First off, I'd like to say great forum, and thanks to everyone for all the information posted here.
I just want to relate the experience my wife and I had when we went to our local Honda dealer.
We pulled into the lot and started ogleing a EX-L MB, throught the windows of course. After ten or so minutes of drooling on the van, I had to walk into the dealership, where I could clearly see two salespersons sitting, and ask to take a look inside. The response I got shocked me, "When do you plan on buying?" I replyed within 30 days. He left and went to a back room and returned saying "I can let you take a look inside, but unless you're going to buy it today, you can't test drive it. The sales manager doesn't want any miles put on these vans." That rather irritated me, but my wife really wanted to see the inside of the van. So we went out and looked throught the van for 20-25 minutes, then went back inside and chatted with the salesman. He said we could schedule an appointment to come back and drive the van on another day when a different manager was there. Still irked, but wanting to drive the van we made an appointment for 3 days later. Meanwhile, we drove to the Toyota dealership. We were greeted within 5 minutes of pulling onto the lot, drove a Sienna, a Sequoia, and lo and behold a '01 Odyssey, and spent nearly two hours talking to the salesman!! Needless to say, we decided on the Odyssey, without even driving it, no thanks to the local dealer. I made a couple of calls to Dallas (two hour trip, but they WANT to sell me a van) and found a dealership expecting exactly what we want (EX-L RES SS) by the end of the month. I sent a deposit, and told the salesman we would be in Dallas this weekend, he said "Come by and take one of the three demos we have for the day and see what you think." Now that's how to sell a car! In the interim, I have gotton two calls from the salesman at Toyota checking to see what we ended up deciding on, one call from the salesman in Dallas confirming when we would be up there, and have heard NOTHING from the local dealer.
Anyway, thanks for letting me rant for so long on my first post.
Nak
I just want to relate the experience my wife and I had when we went to our local Honda dealer.
We pulled into the lot and started ogleing a EX-L MB, throught the windows of course. After ten or so minutes of drooling on the van, I had to walk into the dealership, where I could clearly see two salespersons sitting, and ask to take a look inside. The response I got shocked me, "When do you plan on buying?" I replyed within 30 days. He left and went to a back room and returned saying "I can let you take a look inside, but unless you're going to buy it today, you can't test drive it. The sales manager doesn't want any miles put on these vans." That rather irritated me, but my wife really wanted to see the inside of the van. So we went out and looked throught the van for 20-25 minutes, then went back inside and chatted with the salesman. He said we could schedule an appointment to come back and drive the van on another day when a different manager was there. Still irked, but wanting to drive the van we made an appointment for 3 days later. Meanwhile, we drove to the Toyota dealership. We were greeted within 5 minutes of pulling onto the lot, drove a Sienna, a Sequoia, and lo and behold a '01 Odyssey, and spent nearly two hours talking to the salesman!! Needless to say, we decided on the Odyssey, without even driving it, no thanks to the local dealer. I made a couple of calls to Dallas (two hour trip, but they WANT to sell me a van) and found a dealership expecting exactly what we want (EX-L RES SS) by the end of the month. I sent a deposit, and told the salesman we would be in Dallas this weekend, he said "Come by and take one of the three demos we have for the day and see what you think." Now that's how to sell a car! In the interim, I have gotton two calls from the salesman at Toyota checking to see what we ended up deciding on, one call from the salesman in Dallas confirming when we would be up there, and have heard NOTHING from the local dealer.
Anyway, thanks for letting me rant for so long on my first post.
Nak