Dealerships try to sell cars in all sorts of ways but good communication is almost always a key in that process. Sometimes though, communication is where the sale breaks down in a big way. With that in mind, we’re wondering what the dumbest thing a dealer has ever said to you is.
To put a clear point on it, we’re not talking about something skeezy that they’ve said in person. We’ve gotten your feedback on that topic before. More specifically, we’re talking about responses that you might have received via email about a vehicle. Perhaps the most apparent examples are those surrounding auto-reply software.
One Redditor posted just such an example recently. The message they received read “thank you for your interest [sic] in the 2023 Civic Type R !! Would you consider a Honda Passport instead ?” It would seem that the system detected an absence of Type Rs available and automatically suggested something else.
Read: FTC Might Be About To Force Dealers To Clean Up Shady Pricing Practices
What it probably wasn’t programmed to do was to recognize gigantic differences in vehicle type that the cavernous one that separates a Civic Type R from a Passport SUV. According to the comment section there, this kinda thing happens all the time too. “A Toyota dealership did this to me but with the Corolla gr,” read one comment.
“Cadillac did this to me when I inquired about a MANUAL CT4v. Now I get emails about the base 2.0t CT4,” read another. A third person said that a Kia dealer tried to move him off of a Stinger purchase and into a Telluride.
Probably the sketchiest stuff I’ve personally received is the message saying that a dealer wouldn’t give me pricing over email on a Corvette Z06 because of how rare they are. Of course, that same dealer later disclosed pricing online after it seemed like the internet shamed them into doing it.
You folks probably have much better stories so you know what to do. Let us know in the comments below what the dumbest things dealers have said to you are.
