I’ve been in the market for a 22 Yukon Denali premium/ultimate for a while and yesterday an in transit Denali popped up on a dealer website in the metro Atlanta area about 95 miles from me.
I called up immediately and saleswoman confirmed it was available but unfortunately they don’t take deposits so I’d have to come in and make the deal. Fine, no problem, day trip to Atlanta. I confirmed the stock number and vin and she again said it’s available and she sets me up an appointment with her sales manager for today at 1pm.
Being the over eager, overly paranoid person I am, I called back up yesterday to talk to the manager directly. I left him a message and didn’t hear back.
I called this morning again before I’d have to leave, and was told that manager wasn’t even in today. I spoke to the manager on call and he told me that vehicle was a customer order and was never for sale.
Im glad I didn’t waste nearly 200 mile round trip on something I would never have been able to get. They must have just wanted me in the dealership, and I hate that tactic.
It also could be that the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing (mostly).
I recently bought a 2021 Sierra AT4 6.2L. I had decided to start looking for one a while earlier and put a screen/notification into a couple of the internet crawlers, looking for one locally. It didn't take long before I got a notification of 5 that had just arrived at our local dealer. I have used this dealer for any heavy lifting maintenance and repair wise I didn't feel like doing on my 2007 Yukon for years. The service advisor I had used for many years on my 2007 Yukon is always super honest and very knowledgable. The senior techs have done a number of fairly major jobs for me with perfect results (replacing the piston and rings under a GM TSB, etc.).
On their internet ad they advertised a discounted price (which included some GM incentive money and some of their own discounting). I happened to have the time, so I went right down and saw the five trucks sitting out front. They were easy to spot as they had maybe 10 other vehicles on the whole lot.
When I walked up I was greeted by a salesman and I expressed interest in one of the AT4's. He had to check to see if it was still available and it was so we took off on the test drive. When we returned I told him I would buy it.
He was very pleased and shepherded me over to the "sales area". He started to write up the offer and explained I was really lucky as it was being offered at MSRP. I told him they had an internet page that offered a substantial discount off MSRP with a "net price". He seemed confused and said he would check with the "manager". Coming back he said there was no record of the discounted price. I pulled the page I had printed out and showed him. For the next hour+ they tried every knucklehead trick I have ever seen tried when selling cars/trucks, all of which I declined with me getting up two different times having said we were done. After they finally agreed to honor the terms stipulated on their webpage ad, I was escorted over to the "finance manager" to complete the purchase. This guy then started on page two of sleazy dealer tricks, lease/loans pitch, doc fees, pre-paid service contracts, extended warranty, paint protection process, antitheft insurance, etc. etc. etc. After I explained I was prepared to pay the net price on the web page ad and nothing else (other than tax and license) and would be leaving immediately if he wasn't prepared to honor their ad, he finally relented and allowed me to pay him for the truck. When I was leaving I explained that I loved their service department, but had to tell him the sales organization (other than the salesman himself who was a very hard working diligent guy) was about as sleazy as I had run into in my 50 years of buying cars and trucks. He explained it away as "a lot of new people", some of which I think might have been true as the "sales manager" looked like he had just graduated from high school, but most of which I am positive comes from higher up.
In the end, I think many dealers have embraced the enlightened approach to selling cars (which usually includes a far more experienced and capable staff throughout), but I think there are still a lot that do it the old fashioned wa, definitely least common denominator stuff throughout out the organization.
Finally, when I got home I checked their website and it only showed 3 available, all of which were offered over MSRP. I guess the first two people that came that day got their loss leader price.
