E55-0817

My brother and I went car shopping for another vehicle today for our dad. I was in my short and T-shirt, looking as young as an eightteen years old kid, and my brother was in his work clothes, which he looked to be in the early 20's. (He was on his lunch break).
When we got to Lexus of Chandler, AZ, the secretary greeted us and asked if we needed help. So she went to get a saleman after we told her that we were looking to buy a car. A couple minutes later, a saleman came out (I'm not going to mention his name). Right after the usual introduction, I told him that I'm looking for a pre-owned IS250. He told us that there weren't any 250s on the lot but there were two IS350s. I told him that I'm fine with the 350 but it has to be in Pearl White. He said that the dealership has a black and a blue pre-own only. He asked me why not get a new car, why get a pre-owned for? I told him that the pre-owned would be cheaper and that I only need it to get around. I told him that I would use it as a beater since I've already have a car. He then asked me what kind of vehicle do I owned, I told him I have an E-55.....
THIS IS THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE STORY............
Without knowing what I do for a living or who I am, he straight up said "Did you buy an C-class and rebadged it to an E then added the 55 and the AMG emblem on your car?..........
I was shocked! I gave him a dirty look and said, "Why would I want to rebaged my car? Why would I want to do that?" in a very calm tone. He didn't say anything else after I said that beside offering us to go look at the two pre-owned that they have. Still keeping my kool, my brother and I walked out to the lot with him to check out the two vehicles. All of the sudden, his tone of voice changed to a wonderful, friendly saleman when he saw my car on the way out to the lot.
Anyhow, to make to story short, he tried to get my brother to pick up one of the two pre-owned but I interrupted his conversation and asked him for his business card. I told him that I would keep in touch with him..... BUT WE ALL KNOW THAT I'M NOT. I'LL BE A COMPLETE IDIOT IF I GO BACK TO HIM FOR BUSINESS.

Anyhow, my brother and I did picked up a car for our dad but from a different dealership!

CWW

Used to happen a lot when I was younger, around 18/19, except in my experience if they finally do see your car, they get even more pissy about things not less. I used to get so annoyed with the "I like daddy's car" type comments that got a vanity plate that said "CWW JR" on it.

Now that 10 years have passed, I've gotten older and fatter and tend to wear better clothes, and it doesn't happen anymore. So I guess there are *some* benefits to getting older, and one of them is that people tend to treat you better.

In the meantime, don't get too upset about it, some folks just want to bring other people down to compensate for whatever failings they have going on at home. Over the last 10-15 years, american society has undergone this huge shift to where it is now acceptable for everyone to externalize all of their problems, even when it's totally inappropriate. Everything is perceived to be about the 'individual' now, even when in reality nothing is actually about the individual...especially business deals. Ego invades everything. I think we should just hold a funeral for customer service and be done with it...

C43AMG

Please tell me you gave the beast "a few healthy revs" prior to leaving the $tealership. ........

Blk04cobra1

Unfortunately profiling does happen at dealerships, we all know this...in my short time in the business I have learned that it doesnt matter how a person(s) may dress, you should treat everyone the same no matter what (not that I was any different before). Truth of the matter is, most people wont get dressed up to go car shopping. Glad you guys found your dad a car.

chiromikey

lol, i had the same problem at berge ford in mesa. wanted to look at a shelby gt500 so went over there during my lunch break. i was dressed business casual but i look young regardless. not a single customer on the whole damned lot and all the salesmen were gathered in a huddle talking about american idol or some ****. i spent 15 minutes looking at the two gt500's and ford gt's on the floor waiting for some help. i finally walked right through their huddle to see if one of them would stop their conversation to talk to me but not a chance.

i finally walked out and two salesmen happened to be going outside right behind me. as they saw me get into the e55 they ran up and asked if they could help. i laughed and said i wanted to buy the black gt500 but i would find one somewhere else and drove off as they were begging me to come back inside.

Zod

lol pricless

kinda like when me and two friends went into the P dealer to look at 2 new gt3s

the sales man would not pay much attention, came buy once said the price is such n such n then went away. Me and my friends kept looking at the car and then stood outside by my car desiding where to go out to.

sales man then goes out sees us takes a full circule around my car, and then comes up to me and says...is this an AMG?!?

I said i dont know what does it say at the back of the car? as i get into it and start her up
He comes and knocks on my window um how much do these cost at the dealer?
oh i said prety close to the P turbo you have laying on your lot and drove off

but on a more serious note sales men do not always represent a dealer opropreatly so sometimes you have to give them a second chance

E500 AMG Sport

I hate when salesmen pull that crap. Here's what you should do. Email the sales manager and general manager a link to this thread and see what they say.

When I was in college (1991) my buddy and I went to the Porsche dealer to look on their used lot. He spotted a 1989 944 S2. Here we are, two 20-21 year olds in his Audi quattro looking at Porsches. Now mind you, we just left a Nissan dealer to look at the "new" 300ZX Twin Turbo and they told him to come back with his parents!!!!!

Now back at the Porsche dealer, a salesman walks out introduces himself and proceeded to go back inside and come back with the 944 S2 key. He made a copy of my friends license and said see you guys later. Have it back in an hour! We looked at each other like this guy is crazy.

