Bloody car salesmen!

[DoughnutMaestro]

Dh is getting a new (secondhand) car as he broke his he went to look at one yesterday and looked at it and promised to ask me to drop off a deposit today and buy the car Saturday.
He didn’t do a proper test drive just started engine and pulled forward a few feet and back into the space and declared that good enough.

I went down today with the deposit and told the dealership owner that I would need to inspect the car myself and go for a proper test drive before I handed over any deposit.
I got the response of “ok I’ll get you the keys but your husband already inspected it and he probably knows better than you about cars”
I choked a little but bit my tounge and stayed quiet, once I’d checked it over I asked for the keys to do a test drive and got the response “would you like me to get a man to drive you”
I told him “no thank you, you watched me drive my own car in and park?”
He said “are you sure you can manage to drive it ok it’s bigger than your car and are you sure you can drive an automatic, you know what to do?”
I was very restrained I think, mainly because it’s a good car at a good price but I replied
“I’ve been driving for fifteen years, I’ve driven just about every kind of car there is, and quite a few vans and moving lorries and I used to be a bus driver I think I’ll cope, dh barely knows one end of a dipstick from the other which is why I as a more experienced driver came to check it”

I didn’t wait for a reply I just got in and drove off, I did go back and pay the deposit though because really the cars a bargain it’s just a shame the seller is a massive dick.

I’m going back tomorrow to pick it up with dh so I’ll let you know how that goes!

When I say “looked at it” he literally looked at it, checked there was enough cup holders and nodded at the engine like he had any clue what it did, which he doesn’t!

DP is banned from buying any more cars, after I got the SMS that he'd found and bought one, and we were going to go over and pick it up the next day.

I drove it home. It had a weird clonk, it pulled to one side, and the brakes were spongy. He had test driven it, just completely failed to notice any of this. We got a load of stuff fixed so it was actually safe to drive, and I hoped we'd dodged a bullet.

6 months later the thing stopped working on DP's way home, and he had to very contritely call and get me to tow him home....

I fucking hate this sort of shit.

I was once on the driveway tinkering with MY motorbike, DP was passing me tools in the manner of an operation...."Torque wrench"..."Check"
and a random passing bloke walked past, stopped, and went "Nice bike mate, aren't you worried she'll break it fiddling like that?!"

DP squinted up at him and went "Well seeing as I know fuck all about motorbikes, and it's hers...no...no I don't"

Sadly I don't think the guy registered any sort of issue.

The amount of times I've been out on the bike and met DP somewhere, like a pub, and been standing by the bike and blokes have come over and gushed to DP about how nice the bike is etc, without ever looking at me....sometimes I've even been standing there in full fucking bike gear clutching a helmet, DP in shorts and t shirt...but nope, it's clearly the mans bike.

After you've bought the car I suggest you put in a written complaint to the dealership naming the salesman.
I did that recently over a similarly sexist dealer and slightly to my surprise the dealership actually did a sensible response. They were somewhat taken aback by the salemans behaviour tbh. The managers don't see it happening because they aren't part of the conversation with customers and with falling car sales they are (just) starting to realise they can't afford to annoy half the potential car owners.
Given if their response is unsatisfactory it starts to make them aware and hopefully other women will complain.

Dh has bought some turds before, he tends to look at the badge instead of the car, he bought a merc, had it a few months and it died, can’t remember exactly what it was that killed it must in my shitty punto it would’ve been about £50 and an hours work to repair but because it was a Mercedes a class basically it wrote the car off.
He’s had about 5 cars since I got my punto and mine is a tank it’s unkillable I’ve given up on him and told him he’s not buying any car till I’ve looked at it!
I grew up helping my brother fix cars and modify them, if anyone wants a 90s bodykit fitting to a cortina I’m your girl!

Even not Given - autocorrect fail

Problem there being sparerib the guy I dealt with owns the dealership, it’s not a massive one so I doubt he’d care.

You'd think that pure self-interest and greed would motivate these morons to sell to the decision-maker ... but no, they still try selling to the trousers.

Dh thinks its my fault that he thought I was a weak silly lady instead of a full grown sensible woman because I wore a pink dress...

That folks is why we need feminism!

Write to him anyway and point out at the end (if it's true for you, it's certainly the case for me) that these days the majority of women you know make the decisions on cars and whilst he may not feel there's a problem you have been discussing this your friends who are all interested to hear how he responds.

He may still not care but it may make him pause the next time he goes to insult a female buyer.

We've had this before, as I learned to drive a good 6 - 7 years before DH so had a car before I met him and did what regular maintenance needed doing myself. He'll go to garages and get salesmen flocking to him, when he has no idea other than colour and knowing our budget, whereas I'll be under the bonnet looking for rust and checking mileage and service history and engine size / whether we can fit a buggy in the boot.

Go with him next time, he'll keep the salesmen away whilst you have a good look!

There are some decent ones. I've bought my cars off the same guy for the past 5 years but he puts his head in his hands when I walk in "what do you want now? A free car and a winning lottery ticket?" 😂😂

I'm in this process at the moment, sadly dh is very mech savvy and does do all the inspection while I get to count the cup holders consider the practicalities, he still wouldn't buy my the family car without my agreement. We may have different priorities but I'm not a fool and I dare any salesman to try and talk over my head! Actually it could be quite fun...

I’ve bought high performance high end cars for years now. Never once has a salesman asked if my husband would be coming in, if I could make the decision by myself etc. Disappointing because I’d quite like to have a good rant and a flounce.

We bought cars last year, a sensible one and a more, erm, midlife crisis one

The salesman for the sensible one asked us had we seen one we liked and who would be buying it... he then only really spoke to me about it. Didn't even ask DH about payment.

The salesman for the sporty job smiled at both of us and asked if we'd like a test drive. DH drove it out, I drove it back. He then spoke to me until I said it would primarily be DHs car.

Maybe I look scary!

I was in a car showroom for quite a long time the other day (my car was in for a safety recall and I'd said I'd wait around for it to be done and it took fucking ages) and I was actually watching for this, quite looking forward to a good giggle at some sleazy sexist sales tactics.

Instead I noticed all the sales staff (about 75% male 25% female) were directing the bulk of the sales patter at the women in the cases I saw. OK apart from the guy who was spending more time talking to the customer's (really cute) dog than discussing the inner intricacies of what the car he was asking about could do.