Car Dealer Confessions…Digging Out.

Thanks to Paul Rushing for contributing his personal accounts of the retail car business.

It’s all about the Benjamins…

The used car business is about money, just like all businesses are, and sometimes there are casualties. Customers, dealers and even salespeople lose.

I entered the business in 1990 fresh out of the Army and I thought it was the best job in the world.  Helping people get what they wanted and making a nice living in the process. Then something happened and changed my outlook.  It became all about the money until this happened.

I sold a young lady her first used car.  It was November of 1992 on a nice brisk day. 45 degrees in my part of the world.  She bought a 1990 Ford Escort, it had automatic transmission, cassette, tilt and cruise.  The perfect car for a young girl until…

March of 1993 when she thought the air conditioning was broke.  She called me on the phone to let me know of her problem.  I knew what the problem was when she called, the car never had an air condition system in it.  I told her to bring it in to the shop the next day, my day off, to have them look at it.

Down where I’m from, cars without air conditioning are not pleasurable.  Needless to say, she was not very happy when the service manager explained to her no air.

I got to meet a very upset young woman my next day at work.  She had tears in her eyes and was rightfully upset.  She was heart broken and so was I.  Now I had become emotionally attached to a problem that in the past did not matter to me.  I got paid, they got a car and all was good.

I gave her my used Ford Ranger to drive while I assured her everything would be ok.  It cost $500 to have aftermarket air installed and the dealer told me I dug my own hole – dig myself out of it.  My commission on the sale was $700. The dealer knew what I did when I sold it; took advantage of a young girl who was happy to be getting a car.

I never got my truck back.  I wound up selling that car a few months later and went into debt for another car and a ring.  In just a few short days “Ms. Escort” (my nickname for her) and I will celebrate 15 years of marriage.  Hindsight being 20/20, I’m glad that car didn’t have A/C.  If it did, I wouldn’t have had the last decade and a half.

Be rest assured though, it has cost me more money than a $500 aftermarket A/C…

Paul Rushing
912-266-1629
www.ismintraining.com
“Believer in all things possible”

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