The salesperson called me back with an acceptable number, and I bought the car. Essentially it was an ultimatum game and I accepted the offer. I think that the salesperson was afraid of losing the sale, and acted accordingly.
I cannot tell you if I actually got an especially good deal, but I would guess I got a better deal than I would have otherwise, because I’d have been far less likely to walk out on an offer once I’d gone to the trouble of starting paperwork at the dealership—and they knew it.
[Edited to add: I do not think this would have worked as a cold approach; in this situation, I’d actually visited the dealership twice and test driven different cars with the salesperson, so he had a sunk cost involved. He also knew I was annoyed by games and on one of my visits I walked out when the manager started quoting higher prices than what the salesperson had told me, and which were in fact higher than the nationally advertised price for the car! So, I would guess sunk cost + hungry salesperson (and he did seem hungry for the sale) + established propensity for walking out = much better odds of this working than in any other scenario. Based on my interaction with the price-gouging manager, I am certain he would have rejected my approach out-of-hand if I had been contacting the dealership “cold”. Either that, or he’d have simply told me whatever I wanted to hear in order to get me in the door so that pressure could be applied.]
Given the situation, I wonder if you would have had any success saying ok to the number the salesperson called back with and then returning with nothing but a check for less than that amount. How much lower could you have gotten away with?
How’d they react? Did it work?
The salesperson called me back with an acceptable number, and I bought the car. Essentially it was an ultimatum game and I accepted the offer. I think that the salesperson was afraid of losing the sale, and acted accordingly.
I cannot tell you if I actually got an especially good deal, but I would guess I got a better deal than I would have otherwise, because I’d have been far less likely to walk out on an offer once I’d gone to the trouble of starting paperwork at the dealership—and they knew it.
[Edited to add: I do not think this would have worked as a cold approach; in this situation, I’d actually visited the dealership twice and test driven different cars with the salesperson, so he had a sunk cost involved. He also knew I was annoyed by games and on one of my visits I walked out when the manager started quoting higher prices than what the salesperson had told me, and which were in fact higher than the nationally advertised price for the car! So, I would guess sunk cost + hungry salesperson (and he did seem hungry for the sale) + established propensity for walking out = much better odds of this working than in any other scenario. Based on my interaction with the price-gouging manager, I am certain he would have rejected my approach out-of-hand if I had been contacting the dealership “cold”. Either that, or he’d have simply told me whatever I wanted to hear in order to get me in the door so that pressure could be applied.]
Given the situation, I wonder if you would have had any success saying ok to the number the salesperson called back with and then returning with nothing but a check for less than that amount. How much lower could you have gotten away with?
I’d like to see a Tales from a Rationalist Car Dealership story come out of this...