Just a few general comments and questions about cars.
I went to
the auto mall yesterday. I don't know if you folks have auto malls in your part of the country but here it is a huge one-way "oval" with dealers on each side of a 3 lane "blacktop" and you can drive the circle around and around looking at the cars and it makes it easy to enter and exit each dealership... no traffic lights.
It was the first time I'd been "on the lot" as a buyer in 4 years.
I went to the BMW dealership. Now I used to sell Hyundai several years ago so I know a bit about car sales and I know the quality of "guy" they have at the cheapo brand dealers. But I expected a lot more class and professionalism from a BMW store. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
OK, it was 92 degrees around noon, I was dressed in shorts and t-shirt and I drove in with a Honda Civic... so I didn't look like I could afford a lux-car. But I was a serious buyer. I was a player. I was ready to deal. But this guy just didn't want to sell me. He said he was brand new to this area.... used to sell BMW in the SF area, and he seemed to know the different lines pretty well.
We walked around the new cars and the used ones. We were getting along well. I liked him. Not pushy, had a good personality. I told him I wanted to get a brochure on the new "1" series and so we walked into the showroom (too cool off and get some water.) He came back and said there were no brochures as the model was too new, thanked me for coming in and walked away.
What? Huh? Not even a card?
The first thing I did was pull on the neck of my t-shirt and take a sniff to see if I had BO, but my anti-perspirant had not given out. I did the old breath-in-the-hand trick and I was still "Scoped" so that wasn't it either. OK, I had my
Tilly hat on and sun shades but I didn't look homeless or anything!
So I trundled off back to my crappy 2004 Honda Civic and drove off.
Is asking for a brochure a "code word" for "I'm not buying today?" What did I do wrong to keep this guy from selling me a car? I would have at least expected a "turnover" but... nothing. Maybe there is a rule at BMW shops that people with Civics never buy!
Anyway, as I was driving the oval (it is like being on a race-car track... even the corners are banked a bit... clever idea) I noticed something strange. There was no traffic. At noon on Saturday there should have been hundreds of cars driving the oval. Often you have to drive around a few times to jockey into position to exit on the left or right (like driving the roundabouts in Mexico city!) The "track" was almost empty. Twenty cars tops... plenty of room.. no one getting on or off... it really WAS like Indy!
The Chevy dealer is in the "inside" of the oval and it is HUGE. Every Saturday they have free burgers and dogs for anyone... they have the grill under a canapoy you can see from the oval. There should be 50 people there at lunch time looking to score a free meal. One family. That was it. Young couple with a small child.
This economy is in trouble if the auto mall is empty on a Saturday and no one is looking for a free hot dog!
One question. With all the odometers of the newer cars being digital, how hard would it be to hack these and re-set them. I ask because the BMW lot had a lot of 2007s and 2006s with only 11,000 - 12,000 miles on them. The guy said they were "executive" cars. What are those? Hyundai never had those! I think these Beemers had been turned back. I don't think it would be as easy to hack into a BMW odometer as it would be to hack into your basic Windows computer, but I'll bet there are 15 year olds at the auction houses that can do it in about five minutes!
One thing I learned is that no one details cars as well as BMW. The used cars looked and smelled as good as new.
The fit and finish of the BMW was really super. I didn't drive anything so I can only assume that the "ultimate driving machine" ads are true. My crappola Honda Civic has good fit and finish... but it drives like s--t... yet I can get just about what I paid for it in resale if the Kelly site is accurate.
I had a pretty good year and was in a buying "mood." I would have liked to drive home in a late model BMW 325 or maybe even a new 128 yesterday. I guess business must be good at that store because no one was busting their buns to sell me anything.
Maybe I'll try the other dealership that is not in the mall but down on auto-row. It won't be the same. I love the mall. Driving the oval and seeing cars from 20+ dealers is very cool.
Al
BMWs, Auto-mall, milage rollback, etc.
Linear Mode
