Sign on the Dotted Line

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I had to run over to the dealership where I bought my car last night…

Boy, now those guys are funny!

But you know, sometimes funny is what makes it all worth while.  If you have a dry boring salesman, you are less likely to work with them, than if you have one who jokes around and tries to make your car buying experience great.

I swear, when they see me walk in though, they probably think, “Oh crap what does she want now?”

My car came with a 1 Year dealership warranty so any chips in the windshield, door dings in a parking lot, (2) tire rotations, and a few other things (part of which I’m drawing a blank right now) will get fixed.  Heck I already have to take advantage of that… I hadn’t had the car a week and got hit by a flying rock.  That puppy hit hard too 🙁  2 days later I walked in to give the title to my old car and the extra key to Steve and told him what happened to my windshield and he was shocked.  Yeah that’s just my luck…

**Sucky photo by my iPhone**

So anyway, back to the story at hand… So I walked in last night and Steve really wasn’t expecting us until today (woops, sorry Steve!) so when he got done helping his current customers he came over to chat with us.  In the mean time, Josh, the General Manager, walked over and said, “Don’t ever ask her to sign on a line.” laughed and shook my hand.

So maybe I should explain that story, since that’s kind of where this post is going…

Back in 2006 when I was looking to buy my Mustang, I went to deal with a Ford dealership that really ticked me off.  My dad was with me, he was both shocked and proud of me for standing up for myself. (I really do have a shy side to me…)  So we test drove a 2007 Mustang that they had on their lot that particular day.  I thought well I really like this car (even though I found my dream one on another Ford lot that was a 2004) so I decided that maybe a 2007 was the way to go, so I was ready to talk money with them.

We went in the dealership and way before they even ran my credit report check or anything, they came back with outrageously high numbers.  That right there pissed me off.  They knew I didn’t currently have a car payment (car was paid off), I was getting way better fuel mileage on the current car, my insurance was lower on the current car and they wanted 3/4 of my paycheck a month in car payments.  I told the guy he was flippin out of his mind.  So at the bottom of that piece of paper he drew a line and placed an X on it.  He said, well I’ll go back and talk to the general manager and try to lower the price for you if you’ll sign your name on that line that if I get it to the price you want today you’ll buy the car no matter what.  I said, “Excuse me?  If you get where I want, I’ll probably do it but you can’t make me sign that line.”  He said that I had to sign that line or else he couldn’t go back to the general manager.

Let me tell you I was one mad person.  I looked at my dad and said, “That guy is flippin out of his mind, I’m not doing business with them, let’s go.”  The guy just stared at me like, is she serious?  I grabbed my keys and walked out.  I was fuming.

So dad and I went to the Ford dealership that had the 2004 that I really wanted, they joked around with me, laughed with me, laughed at me, made my car buying experience pleasurable and I never looked back.

That was a Saturday.  The following Monday the General Manager of the other Ford dealership called me still trying to sell me a car.  He explained that the line was so that they knew the customer was serious and not wasting their salesmen time.  I explained to that guy that my time was way more valuable than that and I didn’t care if I wasted their salesmen time or not… it was my time I wasn’t about to waste.  Time is valuable and then I proceeded to tell him that I already made my purchase from a dealership that wasn’t worried about me “Wasting their time.”

So jump forward to the year 2011, the date January [whatever date I bought my car], and this nice handy guy named Steve who so choose that day to deal with me :).

I won’t bore you with the details of test driving cars (it’s in this post) but when we went inside to talk numbers, I warned Steve first off that I would not sign on any line that was drawn by him on a piece of paper saying I would buy then… it isn’t a binding contract so it’s pointless to sign and I WON’T DO IT and if he wanted me too I was just as happy to walk out of the dealership right then and there, save us all some hassle and go somewhere else.

He told me not to do that, he wouldn’t do that to me.  After the negotiating rounds, at the end, with one final negotiation he drew the line and the X.  I said ok give me my keys I’m leaving (They had my keys b/c they were looking at my car).  That’s when Josh the General Manager walked in and said I could deal with him personally.  I told him about the line with the X and how I refused to sign it.

Well as you all know, I bought the car so I didn’t have to sign on a hand drawn line with an X.  I did however have to sign on official papers.  I’m cool with that though.

So last night I told the guys if they’d draw a line on the window with window chalk (or we did it in dry erase marker) that I’d finally sign it.  And I did too 🙂

It doesn’t show up the greatest and of course my point and shoot camera battery was dead so this is again with my iPhone… and you can barely see my smiley face, but we all got a good kick out of it 🙂

Happy Tuesday everyone!

0 thoughts on “Sign on the Dotted Line

  1. Car dealership people are so funny. They did the same thing to us when we were buying our Truck. He kept trying to go to my husband with the sheet of paper and I was like “No, you come to me.” B/c my husband would have just agreed to the price. It's funny, when you tell them the bottom line, they understand and they stop giving you the crazy run-around.

  2. Well when we are ready to buy our next car, I am bringing you with us! hahaha. That is cool that you signed the window.

  3. Good for you! Stand up for yourself. One time when The Offspring was about 2 we went to look at a truck. She was getting fussy.

    When the guy went to get their offer I looked at Hubby and said, “May I have your pager please?” (this was back in the dark ages when people still used pagers) He handed it to me.

    I told the guy he had 3 minutes from the time on the pager and that we weren't going to sit there and haggle. To only come back with his final offer. If he wasn't back by then that we were walking out… He just looked at me and then at Hubby. Hubby said, “She's serious.” As he walked away, I started tapping the pager on the table and watched the time. The guy was back just as it turned to 3 minutes and we were standing up. The look on his face … LOL!

    His price was what we were willing to pay…

    Stef at TooMuchToDoSoLittleTime.com

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