A good friend has been Sales Manager at a Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep dealer for a couple of decades. We've had this conversation before. He reports that with the exception of pickup truck and a few Jeep buyers they don't care much beyond color, sound system and how much per month. As for the sales staff he said the majority of them might as well be peddling gas grills or vinyl siding.
Jeff
Brett_Murphy wrote: Skipping the F&I guy was great.
Though we all hate playing games, you'll do better by making noises all along the way that indicate a healthy back-end deal. If they believe theres going to be a bunch of profit on the loan, the extended warranty, etc, you'll find them extreemly flexible on the car's actual purchase price. Once you've agreed on the value of the car, what you do or don't sign up for in the f&i office is up to you 
Automatic transmission? Yeah I guess we could special order one.....
I sold lexus and subaru for a six month stint in 2001, between 'real' jobs.
I enjoyed parts of it and quickly became a top salesperson. The competition (other salespeople) is not strong.
I dislike lexus cars however did see the quality and value that non-car people enjoyed, and simply listened to what people wanted and steered them.
I would frequently suggest other makes that should be considered to the surprise of many.
Honesty and non-slippery tactics quickly result in referrals.
The best (and worst) part- the trades. So much comes in for cheap- and the used car manager would sell anything to you that needed to go to auction for a deal.
The other nice thing was taking cars home. I had a 2000 M5 for a weekend- a audi TT in the summer, and many other fun cars to borrow.
"You want leather, sunroof, and power everything, and top of the line tunes? Do you like going slow???"
Knurled wrote: It's long been my opinion that the best salesmen know as little as possible about what they are selling. All that matters is confidence and personability. Knowing details about the product being sold tends to cloud that.
Any sales guy with that mentality where I work would easily wipe out the profit on the sales he made by clogging the tech support department with complaints that they'd been sold the wrong system and they couldn't get it working. If he could get past the "Why should I buy your product over a Haltech (AEM, Holley, etc)?". If you don't know enough about your product, you're not capable of comprehending the customer's needs.
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