about maybe trading it in (partially true, but mainly just trying to make conversation). so, he agrees, and all of a sudden he says, "man, that's a funny story, because just earlier today this lady came in driving a liberty and i convinced her that the liberty sucks, and so she traded it in for a compass ... you should do that!" so, i just laughed it off, and left.

i just don't understand how some people get hired, i mean, i knew more about the car than the man selling it.

anyone else have any funny stories?
 
#2 ·
I think the funniest story of me at a dealership was this past spring looking at a 2001 Cherokee (well, it really isn't funny -- but it was to me).

I drove my 93 Grand Cherokee there. Told the guy that I love my 93 ZJ with 170k miles on it and that I drove a 92 Cherokee through most of college and got rid of it at around 165k -- and loved it. So he kept telling me about the legendary I6 in the Cherokee's -- as if I didn't know crap about it. He kept telling me that "those engines will last forever" -- as if I didn't already know this considering the mileage on my last two Jeeps. He also kept telling me how good it is to lug around stuff -- as if I didn't already know that seeing as I've driven a Cherokee/Grand Cherokee ever since I started driving. He also told me a bunch of stuff that made me want to smack him in the face. Maybe it's because I'm only 24 and was really trying to "sell" me the car, but wouldn't it be obvious to anyone else that I obviously know what to expect from a Cherokee?

It's pretty interesting how most salesmen don't "understand". Maybe it's because Jeeps are their job, and Jeeps are my "hobby" -- but it definitely is frustrating dealing with salesmen.
 
#3 ·
I have a funny salesman story; - he asked me if I'd prefer to upgrade to the optional 6-cylinder engine in the Patriot. I informed him that, to date, "no such animal" exists, and he argued with me. We even recited passages from the brochure together, clearly showing the engine options. He THEN informed me that he was "in the know" of confidential information pertaining to future options/upgrades on the Compass/Patriots; - I assured him that his "secret" was safe with me! WHY don't I have any faith in this salesperson?
 
#4 ·
Mines not funny but I'll tell you all of how my sister wound up in her Compass because it is a great story.

You see, it all started a few months ago back in 2006. My sister had just been accepted to attend her Corrections Officer training in the fall and thought that she'd run right down to the Ford dealer and buy a reliable vehicle to transport herself to and from work. Since my family used to be "all Ford" she thought it was the logical choice for a car. She had just finished college this past summer with a degree relating to corrections (don't ask me which one.) At the Ford dealer she test drove a Fusion and thought it was the right car for her and then started working out the details to make a purchase. Ford at first said they needed a letter from the state indicating that she'd been hired before they'd talk to her. OK she said and returned in a few hours, letter in hand.

Next the finace manager at the Ford dealership said that wasn't good enough and then needed to see a real paycheck stub to begin looking for a bank to finace her through. So after waiting for her first paycheck [4 weeks] she went back to the dealer with her stub in hand to talk to the salesman & finance manager again about getting herself into that Ford Fusion.

Well at this point almost 6 weeks had gone by due to the wait time for a real check and such from training; and the dealer man looks her straight in the eyes and say's we won't be able to finance you because you are just starting out and have no down payment.

Heatbroken my sister calls me up no latter than 5 minutes after the dreams of her first real car purchase were shattered explaining to me the ordeal. After a little time I had her calmed down and then searching some places online for "bad credit" financing when Capital One came to her rescue with a preapproval for $22K dollars and in less than 1 hour after she left the Ford dealership who told her they couldn't help her at all. With her spending limit in place I steered her to the Chrysler dealership since I used to work as an Engineer in Auburn Hills.

While she was in-route to a Chrysler dealer, I caledl some old co-worker buddies of mine back at Auburn Hills to get a PIN number for the friends / family plan so that I could help my sister get into a comperable vehicle (the 2007 Chrysler Sebring) for less. I instructed my sister what to do at Chrysler dealer and inform them of her PIN. The only problem was that appearently the Chrysler dealers have decided not to accept any discounts on the Sebring, even from people with connections! Now she was really crushed because that, to her, was strike two in her quest for a new vehicle. But then I told her to go test drive the Compass as it was sort of sedan like - but only in Jeep form... And from the minute she saw it she was in love. She test drove the Compass and signed for the car almost on the spot! The dealer even cut her a nice package deal on a fully loaded Black Sport that she has been driving now for the last 4 months.

