As some of you may know I unfortunatley have to wait until I graduate in May to get my HD.

My infatuation started as soon as I heard they put the superchager on the trucks. So I have been to the dealerships many times asking all kinds of questions.

I am not the most auto savvy, but I know enough to know what I want and like.

While talking to the salesmen at many different dealerships I have found that they know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the cars they sell. I was talking to one guy (who was the fleet manager) about the 03 HD and he did not even know they came in black and two tone. WHAT A MORON. They dont know what kind of gearing they come with stock, even though it was on the window sticker I was just testing his resourcefulness. He had none! There are many more situations but none are coming to mind.

Anyone else have similar happenings while shopping for their HD?

 

Hey, blueoval, stay away from the salesmen on the floor. They get paid on how much OVER invoice they sell to you. Therefore, they will have no interest in selling AT invoice... Fleet people get paid generally by the number of units they sell, so invoice is fine with them...

Go to edmunds.com, get the invoice price, read to see if there are any rebates.... Then come here, post what you find, and I or other members will help you double check those numbers...

go to Eloan.com and get preapproved for financing. It is free, painless, and the rates can't be beat.

Once you have them, call the FLEET manager at the dealership. Tell him you are ready to buy and have financing in hand and want to drive off of the lot today. That will get his attention. Then tell him you want your 03HD with X options at invoice minus the rebates that are currently offered. If he says no, move onto the next dealer. Be paitient, one will say yes, I assure you. To make it easier, wait until 2 or 3 days before the end of the month and your chances will go way up.

I realize they may have special financing deals, and you may want to use that instead of your Eloan, but having that in hand when you go in tells them you are prepared to drive out with your new truck.

I have followed this procedure every time I buy a vehicle and I have always been able to get a smoking deal. I managed to buy my 02HD back in May of last year when they were getting OVER MSRP for $500 over invoice cost... At the time, that was an unvelievable deal....

Good luck and stay away from those floor salesmen!

 

Im about to buy a 2002 HD also. A salesman told me today that the superchargers on the HD is optional. I thought that was standard after 2002? Well, I got my ELOAN papers done, they are really good. My Lincoln LS is financed by them and I got a low rate. I was going to buy a truck this weekend, but it looks like I will be waiting again. I dont want to pay over 30K. Most of the the used HD's have at least 12K miles. I think 30K is a fair price since you can get the 2003 for around 35 with the ford rebate!

 

00 and 01 Hd didn't come with a s/c and had no option for one
02 and 03 HD come standard with one...no options not to get it

Another story to show you how stupid dealers can be....
went to the dealer about 2 weeks ago to see my friend that has a 02 black HD. well i parked my truck out front in a parking spot, and my friend comes out to check out my latest mods....another salesman strolls out, and comes up to me and asks me if i want to buy this truck...i'm like wtf are you talking about dude? He asked again...i'm like this is MY truck he's like "oh, it is? i thought it was the 2002 HD that we had for sale" LoL! friggin idiot....i guess not only did he not realize the 02's are screws, but i guess he thought ramair hood, lightning tails, and red neon were standard. LoL! idiots!

 

Man, that's funny HD356!! Trying to sell you your own truck. That would make him one heck of a salesman then, huh?

I always do my research first before even looking at cars. I get a kick out of telling the salesman more about the vehicle I'm looking at then he knows, or better yet, asking them questions I already know the answer to to find out what they really know.

bluoval, definitely do your research at Edmunds or Kelley Blue Book (www.kbb.com) to get invoice pricing, etc. If nothing else, see the fleet sales manager at the dealer when you are ready. They will not be concerned about commission or their personal sales volume and usually are much more educated about the products they sell then the 'floor' guys.

Most of them will show you the true invoice as well if you prove you are truly interested in buying and can usually offer you the best deal short of having one of the plans (D, X, etc.). At least that has been my experience over the years.

 

That sucks.

I'm in sales and I take pride in knowing the facts about each machine.

Then you get some Yahoo that thinks he knows something at the dealership and you know more than him.

I hate that..... They should know everything about there product.

I bet Josh could sell the HD's. You would leave there with more info than your brain could hold.

 

you'd be leaving with a headache i could tell you so much about these HD trucks and all the little special things about them. LOL!
I love it when i tell my friend who is a salesman there and owns a 02 HD things about his truck that he never knew. LoL.

also funny that i got him a set of lightning taillights cheaper than he could with his dealers discount. LoL!

 

I have found that computer and car salesman usualy have very little in-depth knowledge of their products. It would seem obvious to us that they should know the differential final ratio and compresion ratio of every car they sell or the CPU cache memory and disk drive RPMs of every computer they sell but that's not the case most of the time. We get very informed and go there to discuss these details. They only want to know if you are going to buy. Don't be surprised if most of the time you know more than him. They may sell cars but that doesn't mean they are car nuts. I think they should know more but that's just me

 

I can understand not knowing everything about every car, but if you are gonna make a sales pitch, at least know what you are talking about...

example from just this morning talking to the salesman on why I should buy the 2002 HD for 3K more than I want to spend..

Salesman- "Well this one is a little more expensive because it has a supercharger on it"

Me - "I thought ALL the 2002 had a supercharger.."

Salesman - "No you must be confused, The supercharger is an option on the vehcile, and that is why the extra charge..."

Me - (*sarcastic*) "Yeah, thats right, I MUST be confused.."



You know...I should HAVE to pay extra for standard features...

 

sbreaux, that's almost as bad as the salesman trying to sell HD356 his own truck, LoL!

Man, if I worked for Ford I would definitely do my research. It may be difficult to keep up with every vehicle Ford makes but you could at least do your research when the vehicles come out and make yourself some notes or something. Don't just feed the customer a bunch of bull. That will just turn them away.

 

It's not that hard to remember all the important stuff......

We have 4 different zero turn riding mower brands at the shop. I can tell you just about anything you want to know including prices off the to of my head!!!

But I take pride in that kind of stuff.........

 

crockett59, you are a rare breed these days. I'm like you but maybe it's how I was raised or something. There are too many buttheads out there that do not put any pride in their work. They are just there for the check, but now that's an entirely different topic for an entirely different forum

 

 

Sorry, MikeF150, but I got to disagree with you to some degree. It should not matter how much you make you should take pride in your work.

As far as salesmen, if you don't know the answer to someone's question don't bullsh#t them. Go look it up or ask another co-worker that does. Noone is going to discredit you if you are honest and help a customer by providing them accurate info.

You bring it on yourself if you are going to try to bullsh#t someone. My father worked for Ford as a tech for 45 years and met many a salesman. Many were good and some weren't. Funny, how the good ones were in the business for a long time and the others moved on.

 

I have to agree that some of the sales staff don't have a clue in what that do.

When I bought my truck the sales lady had no idea about the trucks. I asked he a few questions about towing and some other things she had no idea. I asked some simpler ford stuff and she was still lost.

The best part was when she was showing my my truck I really wanted to turn to her and ask if she really worked there!