Talk:Car dealerships in the United States

Racism and Honest
In that Wikipedia is supposed to be a factual, non emotionally charged resource, does anyone else agree with me that these newer sections should be deleted? This topic deserves its discussion in the racism section of Wikipedia Gnew18 00:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * This section meets Wikipedia's criteria because it is referenced (see "references" section). The references show how car dealerships have been criticized for being these ways. Hellno2 13:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The section appears to be someones accusation levied at... no on in particular...   My inclination is to remove at least the racism section - leads off with the phrase "Many auto dealerships have been known"; Known by who? and "have sometimes resulted in lawsuits" where are these lawsuits?, how often is "sometimes"?  I've tagged for unrefenced and will give it a while to see if any citations show up. Cander0000 07:48, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I have included 4 citations. I listed these simply because they were the first 4 GHits on the topic. If you are not satisfied with them, you can simply google for more. The subject matter is well covered on many websites. Hellno2 20:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Hellno2, You added a citation that had absolutely nothing to with the preceding sentence. I removed it and the sentence. For your reference it was the repeat of the CTV article, which you cited as proof of African Americans being discriminated against. The article does not mention anything of the sort and only talks about Canadians being discriminated against because of our high dollar. I'm going to review your other citations now to make sure you didnt do the same thing in them as well. 64.230.43.92 16:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I understand that there are a lot of people who share the opinion that Car dealers are dishonest. However, thats exactly it, a opinion. Dealerships are run by people, just like every other business in the US. If dealerships get a special column on their wikipedia page about honesty, I think every other US business should get a Honesty section as well. -Ben —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.159.20.222 (talk) 21:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Added Content. Agreed that these sections seemed soley based on opinion not facts related to honesty. Based on where you are coming from with this I made some revisions and added some research to the section and renamed it Customer/Dealer Perceptions, because truly that is what the area seems to address. Mmenton (talk) 14:37, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Can we just outright delete it most of it? The first two lines seem to be the only ones conveying desirable information (opinion polls and dealership law). It has statements that are drifting well into the realm of opinion and reads like it was copied from a corporate website. Consider: "Auto dealers appreciate car shoppers who know what they are looking for" and "the auto retailing industry works hard to eliminate outdated stereotypes". The only citation for much of it is a dead link to autoretailing.org. The used car paragraph has no citation. Nitwit005 (talk) 05:23, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Credit Life and Disability
Explained "choke and croak" more clearly and cleaned up the service contract section IF any is interested I worked in my family's car dealerships for over nine years. Please feel free to go to my [talk page] and contact me Gnew18 05:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Anyone Out there?
Is there anybody here that is familiar with or has worked for a car dealership in the past? If so, and you have some time I would really appreciate it if you could e-mail me. I have a few questions, which should not take too long. My e-mail is Bbardes@hotmail.com

Thank You

--- I have worked in many dealerships, if you have any questions email me at benbaummier@gmail.com. I can answer most if not all of your questions. -Ben —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.159.20.222 (talk) 20:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

This article is a classic! Here we have, in Wikipedia, a supposedly international on-line encyclopedia. However, anyone reading this article might be forgiven for thinking that car dealerships are a purely American phenomenon. This article seems to have been "written" by someone in America who is unaware that there are any other locations at all in the rest of the world. The author seems to think that America is the world, and the world is America.

I'm going to rename this one to "Car dealerships in the US". It's just too much effort to give it an international perspective. I'll set up a new article called "Car dealership" for the world at large.

It's depressing to note that there's so much material in Wikipedia similar to this. Arcturus

Deleted most of the article
I decided to get rid of most of the article and replaced a few things mostly because it was very off topic. Most of the article was how to work in a dealership, none of it helped me know more about them.

This article needs serious work, I may have time to do more research later.


 * I agree that this article needs serious work, but trimming it to a list of car dealership brands was definitely overkill, so I reverted the deletion. Caerwine 04:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Restructuring
This article ought to be about what car dealerships do, not what car salesmen do. Car dealers sell cars and offer some additional services. I've tried to structure it that way, but I still think we need to flesh out the business model of car dealers' core activities (selling cars, buying trade-ins, financing purchases, servicing cars, etc.).

It seems like two issues that would be useful to tackle beyond this (perhaps alongside regulation) are why the US automobile distribution channel worked out this way (some history, along with some description of the legal issues that are emerging in an eBay world), and some discussion of sales tactics/compensation. Why do they call them "used car salesmen" anyway? Gary 13:07, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

- Added Information -

I added a lot more information, mostly on the additional services offered by car dealerships. -

Balance of coverage
The article has two paragraphs on selling cars and 11 on 'other services', although those other service may be of note, it seems inherent that their reason for existense is to 'sell cars'. Can we lose some of the detail on the 'other services'? Cander0000 07:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't see why details on other services provided by car dealerships should be lessened or omitted. Every time I have bought a new car, many of these "other services" were offered to me. I am not in the car sales industry, but it is my understanding that the profit for the dealership itself often might be just as much from these other services as it might be for the sale of the car itself.

To be fair, there would be little or no logical reason to offer these other services if the car dealer didn't have the cars to sell. But they are in some ways just as much in the business of selling said services as they are in selling the cars, at least as I perceive it. 69.76.14.139 (talk) 15:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The Honesty Issue
I understand that there are a lot of people who share the opinion that Car dealers are dishonest. However, thats exactly it, a opinion. Dealerships are run by people, just like every other business in the US. If dealerships get a special column on their wikipedia page about honesty, I think every other US business should get a Honesty section as well.

Also, Why would a dealer agree to have someone take a used car to a different mechanic? First off, they own it and they insure it. So if anything happened to it before purchase was finalized, then they have to pay for any damages. Now, if someone paid a trusted mechanic to come to the dealership and look at it with the salesmens supervision, I dont think that would be a problem.

You do make mention of carfax, which is a good tool for used car buyers to help with decision making, so I must compliment you on that.

If you really want to make your article up to date you should add some information on the possible revoulution of car dealerships. There are about to be some big changes in this industry. If you have any questions feel free to email me about and I will give you answers + sources. benbaummier@gmail.com

-Ben

I've been in the car business for 17 years Ben and have never worked at a Dealership that wouldn't let a customer take a vehicle to their own mechanicRjdz28 (talk) 09:34, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Source Bias
The numbers presented in the Customer Experience section come from Automotive Retailing Today (ART) which is "a coalition of all major automobile manufacturers and dealer organizations" according to their website. I think this section may be misleading. Jackjackerson (talk) 17:45, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

NPOV
There is a great amount of this article that is not from a neutral point of view. Either bashing used car dealers and praising new car dealers or making statements like "The the dealer won't let you have a vehicle inspected by a mechanic than it must have hidden problems. — ASPENSTI — TALK  — CONTRIBUTIONS  01:33, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Garbage
The article looks like it was written by a third-grader.

"This is the final step of [the] negotiation process."

"is able to hand the sales manage[r] a token of good faith"

"[vehicle's] manufacture[r']s suggested retail price"

or maybe

"vehicles' manufacture[r']s suggested retail price[s]"

depending if he's talking about one car at a time or the whole lot. I don't know, and I doubt he does.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.237.97 (talk) 17:15, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

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