Gotta love the Compass!
 
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#6 ·
My first look at a Patriot

This is probably only really funny to me but,

The first day I went looking for a patriot I went to the closest dealer, he offered to order the Pat and sell it to me at invoice and give me a fair trade on my car, tempting but I had never seen the Patriot in person so I traveled to the next closest dealer who had a Patriot to test drive and thought if I liked the car I could probably get the same deal from him. Test drove it, loved the car, hated the transmission but I figured if I got a manual it would be the car for me. I told that to the salesman who looked up one with the "options I wanted" and came to tell me about. He asked "is that something you might be interested in?" and I said, "yeah I would like to take a look at it" about five minutes later he came back with a credit check that he said he needed to bring the car here which I signed thinking, yeah I would like to know what my credit is anyway, then he handed me a pink sheet of paper and said "alright I just need your signature there" I look down at the sheet and it was a bill of sale! I didn't know anything about the car or the options it had, he hadn't even written the price down! I informed him I was not about to buy a car four states away but thanks for the offer! I actually went back to him to order my Patriot about a week later because I heard they had the best service department in the area and I ended up ordering almost the same car but paying about 4k less! Lesson learned, always read the paper before you sign it and also, car salesmen are crazy.
 
#8 ·
The search for khaki

On Monday, 3/26 someone mentioned the new Jeep to me. I looked it up on line and decided right then that I wanted one.

Tuesday I went into the dealership and spent about 25 minutes with a nice salesman who took a lot of info from me, including my keys to my trade-in. I got the distinct impression that he had very shallow loyalty, and whatever he was hocking at the time was "best" and everything else was crud. Nice guy, but the epitome of the salesman-hooker.

Anyway, I went home to ponder, and returned to the dealership on Thursday, knowing that we would have to pull a khaki Patriot off another dealer's lot since these guys didn't have one.

Guess what - No one hadever heard of my salesman, even when I showed them his printed business card. His license wasn't posted either, nor were we able to identify him by looking him up in the customer info file, since he hadn;t bothered to post my info. Odd.... (I ultimately found out that the sales manager was teaching him a lesson - because he hadn't followed procedure and entered me in the system, he didn't get me as a customer!) Throughout it all, the sales manager FORGOT to offer me the assistance of another sales person!

Well, (I'm not kidding) I stood in the showroom and said out loud "Is there anyone here who would like to sell me a Patriot today?" I ended up with a
retired arine who I would recommend to everyone - very competent and thorough. I bought a khaki 4x2 off another dealer's lot, which was to be delivered Friday.

Friday I got a call at 11:00 AM - apparently, while they were driving my Pat to my dealer's they SEVERLY damaged it in an accident. (Imagine all those rubberneckers driving by looking at my poor crushed Jeep and saying "Is that the new Patriot?" Not to worrk, there wan another khaki Pat in 1000 Oaks, 100 miles north of San Diego where I live. Unfortunately, that dealership had sold the car 3 days prior, and had failed to update their inventory lists. (Maybe because they wanted to keep the foot traffic coming...?)

The ONLY other khaki Pat IN ALL OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA was in the San Francisco area, and that dealer didn't want to trade it off.

So now, I've got my trade-in back, I've custom-orderedmy khaki Patriot, and I wait with a pout on my face. It's nice knowing that I'll eventually have a vehicle and in a color that is rare and worth fighting for.

Oh by the way, I traded in a 2004 Scion Xa with 50K miles. Total out-the-door sticker on my Patriot Limited 4x2 with driver's convienance pkg, sunroof, U-Connect, Sirrus and 6-disc was just over $26K, so FDII and some small dealer-installed options would hit $30K, easilly....
 
