One more cup of coffee

Car Dealers and assumptions

Tonight, Meredith and I went looking for a car. Meredith's Accord is starting to show its age, and Meredith is starting to get tired of having just two doors. Since almost all of her driving is around town (we tend to take my Integra on longer trips), Meredith has been especially interested in the Prius, Toyota's HEV (Hybrid-ElectricVehicle). So, after dinner (and a few quick games of Counter-Strike), it was off to the Palo Alto Toyota dealership on Middlefield road. (Warning: the Palo Alto Toyota web site likes to start out with a noisy Flash animation. Emphasis on noisy. Perhaps if I had looked at this first, I would have suggested we go to another Toyota dealership. But then I wouldn't have anything to write about tonight.)

We met one of the salesman, and explained that we were interested in looking at the Prius, the Corolla, and the Camry. He (it's always a he, isn't it?) showed us all three, then offered to let us take any of them for a test drive. He also asked if we were interested in their newest car, "The Matrix," which we weren't. (The advertising line for The Matrix is, "It's something else." Yes, something else aside from nice to look at.)

We took off down the road in the Prius. A little small, and a little unstable feeling (to me) -- probably because of the skinny tires as much as anything else. He asked where we were from. Well, actually, he asked if we had gone to Paly or Gunn for high school. Meredith said she had gone to Gunn; I said I had gone to school in Tennessee. He said something about the "Blue Mountains", then after being corrected ("Smoky Mountains") decided that he didn't really know enough about Tennessee and stopped.

When we got back from the test drive, Meredith needed to make a restroom stop, and the salesman got the Camry ready to test drive. Something happened during this brief stop; it's not quite clear what. But by the second test drive, he was no longer taking us seriously at all.

The first bad sign was when we got into the car, where the radio was tuned to a country music station. The radio in the Prius hadn't been set to country music. Here's a hint to anyone reading this: just because someone is from Tennessee, it does not necessarily follow that they like country music. (Or Elvis, but that's another rant.)

The second bad sign came when one of us asked which trim of the Camry we were driving. He explained about all of the different trim lines. All of the different 4-cylinder trims, that is. "Isn't there a six-cylinder version of the Camry?" I asked. "Yes, but that's a lot more expensive." Anytime a car dealer tells you that something is too expensive for you, it means that you're not being taken even a little bit seriously.

Then there was the difference in the test drives themselves. In the first test drive, he encouraged us to drive the car wherever we wanted to get a feel for it -- drive it down Central, onto Castro, onto 101, wherever. The directions for the second test drive were much more confined: go down this road, make this turn, make this other turn, then turn back into the dealer.

The final sign came at the end, when we were ready to leave. Most car dealers by this point have tried to offer you their card more times than you can count. He hadn't even offered his name yet, and started to walk off. I asked him for his card just so we'd know who to avoid. He gave it to us, then couldn't walk away from us fast enough.

What made him decide what we weren't serious? We were, but he didn't see it. What made him decide we couldn't afford the pricier versions of the cars? Our dress? We weren't in dress clothes, but we were in jeans and nice shirts. Regardless, equating dress with income bracket is a dangerous assumption to make in this area.

In the end, we decided that the Prius is interesting, but maybe a little small, and the Camry is, in fact, your basic land yacht. And that whatever we end up buying, it won't be from that dealership.

 

Posted by Mike at April 2, 2002 10:01 PM