[civicracer32]

i understand both sides of it. I sold cars around here near a marine base. Max an e-1 or e-2 could get financed was $8k at the time. We didn't even have any cars on the lot typically that were less than $10k. If you went out and greeted the "customer", that used up your "up" (your potential customer) and you had to go to the back of the line for the next walk-in customer. In the offseason, or non-weeknd shifts, you may only get 10 or so customers that even walk onto the lot on the entire shift, split between 6 salemen. So, everytime a short haired young kid would hit the lot, all the salesman would go inside and pick up the phone and pretend to be on the phone. That way, when the sales manager started yelling at us to go help them, we'd look like we were busy.

If you as a customer drive on the lot in something too new, we'd run and hide because you probably owed more on the car than it was worth having just bought it. If it was too old, you're probably broke. Perfect demographic for a car buyer is someone in their late 20's to late 30's, pulling up in approx a 5-7 year old car in good shape. Too young, and you probably don't have the income to qualify, or the rationale to know what price range you should be shopping for even if you could qualify. Too old, and the concern from the saleman's point of view is that you're going to hit every Honda dealer this side of the Mississippi river over the next 3 years before deciding on a car to buy!

Life as a car salesman sucked. Especially for me. I like talking to young motorheads about cars. Unfortunately, as a salesman, you're supposed to sell them one, not just talk about it! I could never pressure people, or lie to them. You kinda have to do both to be a succesful car saleman.