The Everything Tesla/EV Argument Thread

[TheHammer]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

I guess, expecting someone to be honest is too much to ask..

What world have you been living in?

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

I guess, expecting someone to be honest is too much to ask..

Since idealistic honesty is what you expect... let me ask a question.

How many people trading in a car are honest about it? How many disclose everything wrong? What percentage do you think tell you the truth?

Save your breath. The answer is f**king 0. 0%. If you're trading in a car you are doing everything you can to get as much for it as possible. You hope they miss the dings dents and scratches. You hope they don't hear the rattles. You hope they don't see the bumper repaint. That shit goes both ways.

Save the unicorn and rainbow bullshit for someone else.

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

When we agreed on a price on the car I was buying, at no point did they say that it's conditional on my trade.
I did ask a very clear question: Are you marking up IONIQ5's or are you selling them at MSRP? The answer was that they are selling at MSRP. Clear Question, clear answer. The question was generic as we were looking at all the cars in stock to see which color combination my wife liked best. I would not have made the trip if they told me that they mark up the cars over MSRP.

Great.

You still have no idea of the intent. If by some absurd chance, it actually was a lie to get you in the door, it was pretty stupid. I don't know anybody, ever, that would say OK! and buy a car after a surprise $12k markup after the fact.

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by dvarapala

Even UniqueDoug - an actual car dealer - was confused by the wording on a stealership advertisement offering "Up to $13,000 off."

If a car dealer get flummoxed what chance does Joe Sixpack have?

Yes. The words "up to" have been known to be very confusing.

Let's hypothetically say that you did manage to be confused or mistaken at some point in the deal. Even if you make it all the way to the end, the numbers are all right there in front of you. There's no way to sneak it in. There is no way to hide it. There is no way that you can miss it. The numbers are all right there with explanations and definitions. Every penny.

Even if. If you managed to be a complete f**king idiot and miss every little detail. Even if the dealer is a lying sack of shit on the scale of a Disney villain. Even if every bad thing possible led you to sitting at the desk. It doesn't cost you a dime. Look at the numbers. If they're not what you thought or not what you wanted, walk away.

The simple fact is that the ONLY way that a dealer could ever actually rip someone off is if they do it to themselves by not reading the very simple document in front of them. You don't even have to read every page. You don't have to read the fine print. You have to look at the f**king bill of sale. It tells you exactly how much and accounts for every penny.

It's really not that difficult.

[GTOguy]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

Not everyone is fortunate enough to grow up with supportive parents. Unfortunately, too many people grow up in broken homes.
So, basically, you suggest to let them get screwed so that they learn, right?

Talk about socialist AND a victim mentality. Jeebus is right. Holy crap.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by RedLS1GTO

Your views of this are a simple minded caricature of reality. You're blaming a fork for making people fat. You can't bring yourself to accept that people don't make the same choices that you make. That's not the government's responsibility. It sure as shit is not the dealership's responsibility. Stop with the bullshit narrative that dealers are tricking people. Stop acting like the reason that people do stupid shit is because they are tricked, misled, or somehow coerced into it. You need a villain. There isn't one.

The part that you don't seem to understand is that DEALERS DON'T HAVE TO TRICK PEOPLE.

Try to let that sink in for a minute. Read it again. Slowly. Dealers don't have to "lure" unsuspecting customers and then blindside them with fine print. Dealers don't have to trick them to get them to come in. The idiots do it on their own accord.

The truth in lending statements that I posted are EXACTLY what you keep saying needs to happen. It is all of the information, no fine print, no tricks. Guess what, it doesn't stop them from taking terrible loans. Wake the f**k up and accept the fact that stupid people do stupid things and there is nothing that you, I, or the government can do to stop it.

Broad brush. Anecdotally, I've experienced a few bad apples, and conversely, had some very smooth experiences, skewing fairly heavy toward good experiences. The bad ones were decades ago, if that matters.

But I have personally gotten bait and switch, gotten the "surprise pack" even though I specifically asked about all that and was assured nothing like that was going on over the phone, and once, walked out the door over $ 20 on a loaded extended cab Silverado. Sales guy can't figure out why the F&I guy closing the deal is asking me to pay $ 20 more than we agreed upon after a lengthy phone conversation about an ad unit that THEY set the price on. I walk out.

Sales guy follows me out in the parking lot and asks, am I really going to blow up the deal over $ 20?

Me: Yup. And so are you.

Guy fishes a $ 20 out of his pocket and says, OK, can we do the deal now? As I really wanted the truck, I said OK, and just let go the extra sales tax that cost me. That one I would chalk up as a neutral experience.

[LATB]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

I guess, expecting someone to be honest is too much to ask..

