I couldn’t care less about personal interaction with sleazy salesman and when buying new car I just need the right price, not the sales dance done in person and all this “let me talk to the manager” BS.
When salesman quotes me MSRP on my answer on the best deal - this is conversation over.
When they stop treating customers like idiots they’ll get more business and more sales.
The dance is extremely annoying, though. I've leased 4 cars since 2011: 3 Mercedes and 1 Honda CR-V. I wanted to lease another CR-V, but the dealership reneged on the price so we just went back to our trusty sales rep at the Mercedes dealership who always comes back with something reasonable in a matter of hours--not especially low, but no B.S. and no pressure tactics. The Mercedes is of course more expensive, but after splurging the first time it's hard to stop the cycle given the customer experience.
I want to buy something to replace our 20-year-old Civic. Probably not a Mercedes, because of long-term costs, unless we buy over our current lease. But it's really no fun dealing with typical dealerships, and the good family cars (e.g. Telluride, CR-V, etc) are really popular and the dealerships know this.
I recently learned that there's a boutique car shopping consulting industry where you pay a few hundred dollars for someone to provide advice on models (including family haulers, not just high-end sports cars), and then to solicit and secure offers on your preferred models. I might try that next time around.
I can relate about the dance though. The popular Japanese imports last basically forever and the salespeople’s tactics aren’t great. I’ve said to myself more than a few times I’d get a Tesla so I could just get everything done in a web browser.
I can't recommend these services enough. I've never actually paid them anything upfront to search for cars, but many of them are semi-retired car enthusiasts from finance or tech who can afford to get used dealership licenses and start their own business. They'll help anyone but their inventory is well curated and often priced for velocity rather than profit maximization. They'll hang onto $100k classic to get the right price but will happily take a client's low mileage 201x Toyota as a low risk trade-in to get them into a the right Mercedes they want and then flip the Toyota a week later for a few thousand under blue book just because they've got limited parking space.
A nice side benefit is that most of these mom and pop dealers will sell you secondary warranties at cost, which was a big deal when I was a first time car buyer with a post-BMW acquisition Mini Cooper with a CVT but I drove that car into the ground so it wasn't a consideration the second time around.
Not having to deal with the dealership model and salesmen to get the price is a lot better.
I don’t think I’ll buy a different brand for the foreseeable future.
If it would - that typically is a great deal
In the end, I went round-robin with a few dealerships (taking one dealership's offer to another dealership and asking them to beat it), and wound up with a price around $1000 less than the Costco Auto price. I had to drive an hour to get the car, but that's no big deal in the long run.
So my two cents is that Costco Auto maybe hits a sweet spot between "don't want to negotiate" and "good price". But if you enjoy the thrill of the hunt, you can probably do better than the Costco Auto prices.
That "talk to the manager" BS worked out in my favor the last time I bought a car. I had been leasing a Honda CR-V, for stupid reasons [1], and when that lease was up wanted to buy a new CR-V.
I found a dealer online about an hour or so away with a good price for online purchases. But I wanted to at least do a test drive of the new models first, to make sure Honda had not made any changes that would sour me on it.
I went to a nearby dealer to do a test drive, intending to tell them I was just looking. If I liked it I'd then buy from the online dealer.
After the drive, the salesman names a price. I told him that I knew that the dealer an hour away would sell it to me for $X, which was less than the price he offered, but if they could match that price I'd buy from them.
He does the "I'll have to talk to my manager" thing. The thing is, this was a new salesman, and I think he was nervous. I don't think he actually listened to the price I named.
He comes back, and announces a new price they will let me have it for...and that new price is quite a bit lower than $X. I'm not kidding...I told him what I was willing to pay for the car, and he came back with a lower counter-offer!
I took it, and am still driving that car 14 years later.
[1] I normally buy rather than lease, but leased a CR-V for two years to see if I liked that form factor. When that was up, I leased another one for two more years, followed by one for three years. It was only then that I remembered that I has stupidly forgotten that the plan was after the first lease was up to either buy a CR-V, or go back to small sedans.
I bought my last new car with price negotiated on the phone before even showing up at the dealer.
The hardball approach never worked for me. It's best to just know your max OTD (Out the door with taxes and fees) price and offer that.
It worked surprisingly well, and cut a lot of the bullshit out.
You could look at it as no haggling (and no sleazy salesfolks), you could look at it as everybody pays MSRP or you could say everybody gets the same deal.
Well, it technically does but at high unacceptable interest rate
'I don't like how you treat me. This makes me uncomfortable. Drop this attitude or I will walk'
If they don't, just walk. There is no point going through it feeling uncomfortable. The whole point of buying stuff is to be pampered and comfortable.
This doesn't work on me but whenever i ignore, walking out or confronting them - my wife typically trying to scold me for not being nice to nice saleman.
Which means their technique works really well on gullible people.
Don;t tell that to your wife :D
And yes, they use it because it works.
But on me it has the opposite effect. The moment the salesman tries to help/advice me differently I get this creepy crawly feeling.
And I am a big boy now, so they cut it off or i am walking.
As introvert pleasing people so you can blend-in was my common go-to method. Any skillful salesman will walk all over you if you let them.
I soon learnt salesmen are not your friends, so I don't treat them like you owe them something.
I might have walk away from some good deals, but in my mind supporting an asshole by doing business with them only propagates that culture and behaviour. And I rather walk away then be part of it.