He bought the car.

C43AMG

Good one......

I Like Soup

I never make assumptions about people on how they dress because I've gone out plenty of times not feeling like throwing on more than cargo shorts, T-shirt, flip flops and a hat do go "window shopping"...and we all know how bad *** I am.

E55-0817

Unfortunately, I didn't!

BlackHammer

Disappointing approach by the sales guy. The reality is 99.999% of the cats that come in to dealerships fitting your profile are STROKES! Still no excuse for the tactics...

It seems to me if I was him I would have better qualified you prior to putting you in the "stroke" category.

Spend your $ elsewere!

TK

E55-0817

+1

LOL ........... I did spent my money elsewhere on the same day at a different delalership!!

Jon2007E63P30

I lived in Dallas from 88 to 92. I got to know a guy who was the "Grounds Supervisor" for a very wealthy Dallas family. We basically took care of 3 houses, 2 with ranches, and anything and everything else they wanted. One day they said " go out and buy 2 Jaguars for graduation presents. He goes to the dealer looking 100% cowboy, but clearly "working" cowpboy, and says, "How much of a discount for 2?". Evidently the guy laughed and told him how much one would cost and blew him off.

He went to another dealer who treated him nice and got him a discount and then had his draw drop when he saw the name on the check that he was filling in the amount for (DelMonte, yes the fruit). He also asked the guy to call the other dealer's manager just to get a little justice/payback.

sack5000

You drive the E55 and your dad is looking for an IS250/350? Seems like the roles are reversed somewhat but why is he interested in that car anyway? Can't you talk some sense into him,ha?

E55-0817

Well, he has a truck already. We wanted to get him a smaller vehicle. I was thinking about the new C but I picked up the IS instead. Plus the IS looks great in Pearl White anyways. :-)

jrcart

This kind of crap goes on all the time. It used to happen to me when I was younger all the time. The best story was when I was in high school around 1989. I live in a very affluent suburb of Chicago, the high school student parking lot had much nicer cars than the teachers lot. So you would think the dealerships would be used to kids coming in and buying nice cars. One of my best friends fathers won the Lottery (like 10 mil or something) and his dad told him to go out and pick out any car he wanted for around $40,000 or less and he would come back that night with a check and pay for it. So we headed to the local Porsche/BMW dealership to check out a 944 turbo. We could not even get a sales person to look at us, let alone talk to us. When we asked to test drive the car, (my friend was 18) they told us they did not allow test drives unless we had cash in hand. We told them the story, but they did not believe us. Long story short, we headed over to the Chevy dealer 2 doors down to look at Vettes. They were very nice, let us drive the car, even worked number swith us. Sure enough his father met us at the dealership, wrote a check and the deal was done. Needless to say the first thing we did was drive back down to the Porsche dealership and did a huge burnout right through the lot. Till this day I refuse to buy anything from that dealership, they are only a BMW dealership now, they lost their Porsche franchise (I wonder why). I have driven to other BMW dealers an hour past that dealership to buy cars and have them serviced.

Carl Lassiter

Nice story and great payback. This kind of treatment by stealers really annoys me when I hear about it and I went through it when younger too.

deaguero

Mikey, this is a really old one but the same thing happened to me 40 years ago. I really wanted a Chevy 409, remember the beach boys song "She's real fine my 409? Well, I stopped in at a Chevy dealer and asked if I could get some info on the new 409. Well the salesman said to me, boy, you can't afford one of those so I won't waste my time. Well about a month later I went back to the same dealer and looked up the A$$hole and showed him by brand new 409 with another Dealers license frame and said to him. Hey buddy here's your commission!!! And laid rubber all the way out of his parking lot!!!!
I know I was a kid just out of school but this guy deserved rubber in his face F&ck him

BlackHammer

This is laughable and classic. My dad (66) had an "oh-nine" too and talks about the car to this day. As a matter of fact, everyone who had or had one of these cars loves/loved it. I would like to ride in one someday to see what it was like. My suspicion is it was not the performance (I think he ran low 13's with it) but rather the "feel" and noise. Maybe the ability to smoke the polyglass tires with the 4.56 gears at will, too.

TK

omegabenz6

It is a mute point now, but I think you should complain to his sales manager, or better yet write a quick handwritten letter to the owner of that dealership. Perhaps he will give you something for being mocked, or get fired.

Ill call on your behalf. Why chandler dealers??? Aside: Chanlder MB sucks I think. I like Schumacher the best, by far.

You should really complain.

E55-0817

My brother's work place was near by that was why we stop by Chandler.

omegabenz6

I understand, but still, you need to at least call the manager. That's unacceptable!

I Like Soup

One member that contacted me via PM was having issues with Schumacher and said he had heard the same thing that I had advised...go to MB Chandler. Well, for service advisors anyway. Not sure about from the sales side of things.

speedpeddler

I used to sell high end cars in Palm Beach county and learned pretty quick that the guy in a T shirt and flip flops is not to be ignored. In fact, the worse they dressed...the more likely they were to be loaded.

deaguero

MNM5ETR: I took it to the Irwindale raceway and it ran a 12.08 ET at 109 mph. Not too bad for an American car. It was ahoot to drive and I kinda get the same feeling in the E55. fun, fun, fun