Ok, let’s be fair…without your ability to produce a document how do we know that you are being honest. You have no proof that the dealer told you that the cars you were interested in had no markup or what the markup is.
Maybe you misunderstood what was said. Maybe you made an assumption based on the conversation.
Without something in writing we will never know.

See how that works.

[Steve_R]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

I guess, expecting someone to be honest is too much to ask..

There should be a law against lying. It should be a felony.

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

Broad brush. Anecdotally, I've experienced a few bad apples, and conversely, had some very smooth experiences, skewing fairly heavy toward good experiences. The bad ones were decades ago, if that matters.

But I have personally gotten bait and switch, gotten the "surprise pack" even though I specifically asked about all that and was assured nothing like that was going on over the phone, and once, walked out the door over $ 20 on a loaded extended cab Silverado. Sales guy can't figure out why the F&I guy closing the deal is asking me to pay $ 20 more than we agreed upon after a lengthy phone conversation about an ad unit that THEY set the price on. I walk out.

Sales guy follows me out in the parking lot and asks, am I really going to blow up the deal over $ 20?

Me: Yup. And so are you.

Guy fishes a $ 20 out of his pocket and says, OK, can we do the deal now? As I really wanted the truck, I said OK, and just let go the extra sales tax that cost me. That one I would chalk up as a neutral experience.

There was nothing broad brush about it. Just like in every other group of people on Earth, some salesmen are assholes. Some are not. Some are honest. Some are not. Some dealers are run by honest people. Some are not. The point remains very true. Dealers don't HAVE to do the crap that he is claiming. They don't have to lure people in. The overwhelming majority of stupid car decisions are made with all of the information right in front of the customer. You don't have to talk people into doing stupid and irresponsible shit with money. They are going to do it regardless.

Even your case is a perfect example. There is no way to "sneak" in money, not even $20. The only way possible to miss it was to completely ignore the information that you were presented. I can 100% guarantee that it wasn't in the fine print. It was right there, right on the front page of the bill of sale for you to see.

Which brings us back to the original point. If you don't read a contract, you're an absolute idiot. Things as simple as a typo that throws things off are WAY more common than the villainous misleading and scumbaggery that you guys are claiming.

[GrandSportC3]

Originally Posted by RedLS1GTO

Since idealistic honesty is what you expect... let me ask a question.

How many people trading in a car are honest about it? How many disclose everything wrong? What percentage do you think tell you the truth?

Save your breath. The answer is f**king 0. 0%. If you're trading in a car you are doing everything you can to get as much for it as possible. You hope they miss the dings dents and scratches. You hope they don't hear the rattles. You hope they don't see the bumper repaint. That shit goes both ways.

Save the unicorn and rainbow bullshit for someone else.

Used cars are a whole different thing. If a dealer accepts a trade, they will do their due diligence and inspect the car. I doubt that any dealer will take a seller by their word.
There are different expectations when you buy from a private individual than if you buy from a business. Some small scumbag dealers are changing mileage on cars to sell them more expensive. About 15 years ago, I was looking at used cars for the wife. I checked some cars at smaller dealers and the mileage on the car seems low. Turns out that when I ran the carfax, the dealer bought the car at the auction with 250k miles and when they listed it for sale, it was listed with 95k miles. They switched out the computer from a lower mile car of the same model.
Shady corner lot dealers are often not to be trusted. Mileage rollback is very common.
Expectations are quite different if you shop at a small car lot or from a private individual or a new car dealership. This still doesn't make it ok for used car lot dealers to roll back miles and hope that buyers don't run a carfax.

[GrandSportC3]

Originally Posted by Steve_R

There should be a law against lying. It should be a felony.

If you have it on paper/e-mail, you often have legal options against the dealer. If it's verbal, you may as well but it's hard to prove.

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

I guess, expecting someone to be honest is too much to ask..

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

If a dealer accepts a trade, they will do their due diligence and inspect the car. I doubt that any dealer will take a seller by their word.

So that righteous indignation and idealistic honesty only goes 1 way. Got it. Customers lying to dealers is perfectly ok.

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

Used cars are a whole different thing. ...There are different expectations when you buy from a private individual than if you buy from a business. Some small scumbag dealers are changing mileage on cars to sell them more expensive. About 15 years ago, I was looking at used cars for the wife. I checked some cars at smaller dealers and the mileage on the car seems low. Turns out that when I ran the carfax, the dealer bought the car at the auction with 250k miles and when they listed it for sale, it was listed with 95k miles. They switched out the computer from a lower mile car of the same model. Shady corner lot dealers are often not to be trusted. Mileage rollback is very common.
Expectations are quite different if you shop at a small car lot or from a private individual or a new car dealership. This still doesn't make it ok for used car lot dealers to roll back miles and hope that buyers don't run a carfax.

I wasn't talking about buying a used car. I was asking if your unicorn world of honesty went both ways. Which it does not.

