Anyone have any experience with Dave Smith in Idaho?

We were headed that way for 4th of July and I called them ahead of time and talked to a guy, at the time I was looking at diesel's and he dropped the price pretty quickly, much more than anything I can find around here.

Fast forward to a couple days ago, I send him my info, employer, income, SS all that good stuff and let him know I'd changed my mind and was looking at a 1500 with the Hemi. He emails me an offer on a pickup that was the full priced window sticker. In fact it was an exact copy of the window sticker for that Stock No from Chrysler.com.

WTF? Why would I drive clear there to pay MSRP, I emailed him back and pointed out that they had another one on their website with the same options and it was $1000 less, the MSRP was crossed out and it said to contact them for a lower price. Of course he replies back that that one is sold.

Not sure if this is normal for Dave Smith or if I got a hold of a really crooked salesman there.

It is auto sales.  Expect it.

Maybe he figures you are just wasting his time again.

I bought my last truck from them in 2000. I went around to all of the local dealers and told them exactly what i wanted and they all game a price of 35k while Dave Smith was just over 29k. All of the dealers said to go to Idaho when I told them the 29k figure because they could not match it.

They are typically $500 over their cost, at least that is what people that have dealt with them have said.  I'm talking with them currently and they only came down 4K from the MSRP.  Looking at a SLT HEMI 4x4 with extended cab, MSRP is $42K and they came down to $38K.

Huh??

His offer of full MSRP might be the same thing as a ridiculously high quote from a contractor: A sign that he really doesn't want the job for whatever reason.

By your own account you didn't follow through on the first deal. A place like Dave Smith makes their money on volume. Some of their salesmen may not want to endlessly entertain tire kickers or people they perceive to be getting quotes for the sole purpose of negotiating a better deal from a local dealer. That doesn't necessarily make him "crooked". Maybe try a different salesman and see if you get the same result.

There wasn't a "first deal" that I didn't follow through on, I called over there and got a couple prices.

BTW, I got the final numbers from him yesterday and am headed over on Friday to pick up a new 2500

When people call a dealership and try to get quotes on more than 2 different vehicles, it tells them you arent really ready to buy.  Car salesman are paid on volume now days, not how much they make on a single car deal.  You spend to much time asking about this car and that car and that one over there, oh and that one to......He will do everything he can to shake you off.  Because the guy he missed picking up the phone on was ready to do business.



Source: 2 years selling Honda and Benz

My mother bought a Chrysler Crossfire from Dave Smith back when they came out in 2004. They were the only dealership in the west coast region that wasn't marking them up in price. She paid $35k out the door with the extended warranty.

Her and my father flew in from Seattle, the dealer picked them up at the airport, and got them a meal before taking them to the dealership. They were both impressed with the service

2 years as a salesman. Thanks for all your wisdom! JFC!!

How about people that aren't sure what they want to buy? Are they all tire kickers and a waste of time? With your attitude it's no wonder you're not in the business anymore.

90% of people show up to the dealership knowing exactly what they are looking for. They have done their homework prior to arrival and only want the test drive to make sure. On occassion someone will change their mind but its not normally for a different rig, its an option they werent sure they wanted and now they do.



In that 2 years I sold just over 430 cars. My average was about 17-25/month. Some months more, some less. By ANY dealerships standard, thats pretty fucking good. I could move metal like crazy. I was my team "closer" (you know, that guy that no customer likes that comes in at the end of the deal because the other salesman cant get the customer to lean on the pen). The problem is that selling cars isnt a career and ever since places like truecar.com, kbb ectc. came along, gross profits went away. When gross profits go away, so does your commission. So in an effort to keep salesmen on the floor the dealerships had to adjust to volume. and you get bonuses based on how many cars you sell. Now this is great if you have a small sales staff that is willing to work like crazy. Then when the dealership sees the size of the checks they have to write out to the small sales staff, they flood the floor with more salesman. Why pay 1 guy 5K when you can pay him and 1 other guy 3K together? At Klein Honda we went from a 12 person staff to 25 in 3 days. Math is math, X amount of cars spilt 12 ways pays more than X amount split 25 ways.



I got out when I had a 18 car month. For all intents and purposes 18 is a good month. Not spectacular (25-30) and well above average (7-10). Because of the specials being run, every single new car sold paid a commission of $100. And the dealership figuring they were going to move a metric shit ton of cars set the bonus limits higher. So instead of the first bonus hitting at 15 cars, they moved it to 20. So after working about 220 hrs that month, coming in on my days off, dialing for dollars every single second that I wasnt standing in front of someone my pay check, BEFORE taxes was $1800 for the MONTH.



It didnt take a rocket scientist to figure out the business was dead and time to move on.



