Exposed!: The Secrets the Car Dealerships Don’T Want You to Know

By Vehicle Information Resource LLC

Are you in search of a new vehicle and hate the idea of not knowing if you got a good deal? Well, to relieve you from the hassles and negotiations the car dealerships implement, you need to be on a level-playing field.

On January 18, 2013, Vehicle Information Resource LLC was formed to assist people in the purchase of their next vehicle. The owner of this company has over thirty years automotive experience and is now able to share the secrets the car dealerships use to negotiate their best deals.

This book is not designed to bash car dealerships! It is designed to disclose the secrets the dealers will use in maximizing their profits.

People hate to shop for a car because they dislike the negotiation process, the inflicted pressure to buy today, and not being familiar with the terms of leasing or purchasing a vehicle. In order for you to get the best deal, you need to know these secrets.

To prepare you in getting your best deal, this book includes the negotiation skills and terminology, compares leasing versus buying, contract disclosures, advertising examples, and statements the dealers will use in selling you your next vehicle.

Our intention is to get you the best deal and for you to avoid the aggravations which comes with a vehicle purchase.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781546216865

Vehicle Information Resource LLC

Over the past 30+years I was employed as management in the auto industry. With the exception of the first year, I was always in a management position. I received multiple sales awards along with completion of a number of courses offered and designed by the auto industry to be professional in every way. In 2013, I opened the company known as Vehicle Information Resource LLC and it was designed to help people in purchasing their next vehicle. Throughout my career, I found people totally frustrated and upset with how the auto industry is able to take advantage of the consumer. I found most people hate the car buying experience and with this observation I decided to come and assist the consumer in their next purchase. Because of the ongoing relationships I have with dealers across the nation, it is my goal to try to separate the bad dealerships from the reputable. It is not fair for all dealers to be grouped as one for the 1% abusing the privilege.

Book preview

2017 Vehicle Information Resource LLC. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/20/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5462-1687-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-1685-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-1686-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017917370

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One Do Your Homework

Chapter Two Dealership Selection

Chapter Three Are you a good negotiator?

Chapter Four Vehicle Selection

Chapter Five The Salesperson

Chapter Six Advantages and Disadvantages of Leasing

Chapter Seven Purchasing

Chapter Eight The Benefits of Purchasing

Chapter Nine Pre-Owned

Chapter Ten The Interview

Chapter Eleven The Menu

Chapter Twelve Advertising

Summary

Introduction

This book is designed to help you, the consumer, in purchasing or leasing your next vehicle. It will show you exactly what to expect when you arrive at the dealership and how to be prepared. Allot of reference will be given to Do Your Homework and will provide you on how to pass the final exam, Your Purchase.

The book is not designed to bash any dealership nor is it to mislead you into thinking a dealership is less than honest. The book is designed as an educational tool and although some may disagree with parts of the book it is based on experience and facts.

If you know what to expect then you cannot be surprised in the manner in which you are treated. Like every industry there are the good, the bad and the ugly. Unfortunately in many cases dealerships get profiled into the few that drag down the reputation of the industry.

Most dealerships today are fairly honest. Do some stretch the truth a little? Of course they do! Is all of their advertising true? Yes it is true but some may be misleading or deceptive in nature. To be competitive all dealers sometimes work in a gray area of advertising and sometimes the advertising is not by them but by the manufacturer. In all fairness to the industry the advertisements on television do offer a disclosure statement. You will need to rewind and pause the commercial in order to read the fine print, but it is printed there.

The book is also designed to show the dealerships what the people think of the industry. If you go to any article about shopping for another car you will find the people hate this experience. Nobody looks forward in going to any dealership to purchase a car and it is time for the dealerships and the manufacturers to recognize this fact.

The tricks dealerships used in the past are not as pronounced today but some do still exist. The day of the slick back hair and the Plaid Sports Jacket are over, but the Internet is here and can be as deceiving as the former Used Car Salesman.

With the Internet there is a vast amount of information available concerning everything you need to know about the manufacturer, the dealership and the pricing. There are multiple magazines out there to help in you making a decision, but is everything you read true?

The fake media of today does not always report the complete facts. Allot of the news today is of the opinion of the writer, broadcaster, a publication, a politician or even a movie star. The news media wants you to watch their show or read their newspaper. The magazine is there to sell you a magazine thus when you go to the checkout lane in a supermarket you see these magazines with tempting headlines. They work off of your emotions.

Emotions are basically how people purchase or lease a car and car dealers know this. You may be cool and think you have a unique idea in tricking a dealer, but realize they have seen all of the tricks that people play and are prepared to handle them.

If you don’t do your homework, how do you know if you are getting a good deal?

Dealers do their homework in training the salesperson, in what to say and how to say it. The dealership practices these selling techniques everyday with their customers and sometimes practice between themselves. The dealership has hired professional consulting firms to bring out closing techniques, inform the dealerships and their employees in the changes of the law and to prepare them for when you, the customer, arrives.