#9 ·
The "accident while it was on its way" typical dealer story. They lied. It happened to me years ago at the sleaziest toyota dealer in NJ. I put $500 down on a new car on Tuesday, when I came back on Thursday with the family in tow to drive home in their 'new car' they told me it was damaged in an accident on the way back from the prep facility. They had sold it to someone else........
 
#10 · (Edited)
aliens8443

You said - " i just don't understand how some people get hired, i mean, i knew more about the car than the man selling it."

I agree with you 100%

When I went to look at my Patriot my salesman asked if I wanted it in a 2 door or 4 door. Of course I joked with him and said that if he can get me a 2 door I'll pay cash right now. Then while I was test driving it he said - "that 6 cylinder is really nice huh?" I felt bad for him and just pretended I didn't hear him. I later explained the 4-wheel drive system to him. I'm not a know-it-all or anything. I just read up on it. By the end of the day - I bought the car. But they should have given me the commission.
 
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#11 ·
Audi off road

aliens8443 said:
So, when i first went to look at the compass at the dealer, about a month ago, this salesman comes up to me asking me if i was interested (typical) and he was really hyping up the car, telling me that it was the limited ("the best one we carry"), blah, blah, blah. anyways, i told him that my wife drives a liberty and that because of the gas mileage we had thought about maybe trading it in (partially true, but mainly just trying to make conversation). so, he agrees, and all of a sudden he says, "man, that's a funny story, because just earlier today this lady came in driving a liberty and i convinced her that the liberty sucks, and so she traded it in for a compass ... you should do that!" so, i just laughed it off, and left.

i just don't understand how some people get hired, i mean, i knew more about the car than the man selling it.

anyone else have any funny stories?
Click to expand...

few years ago,
when mys sister was looking for another car (she has always driven jeeps)
she decided to look at an audi A4,
salesman was going off on audi AWD system,
showing pics of an audi on grass, stating how its more capable than a jeep,
we just laughed,
needless to say sis ended up with a liberty.
 
#12 · (Edited)
Okay, its the service side not sales, but how about:
"we need to remove your headliner to take off your production roof rack because we don't know where the bolts are". Thankfully, I have this list - both for the thread/pictures on removing the rack and the parts list that clearly shows the bolts on the side rails and their location!! I had the service manager pull up the service record for it and then told him how I did it instead (imagine his expression!). I got 3 free oil changes out of it, but don't really trust the service there to do much else if they can't read (or bother to check) (or worse, want to get some extra $$)...Especially since I tried to hint to the service guys how to do it (didn' t want to tell them I had the parts list or that I had researched it, they tend to get their panties in a bunch when you do stuff like that...)
 
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#14 ·
I like your fiance, she has class! That'll keep them on their toes!:smiley_thumbs_up:
 
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#15 ·
Yeah, well my salesman had not even heard of the Trail Rated versions! I had to explain it to him as he was so confident that only Wranglers had those Trail Rated capabilities.
 
#16 · (Edited)
My story is almost funny if it weren't so pathetic.
I decided to trade my Ram 1500 quad cab in because of how the hemi had this irresistible urge to stop at every gas station I passed (wound up selling it cuz the dealer wanted to give me 7k for a 22k truck, I got 18,700 for it). I was looking at the dodge caliber on the dealer lot when I notice the Patriot towards the back of the lot.
I instantly liked it. I have always loved jeeps and have owned a 91 yj, two tj's and two 1954 M38A1's. But back to the story, I had pretty specific items I wanted on the patriot and the dealer could not find one that I wanted in his inventory and after giving up on convincing me that I wanted what they had on hand he said he would do a search of all his stores (Lithia is a chain dealership of about 27 stores) and that I should come in the next day. Well I come in and he tells me he hasn't done the search so I wait 20 min while they look. No luck. So he brings me a sheet of paper that has a patriot's specs that has one or two of the things I wanted and I said no thanks. This happens one more time, the part of coming in and him not having done the research.... By this time I was losing patience with this salesman and dealer. I told them I would just like to order one and they tell me they don't want to use up one of their 4 allocations per month for the patriot on me because I wasn't willing to pay the sticker (dealers get a monthly allocation on the cars they can order so its fair to all dealers), they said they had tons of people lining up to buy the patriot and were selling them at msrp.
Now get this, I tell them I am going to another dealer and the next day I get a call stating that the 2008s can't be ordered (the date was Aug 16th) I told them that people on this site were already driving 08's and he sort of stuttered and stammered. Freaking IDIOT!!
Well I am ordering (today I hope) one through a dealer a couple of hours away for INVOICE!
My only problem is that the jeep dealer is the only one within and hour of me so I will have to deal with the service dept. Thankfully I have dealt with them for my Ram and they seem pretty good but I hate the thought of giving Lithia any money...

