Is it really? In all seriousness, that kind of turns all the stereotypes on their heads. What do they do?

In my observations, from 3 points (manager, salesperson, and customer) on a sales floor:

The first lie almost always comes out of the customer’s mouth. Without fail. People who start conversations with me by actually being honest to begin with (and most other salespeople) and continuing with that pattern, will be responded to honestly in most cases (the good the bad and the ugly) and be well taken care of and leave happy. Lie to me, and I'll call you on it by the third one. People don't like being caught in a lie.

A car showroom is not a [censored] daycare center; it's a place of business. Don't bring your children in there to amuse them (mostly men seem to do this) and let them climb and jump all over the cars. I've actually had to file suit against some [censored] who's 5 year old destroyed a NB convertible to the point where I could not in good conscious, repair it and sell it. You may think children are wonderful, but there are those of us who do not like them, and we don't want to watch them/entertain them for you. People with children in tow are usually the worst offenders for obnoxious behavior.

We are not obligated to sell you a damn thing.

Invoice minus holdback is not a reasonable offer. Unless it's the car known to the sales staff as the (fill in color here) piece of [censored].

I don't give a [censored] what pricing guide you read, if there's a waiting list for a car, you are not getting a discount. Edmunds does not sell cars, I do. Recognize.

Don't yell at me because your credit sucks.

$199 a months over 60 months will never equal $30,000, no matter how hard you try. Don't expect me to sell you a car for $20,000 under cost because you can't afford your tastes.

Do not talk to me like you know more about the whole car buying bit than I do. Most people do this once every three years; I do it almost every damn day.

Do not talk to me like I am a moron.

Do not tell me how much of a profit I am entitled to. I don't tell you how much money you should make.

The fax letter that begins with "I'm taking bids for my business" outlining our costs, available as a downloadable file from a few car buying services (the one with the line that says "I do not want a salesman receiving a commission for this sale, please consider this a house deal") is so incredibly rude I can't even begin to put it into words. Of course these people expect to receive their car with all the things usually done by a salesperson like having all the paperwork filled out, plates and registration on it, sent to be detailed etc. Without compensation. Cute.

MY LACK OF A PENIS DOES NOT IMPAIR MY ABILITY TO DRIVE A CAR WITH A MANUAL TRANSMISSION.
An actual conversation with a customer who bought my GTI demo, and asked who was driving it, so Mel brought him over to me.
"You were driving that car? Are you some kind of a lesbian?"
There is only one answer to this question, truth or not. "Yes"
"You don't look like a lesbian"
"Ever hear the phrase lipstick lesbian?"
"Yeah, but I never knew what it meant"
"You learn something new every day"

BEING A FEMALE DOES NOT MEAN I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT CARS. Other women are the worst offenders for this one.

I am not going to commit a crime for you so you can save a few bucks on taxes.


I could go on, but I'm tired.

(I don't want this to be a loaded question, so I'll admit that I have a basic approach to buying a car: Call dealership, ask if they have car X, and will they sell it to me for price Y? Not much more complicated than that.)

Which is precisely the sort of thing most of us love to deal with. Simple with a low bullshit factor. However, the behavior of other customers works against you in this situation.