This book will tell you exactly what to look for when a salesperson speaks or what the sales manager will say when they come to close the deal. It is not designed to answer every question, but if you do have a specific question you can call Vehicle Information Resources or you can email your question to [e-mail]. There are numerous books that have been published on this subject, but unlike other books you have the ability to contact the author of this book with a concern or question. Now you may not like the answer, or you may disagree with the answer, but it will be honest and straightforward.

Honesty, integrity and straightforward answers are lacking when purchasing or leasing a vehicle. Deceit, high pressure, lying, negotiating, misleading advertising, unfair selling practices are things the consumers hate the most. Unfortunately for you the ability to know what is behind the glass doors when arriving at a dealership is an unknown factor. Now some will say: You can’t judge a book by its cover but could you judge a dealership just by simply looking at it? Example: If the dealership is decked out like a circus, then it probably is one! You basically will have a good idea of what will be waiting for you and this book will discuss this as well.

The United States today is more divided than ever in the past and people are looking for change. The people are tired of the rhetoric in Washington and getting fake news by the media. The people just want the facts and they want the facts to be truthful. The same thing happens when people think of car dealerships. They are not looking for rhetoric or lies rather they are looking for truthful answers to their questions. They don’t want to waste time for their time is valuable. The people hate the negotiation process and the car industry is one of the only industries that still practice these skills and the people hate the industry for this reason. When will this industry wake up? The people want facts not fictitious stories about how great a lease may be. Time is the most important entity that a person has for it cannot be replaced. This book will show you how to do your homework, how to be prepared and how to save time and money in the process.

It is time the dealerships wake up and realize the facts and it is time to take care of their customers! By being prepared you can shorten the amount of time spent in a possible hostile environment, save money and learn how to deal with the reputable dealership rather than the scam artists in this industry. This book will help you identify the good dealership from the bad and the ugly.

Today there is more emphasis on racial profiling than ever before. One should actually look into the mirror to see how can you improve life and to question if you are ready for the next challenge. The idea that because you are a minority does not come into play when buying or leasing a vehicle! REMEMBER ONE THING, and that is the dealership is there for one reason and one reason only and that is to sell a vehicle to whoever comes through the door! The choice of whether you purchase or lease a vehicle from them is yours! It makes no difference to race, religion or ethnic background, but it does make a difference in the negotiation of the vehicle. So if you know this going into a dealership doesn’t it make sense to do your homework? Reading this book is a good start. You could have other questions or opinions in purchasing or leasing a vehicle and you may even disagree with this book, but the information is available through the Internet. The only problem there may be is the information posted is not always true or accurate.

The Internet today is the most powerful tool you have in researching a vehicle! By the same token it is the most powerful tool a dealer has to find out the demographics, your income, your preferences and on how to train their salespeople to meet these challenges.

If you think you know everything you should think

"I don’t know where everything

is going, but I am pretty

confident books are not going to

disappear. I am confident people

like books. So read this book carefully,

keep an open mind and you will learn

the secrets in buying or

leasing your next vehicle."

It is harder than ever today to purchase or lease a vehicle. The day of the handshake has disappeared! Trust is gone! Honesty is being stretched to make a sale! The only thing you can do is to prepare! This is the intention of this book!

Chapter One

Do Your Homework

Throughout this book you will find the term Do Your Homework but what does this mean?

The choice of purchasing another vehicle all started with a conversation or an advertisement in somebody saying:

• I think we should look at getting a new car.

• I just had our car in for service and it looks like it could cost us some serious money to get it fixed. Maybe we should take a look at trading it in.

• You know it would be much easier for everybody to get around if we had another vehicle.

• I am glad to see Billy was accepted into college, but you know he is going to need a car to get back and forth to college."

• Our car is really getting up in age and a car doesn’t get better because it is older. Why don’t we see what is being offered?

It can be anyone of these statements that could start the buying process but where do you begin? Most people, their families or even yourself have had an experience with some brand of vehicle. Most of the time the experience goes back to when you first started to drive. You will remember the car brand your parents were driving. If your parents were happy with the brand, they will tell you all of their great experiences. If they had trouble with the vehicle you will remember their upset. So if this brand is suitable you will end up buying this brand and will continue buying this brand unless something changes.

Now you say what could possibly motivate me to change the brand of the car I love? Sometimes the brand just goes out of business, which became very apparent between 2000 and 2017. This isn’t something new. It goes back to the beginning of history with the automobile industry. Sometimes you have a bad experience where the vehicle was constantly in the repair shop. You get disgusted and swear you will never buy that brand of vehicle ever again. Still there are some times a new brand is established or a current brand brings out a fantastic new model. These are all valid reasons for switching a brand. So where do you start?

The first thing you need to do is to select a brand. In today’s market the quality of most new cars and trucks are very good. Do any of the brands have a problem? Sure they do for every vehicle produced is a mechanical piece of equipment and they can break. So you need to do some homework.

