I’ve worked with enough salesmen to know how they talk when the customers aren’t there, and to know how they see their roles in this world–it always revolves around their low-self-esteem thirst for power over people, their uneducated views of supply and demand yielding a sociopathic justification for blaming their victims, and their trained valuation of running hard over running smart. I’ve rarely met a salesman who knows anything about his product–they’re just trained–yea, I say overtly trained–to blow off your questions and refract them into how “it can’t be answered until you fill out this credit application.” That is a lie. Buyers, all numbers can be worked out before you sign a credit app, except the interest rate, which is a set rate you are qualifying for–yet the possible rates relative to your credit score are published and don’t need a credit app. Monthly payments are contingent on that. Can you imagine if you were buying a house and, when you asked how much it cost, the guy said, “$1500/mo” or “I can’t tell you until you let me check your credit?!” Anyone who knows anything about finance knows that’s a scam, a crooked hoodlum scam, and the indicator of a business you shouldn’t do business with.

At Larry H Miller Toyota, after an hour there, the guy still wouldn’t tell us the total price of the car, the residual percentage, or the money factor. He just kept saying he was “hooking us up,” which turned out to be a bold faced lie. To be fair, we didn’t find any dealership where anyone but the bosses knew what “residual percentage” and “money factor” meant, but it’s their job to find out when we ask. We’d ask him, he’d “check,” and come back with an answer to another question we asked, trying to change the subject away from money. Rinse and repeat the brainwashing cycle. It turns out the reason they wouldn’t tell us the price was stereotypical; we were looking at one brand-new loaded Scion xB and one used base model Scion xB, and despite “hooking us up,” he was charging $500 more for the used one! When we questioned him, he kept bringing his buddies in to explain, “No, a used Scion always goes for more than a new one. If you bought this and took it down to the auction right now, they’d pay you $1000 over sticker, in cash, on the spot!” Uh, no they wouldn’t. And when we tried to leave, they started raising their voice, giving me the whole, “I can’t tell you how stupid you would have to be to not buy this car.” No, you didn’t–don’t no salesman be raising their voice to Colin. And I’m sure that works on some people, but it really says to me that the main market for new cars is weak-minded people who don’t know a thing about finance. And no, this doesn’t just apply to Miguel of Larry H Miller Toyota in Murray. We got the same, word for word, speech from other dealerships. We ended up hopping owners more than even brands of cars–rather than seeing ourselves as going from Scion to Toyota to Dodge to Jeep to Honda, etc., we saw ourselves as going from Larry H Miller to Ken Garff to Karl Malone, etc. and that’s not in anyone’s best interest.