consumerist.com — Former used car salesman Alan Slone grows a conscience and reveals one of the major strategies dealership use to screw you when buying a new car. At the heart of it all is the "4-square." This is supposed to help you and the dealership come to an agreement, but as you'll see, it's really more akin to three-card monte dealer's deck of cards.
Mar 30, 2007 View in Crawl 4
wbeavisMar 30, 2007
Shiv the first salesman you see. The rest will respect you after that./or is that prison?
fishtrackerMar 31, 2007
Dang! I took 12 thumbs down for my response. You folks are brutal! LOLCar talk sure makes people emotional...............I guess we'll need to discuss the West Coast Liner system next.
yacksMar 31, 2007
This is a fun discussion. In the end, it all comes down to this.. Pay what you want to pay for it.. If they can't give you the price you want to pay for it, walk out. I worked in car sales for 3 months myself and I can tell you that some buyers are as crazy as dealers as well. Buyers do expect way too much at times.. Like buying a $30k car with no money down/no trade and have a car payment around $300.. which just will not happen even if you got 0% apr.. but if you go in there and only leave with what you want at the price you want to pay then you are fine. If you leave with something you dont want at a price you didn't want to pay then you got ripped off and is more your fault then anything. Learn to walk away.. But in the end these people do need to feed their families and if they feel you are not going to buy, then don't feel bad when they walk away from you for someone else that will.. but there is a reason I left the car busines.. didnt like the negoiation portion because I had nothing to do with it and the money wasn't there.. even for the top person there didn't pull in much.. but then it could be the dealership.. *gasp*
catbellerMar 31, 2007
The numbers on those websites have been played by auto dealers in the last few years, so the old download the invoice trick doesn't work anymore, sadly.
autosavantMar 31, 2007
Four-square has been around a long time - I know, because it was in use 30 years ago when I first worked at a car dealership. It had been in use there for sometime before I got there, so no telling just how old four-square is, really. It's worth pointing out that four-square is mostly used at big dealerships where the salespeople turn over at a high rate. Since most of these people are inexperienced, they're not allowed to do their own deals, they have to "desk" each deal; that is, as the article points out, you're really negotiating with the sales manager, who is not inexperienced, and could be negotiating as many as 9 or 10 deals simultaneously. Sort of like the chess grandmaster who plays 10 people at a time.Four-square is but one of the sales systems used in the retail auto business, and there are dozens. If you have an experienced salesperson, he/she will mix and match those systems to tailor the best approach for selling you a car, AND, will run his/her own deal as well. I mention this because I think it is false confidence on the part of the buyer to think they know how a dealership works once they're aware of the four-square system. There's plenty more where that came from, and many of the other sales systems are more sophisticated in their approach.So, you might be thinking to yourself, "Well, it sounds like I need to avoid the experienced car salesman, then". Although logical, that would be wrong. The experienced salesperson knows every trick, but also comes to know you and what your limits are. The sales manager doing the deal from afar knows every trick and doesn't know you at all - he's relying on input from the inexperienced salesperson about you, which is almost always wrong. The transaction will not cost you any less with the experienced salesperson as opposed to the deal getting desked through the sales manager, but it will be more a lot more pleasant and be of much, much shorter duration. The sales manager trusts what the experienced salesperson says and does, and therefore lets him run the deal himself with very little (if any) interference.Of course, getting an experienced salesperson to do your deal is easier said than done - the NADA (National Auto Dealers Association) says the average car dealership in the United States has a 90% turnover rate in their sales staff every 12 months. Salespeople come and go very quickly at a lot of dealerships, especially the big mass-market brands - Toyota, Nissan, Ford, GM, etc.And while I'm thinking about it, the article mentioned the NADA book and how dealers don't use it for determine used car values. This is flat-out wrong. Dealers don't use the NADA book that you can buy as a consumer, they use the the version printed for the trade, which has wholesale (loan) and retail values, unlike the version you can buy at Borders or Barnes and Noble. I have one on my desk and I'm looking at it right now because I'm doing the values for April used cars that we post on the Autosavant.net site - I've been getting it in the mail every month for over 20 years. Most used car managers, who are the people that put an ACV (Actual Cash Value) on the trade when it is appraised walk around with both an NADA book AND a Black Book stuck in their pocket so that they can come to some sort of "blended" wholesale value on the car by consulting both books. But most dealers rely mostly on the NADA wholesale book values, with Black Book thrown in as a control factor.And very few dealerships in the United States uses Kelly Blue Book, and the ones that do are all on the West Coast - the only ones that do are in the areas in and around CA.I would have to write "War and Peace" to tell you how to succeed in every situation concerning buying a car from a dealer, and that's not going to happen in this format, so hopefully you got something of value from what I've written and can leverage some it when you go to a dealer in the future.How do I know any of this? I have managed a: VW-Peugeot-Subaru dealership, Nissan-Saab dealership, Porsche-Audi dealership, Honda dealership, Chevrolet-Pontiac-GMC dealership, and a Jaguar-Volvo-VW dealership. I have been in charge of the indirect lending units at a couple of large banks, where we had as many as a million vehicles in our lease and loan portfolio, and over 2000 automobile dealers as customers (the ones whose F&I managers sent us loan applications every day). I still work as a consultant intermittently to the auto industry and the auto lenders currently. I have been around dealers, lenders, and the manufacturers for almost 30 years. I run the Autosavant.net blog as my avocation, not my vocation.
jamesvaughnMar 31, 2007
Every industry where sales is involved has some kind of model like this. Funny, effective stuff.
alabamawandererMay 6, 2007
Impossible! Who's able to open the link?
yakizzMay 21, 2007
Dugg that. Wow, these are cool!
mrventSep 5, 2007
Man this is cool... can't wait to try this tips... Because the last time i got ripped off by my dealer was when I had my annual volkswagen car parts - <a class="user" href="http://www.aftermarketperformanceparts.com/vw-aftermarket-parts.html">http://www.aftermarketperformanceparts.com/vw-aftermarket-parts.html</a> maintenance and when I first bought my Jetta... Thanks guys...
oseeiqAug 16, 2008
agree with siszam about buying used cars from a private party. could avoid a lot of these hassles. has anyone tried using <a class="user" href="http://www.iseecars.com?">http://www.iseecars.com?</a> can use it to search used cars for sale by private party.
sentaiSep 9, 2008
<a class="user" href="http://www.s67.info">http://www.s67.info</a> nice work man
stopwhiningokMar 4, 2009
AND THE CAR SALESMEN ARE THE BAD GUYS?! BULLS**T
stopwhiningokMar 4, 2009
"The price they charge is higher than what the service is actually worth "...ITS CALLED A PROFIT! LIKE HOW EVERY BUSINESS ON EARTH SURVIVES!"...IDIOT
roknrolltkovrJun 11, 2009
Legit article, its good for everyone to know the inner workings of a dealership. Don't walk into the snake pit unprepared! I also found that <a class="user" href="http://phoenixazwindowtinting.com">http://phoenixazwindowtinting.com</a> has some good info on getting the most for your money.
goodvinboySep 4, 2009
Car dealers play and earn on buyers with "I want it all and want it now" principle very well LOL. It is childish to grab a toy that you like at keep it at any cost, even if the cost is twice as huge as it should really be. Cannot calculate what you really can afford? Too lazy to call to and visit several dealershps and compare? Well, such buyers deserve what they get. No, I'm not backing unfair car dealers, but i'm often surprised at people that don't use brians. Nice to read many good tips and experiences here.