Are car sales people always this dreadful?

[ExConstance]

AIBU to expect a main dealer to have some interest in selling me a new car?
I want to replace my car with a new one exactly the same on 1 September. I know it takes 12 weeks to get one in so I need to start looking now. I've been deluged with emails and letters from dealers trying to sell me finance deals, which I don't want. The garage I bought one from has closed down so I tried the next closest dealership yesterday. The sales man was asked to give me the price of a new one on a cash basis. This seemed to be an impossible task for him and he said it would take time to find out but he would email me back by the end of the afternoon. No email arrived. I rang again this morning and asked if they knew the price, still no answer, said they would call back soon. I then called the next closers dealer they sounded irritated and said they would have to find out the price and would ring back. Neither of these sales people seemed remotely interested in selling me a car. What is wrong with them?

They are obsessed with getting you to take out a finance deal as they get some kind of commission on the finance.

^^

Yep. My DH used to be a car salesman.

When I bought the current car they (the old garage) were really lovely to me, nothing was too much trouble. They matched the best price I could find and gave me an umbrella and a bouquet of flowers when I collected it. When I take my car in for service I look over to the showroom which now sells only Kias and feel sad.

This happened to me when I tried to buy a Ford a few years back, was going to finance a new one then decided I could afford to and it made sense to just pay cash for one a year or two old. As soon as I mentioned this the dealers stopped responding to emails/calls etc.. so I went to Motorpoint and got the same car cheaper

I used to work for a big car brand - sales people get an insane amount of commission for finance (compared to the car itself) so aren't in a hurry to sell for cash.

They're basically loan salespeople.

Avoid them now and no somewhere that sells cars, not debt!

You've misunderstood, they aren't selling cars, they are selling credit packages because that's where the money is. It took me a while to work this out when all I wanted was a car. Sorry.

I had this recently.

I am very anti-finance (in most cases) and made it clear we wanted to pay in cash and he still kept trying to ram it down my throat

You could always do what my friend did - she rocked up, agreed finance terms etc to buy the car. Agreed a price and drove away in her new car.

Then immediately settled the finance with no penalty because you're entitled to a cool off period with all regulated finance products.

Not a perfect solution because it doesn't resolve the issue of the car sales people who behave like this but you get the car you want and the sales people think they're getting what they want until they see the commission clawback!

As previous posters have said they are there to sell financial products and over priced add-ons like Supagard etc. The cars a just a vehicle (pardon the pun) to sell other things.

As it is about £2k cheaper if I put it on finance and then pay it off immediately this is what I have reluctantly decided to do. It is very sad how people who cannot afford to do this are sucked into debt.