[Nathans_Dad]

To Por_sha,

I don't think a car salesman is a crook because he is trying to sell the car at the highest price. That's his job. It is the job of the buyer to buy the car at the lowest price. That's what sets up the entire adversarial interaction in the first place. That's fine, if car dealers want to work that way more power to them. I'm sure there are some people who walk in the door and pay sticker price. Is it ethical of the car salesman to sell them the car at that price even though they may be paying thousands of dollars more than they should? I would say that it's ok, it's not the salesman's job to tell them how to spend their money.

I have issues with the practices of car dealerships. They advertise prices on cars and then you find out that model is "sold". Bait and switch tactics are common. They try to wear down the buyer with the whole "let me go present this deal to my manager" schtick. That's not honest. The salesman will tell you with a straight face that he doesn't know the bottom line on the car or what the incentives are. That's not honest. He will tell you your trade isn't worth as much for reason X or Y knowing that your trade is well worth more. That's not honest.

Then to top it all off you get shuffled off to the "finance manager" who is basically just there to try and get you to buy all sorts of overpriced crap that you don't need so the dealership makes more profit there.

Those are just some of the issues with car dealerships.