While we're on the point of honesty in the car world, if someone intentionally lies to me about a trade, and it's usually pretty easy to tell if they are lying vs. just ignorant, I will absolutely do everything I can within the bounds of the law to get every dollar I can from them. I am sure as hell not giving them anything even close to a good deal. Because f**k you. "Oh, I didn't know it had a salvage title". "Oh, I didn't know the rods were about to come out the bottom". "Oh, I didn't know ..." You want respect, earn it. You want a fair negotiation, that goes both ways. Look at me being a big 'ole meanie face dealer.

As for the "small dealers" being the ones rolling back odometers, you are simply wrong (as usual). A legitimate, licensed dealer that gets caught doing it is subject to an absolutely massive amount of fines and more importantly loses their licenses. Given how easy it is to get caught, a dealer rolling back odometers would be in business for about a week. Individuals are the ones manipulating odometers, not dealers.

They really should pass some laws and make it illegal to change odometers. That would stop it for sure.

As for your story, do you have any proof of what you claim or did you just make assumptions about intent when you only had a small piece of the information? Auctions screw up a massive amount of the titles that they process... and Carfax is absolute garbage. It's simply not worth it for dealers to do what you are claiming. The reward does not come close to the risk.

[RedLS1GTO]

...and what does any of this have to do with EVs?

Unless the topic is Elon's constant misleading and deceptions...

[Onebadcad]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

Used cars are a whole different thing. If a dealer accepts a trade, they will do their due diligence and inspect the car. I doubt that any dealer will take a seller by their word.
There are different expectations when you buy from a private individual than if you buy from a business. Some small scumbag dealers are changing mileage on cars to sell them more expensive. About 15 years ago, I was looking at used cars for the wife. I checked some cars at smaller dealers and the mileage on the car seems low. Turns out that when I ran the carfax, the dealer bought the car at the auction with 250k miles and when they listed it for sale, it was listed with 95k miles. They switched out the computer from a lower mile car of the same model.
Shady corner lot dealers are often not to be trusted. Mileage rollback is very common.
Expectations are quite different if you shop at a small car lot or from a private individual or a new car dealership. This still doesn't make it ok for used car lot dealers to roll back miles and hope that buyers don't run a carfax.

You should report them, as is a felony.

[Onebadcad]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

If you have it on paper/e-mail, you often have legal options against the dealer. If it's verbal, you may as well but it's hard to prove.

Are you referencing smaller private dealerships that only sell used cars, which is a huge separation from new car dealerships.
Many, if not most, of the used car only lots are scammers, here today, gone tomorrow.

With that said, I cannot recall any new car dealerships in SE FL that have been charged criminally for their advertising strategies.

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by Onebadcad

You should report them, as is a felony.

Just imagine if spewing bullshit on the internet was a felony...

[Steve_R]

Originally Posted by Onebadcad

You should report them, as is a felony.

It happened to him once. 15 years ago. His conclusion from that is that it's "very common." Yet more proof he lacks even a basic understanding of statistics since a sample size of 1 is meaningless.

[Onebadcad]

Originally Posted by Steve_R

It happened to him once. 15 years ago. His conclusion from that is that it's "very common." Yet more proof he lacks even a basic understanding of statistics since a sample size of 1 is meaningless.

Not sure if still happens today, as the electronics in newer cars make it tougher to do.
I have rarely heard of anyone being prosecuted for this, as the penalties are huge, which are:

These violations EACH carry a fine as much as $5,000 and/or five years in prison.

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by Onebadcad

Many, if not most, of the used car only lots are scammers, here today, gone tomorrow.

I won't argue the here today, gone tomorrow part. In many cases, the big guys make sure of it. (I discussed this earlier in the thread)

I will however question the "scammer" part. I know a hell of a lot of dealership owners. They are generally people working much harder than most in an industry hellbent on kicking their asses. I wouldn't call any of them "scammers" outside of the worst of the worst buy here/pay here "no credit check" joints. When it comes to the small lots, the biggest advantage is selling the cars that are older or otherwise below what the big guys sell. Offering financing to people that the big guys want nothing to do with. So yes, as a result of that, it is generally a lower class clientele, clearly lower revenue, etc. That's the market segment that they can actually have a chance of grabbing.

Not everybody is an 800 credit customer. Dealing with those that aren't, offering the higher interest rates, big down payments, etc isn't "scamming" if you fully disclose what is happening.

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by Onebadcad

Not sure if still happens today, as the electronics in newer cars make it tougher to do.

It happens on cars. It DEFINITELY happens on motorcycles.

It isn't dealers doing it. Even if you think that all dealers are scumbags out to rip people off, for the very simple reason you posted... it's not worth it. It's easy to catch, and if you get caught, you're done.