My Nissan Dealer Experience

This Is My Personal Experience at a Nissan Dealership

This is Part of “How to Save Thousands On a New Car Purchase” Link is below if you would like to read it.

Dealership #1

When I went car shopping with my mother and we went into a Nissan dealership to see some cars. We saw them online and finally wanted to see them there. The salesman was really nice and showed us the cars we wanted to see and was very courteous. He explained that the car would come with free lifetime oil changes and answered all the questions he could (I would have to talk to the service department to know about those “FREE” oil changes). This was the first time my mother has gone new car shopping and truthfully this first visit to a dealership was pretty demoralizing. Before going in I did warn her that they may just about kick us out. Well, the salesman finally sat us down at his cubical and told us he was going for the numbers on the car. When he first explained the pricing he brought up he would be able to get us a $1,500 discount if we bought the car today. We then realized the car has an addendum of nearly $5,000. With the discount the price of the car would still be about $3,500 above sticker plus +++(tag, title, and fees). This was sort of a shocker to us and the salesman acted offended that I didn’t believe the discount was good. I told him that I didn’t need the “FREE” oil changes and other dealerships offer the same car for nearly $7,000 off MSRP. The salesman stood up said give him a second, walked over to the finance area. Then immediately walked back and told us thank you for coming in, and sorry he couldn’t help us.

Dealership #2

After dealership #1 I had to assure my mother that its sorta of “normal” to be just about kicked out of the dealership. She continued to be a good sport :), so we went to a second Nissan dealership. Here we got a bit of an odd experience. Know, this is a different dealership in a different city with different owners. When we walked in we were greeted and offered water by a nice salesman. We told him the car we came in to see (we used the stock number on their website) and he told us to first sit at his cubical. So me and my mother sat over by his desk while we thought he was getting the key. He came back with a paper that he told us to fill out while they would get the car. When I read through the paper it asked for everything including Social Security number and signature to pull my credit “DON’T DO THIS“. I of course told the salesman I’m not going to be filling this out and he told me that they have everyone fill this out so that they know how much the customer can afford and they can find a car that fits their customer’s budget. From there we then went into an endless loop of what car payment I was wanting to achieve. I told him a least a dozen times I would adjust the down payment to achieve the payment I want and I already have my own financing. I finally broke and told him under $400 and he said no problem and he will go pull around a car. So me and my mother went to the front of the dealership to wait and the salesman came with another car. It wasn’t an ugly car or anything but it was nearly half the price of the car we were looking at. We said this isn’t the car we were looking at. He then explained his manager said this one would fall in our budget and payment. “I really don’t think I looked too broke I feel I was pretty normal. And, the car I came in cost about 2-3 times the car I was looking at”. But anyways, he then pulled around the car we originally looked at. After the test drive he then took us to his desk again and we started to talk about price. he told us that they currently have a special going on and have a $1,700 discount on this car. But this location also had an addendum of $2,995. So we were still above sticker price. He tried to tell us that all dealerships charge addendums. I told him I have never paid one and he tried to tell us its because it’s all Nissans. THIS IS NOT TRUE! We then showed him the exact car online that was showing a $7,000 discount online and a dealership that doesn’t charge addendums. After going to his manager (this will happen a few times and then the manager will come to sit with you after a few more times) he told us he would do the $7,000 discount with the addendum. So after about an hour we were at about $4,000 off MSRP. This means we were at about $7,500 below the 1st dealer. We decided to call it there and me and my mother decided to leave. Later the next day I received a call from the same salesman that they were able to get me the price I wanted if still wanted it. Meaning one day and shopping around lead to a difference of $10,500.