There are numerous magazines, periodicals and books telling you about the quality of a vehicle. They not only tell you about the quality, but they also tell you about repair history, crash tests, the costs of maintenance and more. All of these items you need to take into consideration when making a brand selection. The magazines rate the vehicles giving you their opinion from the performance of the engine and drive system to power equipment, paint and noises.

They will give you a ten years history into crash tests. They will give you their opinion concerning the performance and reliability of the car. They will even show you the price ranges for each vehicle. So the information is available either on the Internet, in books or in periodicals. It is called Doing Your Homework!

There are numerous brand assortments for you to choose so it can be confusing. So let’s look at your options. Many still say the imported vehicles are better than the domestic vehicle. Is this statement still true or is it a myth?

The perception of the quality in the domestic car came about in the late 1970’s through early 1990’s. The big three at the time were having some quality issues and the imports started arriving in the United States with great quality and reliability. The big three didn’t get this at the time and they left the imports get a stronghold in this country.

Today things have changed. The computer age has arrived along with robots making the quality of a vehicle a non-event. Every vehicle made today with the exception of some very expensive vehicles are made by machine. Every vehicle coming off the line is double-checked to make sure the quality standards of the manufacturer are respected. The thinking that a domestic brand vehicle is produced in the United States is wrong. Some of the domestic brands are actually produced and assembled in other countries. So why are domestic brands importing? It is called having a global society! Basically it allows them to stay competitive with the imports. The cost of labor, taxes, benefits, real estate, and total overhead are less when going to another country to produce a vehicle. So how do you know if your selected brand is foreign or domestic? You simply need to take a look at the first number or letter of the vehicle identification number (VIN). This number is located on the driver’s side of the dashboard. It is also located either on the driver side door or door jam. So you really need to know what is a VIN.

A Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is the string of 17 numbers and letters that an automobile manufacturer assigns to an individual vehicle. The VIN can reveal a number of things about a car, including its airbag type, country of origin, engine size, and model, years and trim level.

EXAMPLE:

VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER

1 HG BH41 J X M N 108965

The first letter or number is where the vehicle was built. Below are the codes:

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The next two numbers or letters in the VIN designates the manufacturers. The next few pages are simply the World Manufacturer Identifier charts. The first three numbers or letters in the VIN are shown. For Example: 1FA represents Ford Motor Company USA while 9BF shows Ford Motor company Brazil.

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The balance of the VIN will show you the car line series, the body type, restraint system, engine, check digit, year and assembly plant.

So if you reference the information shown above you will know exactly if the vehicle was an import and if so where did the vehicle originate.

So is the vehicle you are pursuing an import or is it a domestic produced vehicle?

Most often the consumer associates quality with reliability. Some will still argue a Japanese manufactured vehicle is still more reliable than something produced in the United States. This is clearly perception and it may or it may not be true.

There is no production vehicle today that is 100% perfect. If a vehicle were perfect there would be no service bays at any dealership, for anything, other than oil changes or routine maintenance. When you realize this you can comprehend that no vehicle is perfect. If a vehicle is 99% perfect you would say this is a great history, but if a vehicle has over 15,000 moving parts which means 1% of these parts will break over the next 5 years. You can do the math.

In most cases, people search for a quality vehicle with high safety standards. If this is important you can find the brands with the best safety rating on the Internet or in a publication.

If performance is your most important feature you can also find help using the Internet, reference Speed Shops or in seeking advice in other publications.

So finding a vehicle is a hard task in meeting your requirements. You don’t want to go to every brand and compare. You will get very confused and lose sight of your purpose! Try to narrow your brand selection down to three brands. Take the top three brands that you choose and do a side by side comparison. Check to make sure your selection includes all of the important features you were seeking. One way of narrowing your decision is to do what Benjamin Franklin used and this was a simple T. You take the advantages to purchase and write them on one side of the T and the disadvantages you write on the other side. So your decision chart would look something like this:

7.jpg

Now you have all three vehicles exactly next to each other and you can make a logical decision.

You can also get price comparisons making sure it is a vehicle that will fit into your budget. By doing your homework you can save hours of questions at the dealership and also save you money in the process.

You can build your vehicle on the Internet and it will give you close to the actual cost. The manufacturer site might even give you an invoice for your exact vehicle and it will always publish the incentives offered on a particular vehicle.

If you are still undecided and you don’t want the hassle of going to a dealership all you have to do is wait for the next car show. The car shows normally come to a city once a year and if you miss one there should be another show that will appear shortly near you in another city. By going to the car show it will give you hands on experience. You can get in and out of all of the brands on the floor, so if you have a handicap you can see if the equipment will meet your expectations and requirements. Car shows are large enough to bring your motorized equipment to transport you throughout the show. If you are up in the years and you cannot tour a car show, because of health or fitness reasons, you may want to question if you should still be driving. Safety is always of first concern and to stop driving is very hard for an individual to experience, but sometimes your children may have to point out that you should either limit or stop driving completely.

In doing your homework you really need to speak with others to gain knowledge in their buying experience. You need to find out their