Auto dealer maintenance upselling

[Tomtint]

I worked in auto finance on the bank side for many years. This is not exactly how it works. Dealers have a portal where they submit your info to (typically) 5 lenders. The dealer chooses which 5. The finance guy is guessing about your credit. Some lenders have better deals for prime credit, others for near prime and still others for subprime. The lenders generate an offer with terms (including, but not limited to APR). The dealer picks which 1 or 2 they want to present to the customer.

Depending on the state, the dealer can add up to 2% additional. The dealer gets all of the additional interest over the bank offer. Normally, the dealer will get a flat per loan incentive from the bank, too. The terms of those vary depending on the relationship between lender and dealer. There are also volume bonuses. The relationship between dealer and bank salesperson also matters. The deal can be tweaked if the dealer needs help closing a customer. Better dealers get more flexibility. Banks also limit their risk by only buying a certain number of deals monthly from any one dealer. These vary by relationship and usually have some flexibility (with approvals). This is all consumer lending. The business side (for fleets and such) was completely separate.

My role was to make sure the dealership was playing fair. We caught many fraudulent situations over the years. I've been at dealers with the bank sales people as part of that job. (Though dealers didn't know my role, I was just a 'manager from HQ').

.... In other words.. It's exactly as I said it was. Dealer get a a buy rate from the lender and can .. If they want to .. juice that rate to the customer which adds gross profit to the deal.

 

[Torvy]

.... In other words.. It's exactly as I said it was. Dealer geta a buy rate from the lender and can .. If they want to .. juice that rate to the customer which adds gross profit to the deal.

You said it is in 1/4 point increments and it is deals with some lenders. Those deals are with all lenders and the points are anywhere from .05% to 2% different (state regs make this slightly different). Also no mention that dealer takes the entire bump or that they get volume bonuses. So, no, not Exactly. I didn't say you were way off, just not exact.

 

[sd455dan]

Honest question…

When one buys a Tesla direct… at least I think this is the term… do you have to run the gauntlet of value added features and services pushed at the Dealership level?

NO you do not.

It was the easiest and fastest vehicle buying experience I have had.


Never bought new car before but have bought lots of used vehicles at regular dealers. My experience with regular dealers has in some cases been about as pleasant as the Tru Coat scene from "Fargo"

A post recently by a new Tesla buyer concerning the experience.

I have to say best be car buying experience I've had because of ease of ordering and lack of hard sell-thank you Tesla.

The hell that other car dealerships (our local Hyundai tbs) put people through- insisting on things like upselling needless add-ons like upholstery insurance or ding and debt insurance that was actually useless when I needed it-made that purchase a four hour fight to just walk out with the new car I had paid for.
Spoken from hard experience- my last car was a Hyundai and I will not buy them again because of dealership experience.

 

[dstig1]

Yeah... dealers.... Yech! While there are undoubtedly some decent ones, they are vanishingly rare. A good resource for quality independent shops is on the Car Talk web site (the Magliozzi brothers Click and Clack old radio show). In my experience their listings have been 100% accurate for good shops. The only downside to it is that it is not the easiest thing to search as it is by town only so you can miss a shop that is technically in the next city even though it is a block from the border of the town you are searching. But I try to do everything I can myself and rarely use a shop anymore. Dealer is for recalls only.

Interestingly my daughter bought a used car from a dealer in Madison and it came with 3 free oil changes or the like. I warned her to be ready for the upsell BS she was going to get but she said they did nothing but the oil change and even told her when she asked about the tires that they were fine at this point (they are on the low end of tread but still acceptable but they are so horrible in snow she is thinking of swapping them out anyways). Coulda knocked me over with a feather. Never expected that to happen.

 

[Oaktree]

My role was to make sure the dealership was playing fair. We caught many fraudulent situations over the years. I've been at dealers with the bank sales people as part of that job. (Though dealers didn't know my role, I was just a 'manager from HQ').

