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Comment by everdrive | Hacker News Reader

Often, the salespeople don’t actually know anything about the vehicles they’re selling either. I’ve had salespeople who don’t know the engine or transmission configurations of the cars on their lots. I spent a long many emails recently trying to explain to a Toyota sales rep how payload capacity works. Even after meeting him in person and explaining it to him again, I was totally unable to get the real payload numbers of a vehicle I wanted to buy.

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Because they don't have to. There is no legal requirement of them telling you the truth, in fact, when you sign a purchase contract, you literally sign a piece of paper that states you cannot derive any rights to what the salesperson told you.

Their job is not to inform you. Their job is to sell cars.

I love it when people go out of their way to try to make someone feel dumb. Why would you waste your time like that? You asked a question, and they responded in a way that doesn't answer the question. Do you think going through some sort of lecture is going to suddenly improve the answer?

That's like asking the average person to provide the answer to some differential calculus question but they don't know. You then give them a 5 minute dissertation on what differential calculus is, and immediately expect them to provide the answer by immediately asking them to solve the same equation.

I might not have conveyed myself very well, but I really wasn’t trying to make the salesman feel dumb. Really, he was being a salesman, and by that I mean bullshitting me. I’d ask what the payload of the Tacoma was, and he’d come up with an answer I knew to be wrong. Whether or not I wanted to purchase the truck depended on that payload number. So, when I kept sending the question back to him, I was just trying to find a way to get a true payload rating for the truck. I needed that information to inform my purchase, and wasn’t able to get that information. (The truck was on a boat in Mexico, and I’d have to reserve the purchase. I couldn’t just visit the dealership and look at the payload sticker on the door.)

In any case, I definitely didn’t want him to feel bad. When I met him, I had a really pleasant interaction — he was a nice person. But, he just wanted to sell me the truck, and really didn’t care if he could provide me correct information or not. Ultimately I gave up on the purchase because I couldn’t get the information I needed.

you are free to talk to any sales person, so after recognizing this particular sales person wasn't being helpful, you can talk to someone else including managers. if a sales manager realizes that answering one question is what's standing between you making a purchase or not, they will find you the answer. these people are all about "crushing it, bro" on their sales numbers. you can even go to a different dealership. there's also the internet.

I don't see how anybody is going out of their way to make anybody feel dumb in that situation.

They explained their automotive needs to a salesperson at a Toyota dealership and gave them ample opportunity to do some basic research to make a sale of them. Payload capacity is hardly a topic as exotic differential calculus at a car dealership.

>I don't see how anybody is going out of their way to make anybody feel dumb in that situation.

you're essentially giving a pass to mansplaining

I’d define mansplaining as unwanted and unwarranted explanation — it might be unwanted in the above situation, but unwarranted?

A explanation of payload capacity at a car dealership when it’s a key selling point for the customer explaining the topic and their related need? I just don’t see it being an issue.

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