Ps. A few days after telling me that 08’s couldn’t be ordered 4 showed up on their lot! That is one heck of a turn around from the factory. They must have ordered them one day, the factory built them the next day, and they were delivered on the third day!!! When I get mine I am going to drive on the lot and show my new patriot to the dummy. I am seriously thinking about complaining to Chrysler about how I was out right lied to. They are a 5 star dealer and I know complaints are taken seriously when ratings are considered. What do you guys think?
 
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#17 ·
Definitely call to log the complaint, but don't expect much. Some of the people are really helpful and take your complaint (or so I hear from the jeepline people that were helpful), but the guy I had didn't want to hear anything. 1) Service charge to remove my rack - i said was excessive and unnecessary - he said was up to dealer how they wanted to do a service, chrysler has no say how much they charge or what manner they do the service. 2) i asked what the point was of having 5 star labels (that this dealer has) he says they are a franchise and the ratings show the better dealers (i'd hate to see the worse, but I am not convinced that it holds water)
 
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#18 ·
newjeepgirl said:
...he said was up to dealer how they wanted to do a service, chrysler has no say how much they charge or what manner they do the service.
Click to expand...
Chrysler has an "approved" charge sheet for nearly all jobs. That way they don't get ripped off by dealers on warranty repairs and dealers also use it to quote repair estimates. Thats why it costs about a 60 bucks to take 30 seconds to program a new key (not counting the price of the key), they have a book that tells them what to charge. Some dealers will cut you a break but not many will. The person you spoke to was either ignorant or was blowing smoke...
 
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#19 ·
Dmentd_Dan said:
Chrysler has an "approved" charge sheet for nearly all jobs. That way they don't get ripped off by dealers on warranty repairs and dealers also use it to quote repair estimates. Thats why it costs about a 60 bucks to take 30 seconds to program a new key (not counting the price of the key), they have a book that tells them what to charge. Some dealers will cut you a break but not many will. The person you spoke to was either ignorant or was blowing smoke...
Click to expand...
Thanks, all the other companies we have dealt with have been like you say so I wasn't sure if it was a Chrysler thing or that guy was just an idiot. Hopefully anyone else that files a complaint doesn't get that guy, sorry I don't remember his name...
 
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#20 ·
I've got a new funny story for ya. We were sitting in our living room and heard a crash outside. Sounded like a car accident, so we ran outside and discovered...

Our mail box was missing! Just a bunch of letters laying on our front lawn. We have a PVC style mailbox that slips over a wood 4x4 post sunk into the ground and all that was left was the post! I ran to the lane and looked up the street to see a familiar color blue vehicle pulled up in the road ahead with the driver looking over his car. I yelled to him and pointed to my yard, and he drove back. He was driving a new 2007 Jeep Compass in Marine Blue. We found the mail box lying some distance away, and he offered to take me to the hardware store to replace it. He had looked down as he passed by and drifted to the right, whacking our mailbox and putting a slight dent in his right front fender! We drove to the hardware store and I enjoyed the demonstration drive as I have a 2008 Jeep Patriot on order and was interested in how the Compass rode. Well, the store was out of our model mailbox and he gave me the cash for it, $56. We drove back and it was an enjoyable ride as I compared the dash with the Patriot. When we got back I discovered that other than being knocked off the post the mailbox had withstood the bash pretty well, so I was able to remount it and I gave him his money back. It was fun taking a ride in the Compass, though.:D
 
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Dmentd_Dan
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