Now most places keep at a minimum 20 sales guys on the floor. You can figure that 2 of them actually make a decent wage and have been around a while. Those are the guys that get spoon fed car deals that are already done deals before the customer shows up or work internet dept. and they close deals over the phone. The next group of guys get the occassional hand out if your manager likes you. Other than that, you are doing everything you can to get in front of someone. That group is usually trying to figure out which one of their bills is going to get paid that month. The last group usually consisting of 5-6 guys couldn't sell ice water to a dying man in the middle of the Mojave. They are on minimum wage for their hours worked because they didnt sell enough cars to meet the states standard of a "wage". They last 2 paychecks like that until they get shit canned.



The long and short of the car biz is VOLUME, VOLUME, VOLUME. If I knew I was going to be stuck with someone that was going to waste the better part of my day and wasnt ready to ink up, I would turn you to a green pea and let him waste his day on a learning experience. I needed to be in front of someone ready to buy now. Why spend an entire day with 1 person when you can sell 3 in a day and get a "hat trick" bonus. To add insult to injury, a lot of places now are tying your paycheck to your customer follow up reviews when corporate calls them. You bend over backwards helping someone and they tank your review because they paid a little more than they wanted to....you paycheck takes a $300 hit.



The car industry created its own monster. The days of the "consierge" type car salesman are gone. To survive they have to move cars, especially in the Domestic and Japanese/Korean imports.



Audi/BMW/Benz is a little bit different but not much. In a lot of cases its worse. Everything I described above was moving Hondas. Dont even get me started about how Mercedes Benz of Bellevue operates. Dealerships play the same games just twist them a little bit so it sounds better. Selling cars is a high turn over job. 50% of people hired dont hang around for more than amonth or two because of how dog eat dog it is.



The car biz was a stop gap measure for me until something better came along, which was the plan from the start.

Thanks for all the wisdom that you learned in a couple years.

You know what we call people with a couple years in my field? Moronic retards! or people that are wanting to learn. I think we can see where you are there.


Salesman that I've been talking with sells 16 vehicles a month and there's 100 salesman at the dealership, you want to talk about volume? You should go back to your numbers.

LOL, with that depth of knowledge and experience, I'm surprised that you had to bother to ask for any advice about car sales.

I ordered my 2010 Camaro from them in 2009.  I paid something like $300 over invoice when every dealer in Western Washington was getting MSRP PLUS hundreds or thousands.  It was painless and I would check with them again if buying new.

Rob

We already know you're the self appointed arftard Boeing expert and it's been how many years since you worked there?

I bought a new Dodge 3500 from them in 2003 and it was a great experience.  Since then though they have changed for the worse.  

After my last experience with Dave Smith in 2012 (purchasing a new Dodge pickup) I will never go back to them and I urge others not to as well.  The salesman was an idiot and their prices were ridiculous.  

I worked with the salesman for a couple weeks (I live about 100 miles from them) and one day he says he has the deal worked out (he had my info the whole time, ran my credit, talked to banks, etc.) and he said we have a done deal.  I though great and my wife and I drove to the dealership.  Well, when we got there the salesman back peddled and the deal was not done.  Totally wasted our time and fuel.  The next week I bought a new truck from a dealership down near Boise - they actually flew us down to pick it up and we drove it eight hours home.  An added bonus was the truck was $3,800 cheaper than Dave Smith.

Dave Smith isn't the same company they were back in 2003.  If they can't get you in and out quickly they don't want to deal with you and they don't want to have to 'work' for their sales.  Stay away from them if you can.

You appear to be hanging onto some butthurt about being gently corrected after you made some fairly uninformed posts about Boeing.

But since you asked, it was April 30th, 1996 that I last worked there as an actual Boeing employee. And about 90 minutes since my wife last worked there. Being as a Boeing income still respresents a significant amount of our household income and investments, I try to stay informed about the goings-on there. So perhaps there is more to understanding the company and appreciating where it has been and where it is going than simply how long it has been since your last shift ended.

None of which has anything to do with somebody who allegedly has such an extensive knowledge and understanding of automobile sales asking such simple, mundane question that he should presumably already know the answer to. Or the price of tea in China.

Eh NM

Dave Smith is a Mega store.  One of the few putting that many sales people on the floor.  16/mo there isn't what anyone would call stellar when that place moves more than 1000/mo.

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Math is so hard............100 salesman...........1000 vehicles a month....................16/mo isn't good?

It's not that I have that much knowledge or experience but I find it comical when someone that was in the field for 2 years is a self proclaimed expert

Am I missing something?  At no point did I claim to be an expert or some sales legend.  I just gave you what any person with some experience in the car biz would have given you.  If you can find someone that would disagre with me, by all means, point them in this direction.



You came here asking "is this normal or should I try something else".  Then you got butt hurt when I told you what a typpical sales person does and has to deal with to give you some insight.  Then you went off the deep end.