Ran into some of that financing BS several years ago when my wife bought her present vehicle. Our bank recommended going thru dealer financing since they were likely to offer a better deal on a used car. Well, she had her credit locked, and couldn't recall the password so they couldn't do a credit check on her. Since we were a couple hour drive from home, I just told them to do the transaction in my name. They used some oddball credit agency I'd never heard of that reported me as having a credit rating in the low 600s (everywhere else it's well into the 800s). Reason given was that they couldn't find any record of me ever having had an auto loan (I guess their records didn't go back to 1971 ) If it were me, I'd have walked out at that point but she had her mind made up she was getting this car, so we went ahead with it but I will never again do business with that dealer again.
She agrees on the sliminess of the dealer, but she does really like the car (Buick Regal).

Went to dealer to buy an oil filter for my Accord. They were "having a sale" so I bought four of them. Taped onto each one of them was the crush washer for the drain plug.

What's the deal with that? No vehicle I've ever owned had a washer that needed to be replaced on the oil drain plug with each oil change. My tractor has a weird washer with a rubber seal, but it's not something I replace regularly.

I once listened to a dealer denying a gal warranty coverage for a failed starter on a Mazda. He claimed it was being denied because she hadn't been doing the required maintenance on the starter. I wrote off that dealer after hearing that conversation.

Yeah I would have too. If I were her I'd have demanded the service writer show her where in the owner's manual what the starter maintenance schedule is.

 

[WM75Guy]

I guess I am the only one with great dealerships. We recently bought new vehicles, a Cadillac XT6 for the boss lady and a GMC Denali 3500HD for me to pull trailers. Bacon GMC in Athens and Wagner Cadillac in Tyler treat you like family. No upcharges on the vehicles and they both worked to get us the best deals on financing and rebates. During Covid the GMC dealer in Tyler was still adding $7,000 to the MSRP as a market adjustment, my dealer never did any of that. The only reason we financed was they both shopped around and got us interest rates well below what our money is making in deposits. Document fees at signing are where some dealers clip you to the tune of $1,500 - $2,000. Both charged us around $150 to do all the title work. Service work is excellent and while they do recommend maintenance if needed, it is based on the vehicle mileage and the OEM recommendations. Courtesy transportation to and from work or home, and a loaner if needed. Wagner has free car washes with interior clean if you buy from them, so if we are in Tyler and have time, we swing by.

 

[jjeff]

How about just doing what you asked them to service proficiently without up selling, Could be in pet peeves or maybe I mentioned it somewhat before. But my 16 GMC truck used to take it to a dealership for pm service cuz it was under warranty. One of the last times I took it in for an oil change they checked other things left the air filter and def cap unscrewed. More recently I'm constantly reminded by car fux or something similar of maintenance I need to do. #1 I do almost everything myself, #2 if I don't update these aftermarket websites with maintenance I performed I'm probably hurting resale or trade in value that's using car fux etc? Anyways I use a cheap label maker putting mileage and month I performed my own maintenance usually oil changes I stick on windshield air filter stick on air box etc etc. rants over.

 

[WM75Guy]

Mine go back to the dealerships for service so they have the maintenance records and know what has and has not been done. They just let me know when it is time to service something based on mileage. No hard sell involved.

 

[sandman2234]

I make it a habit to put my initials on any filter that I change, or the mileage and date that it is changed (in my handwriting). Wife took her car to a shop to get an oil change and they came out with a very dirty air filter. I had dropped by to take her to lunch after She got finished. I asked to see that filter, and politely asked where they got it. He said from her car... and I called him a liar right in front of everyone sitting in the waiting room! Now, take me to her car, and show me the filter that actually came out of her car before I call the police. He complied, with a little bit of "customers aren't allowed in service area" bull. Her filter was still installed in the car, with my initials on the backside of the filter.
Wife learned a valuable lesson when it comes to trusting oil change places.
David from jax

 

[MoKelly]

Wife had her car in at the dealership for a service. Gal at the service counter started in on her about how her car needed new tires and that they were badly worn

Wife walked the girl out to her car and asked where the tires were worn???

Gal started back tracking pretty quickly.

We had just had new tires installed the week before and the tires still had the little nubbings on them.

Wow. That is not upselling. That is outright fraud/stealing.