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Looking to buy at the beginning of the year, and don't want to waste time going to different places. Has anyone purchased a Nissan from a salesman or dealership in the Atlanta area and had a great experience?? You know, a place where there's not a bunch of smoke and B.S.?? I HATE car salesmen!!! Thanks for any info.
I have literally just been through this, and was horrified by how little almost all car salesman and managers actually know about the cars they sell. I'm no gear head, but almost none of these guys knew answers to questions that could be found within two minutes on Edmunds.com. Pathetic.
Area Nissan dealers seemed to be above the rest of the pack.
Full disclosure: I was looking for something very specific, I wanted to lease an electric car. So I spoke to Chevy, BMW, Hyundai, and Nissan. Everywhere you look in metro Atlanta, you see Nissan Leafs, but it was still surprising how little most salesmen and even sales managers actually know about them, not even being able to answer simple questions like whether they qualify for free Peach Passes (they do).
After almost giving up, I dropped in Nally Nissan in Decatur to find a salesman who was bright, personable, and knew absolutely everything about this car. He even explained fully how to get the tax credit, providing me with a color printed form, noting that it MUST be sent to the state in COLOR. Other Nissan dealers barely even knew there WAS a tax credit. This salesman wrote up my lease deal and even delivered the car to my house when it came in, since he lives near my home.
His name is Eric She.
See him and you won't be disappointed. A welcome break from a sea of know-nothing car salesmen.
i dealt with Rosh Browne of Capitol City Nissan last year. I think they were bought by a large dealership, so i dont think they are called that anymore, and i dont know if he is still there.
we leased a Leaf and we incredibly knowledgeable about the car (according to him, he also leases one), so he could talk about the pros and cons of driving a fully electric car. oh, and gave very clear instructions on how to claim our tax credit.
I have literally just been through this, and was horrified by how little almost all car salesman and managers actually know about the cars they sell. I'm no gear head, but almost none of these guys knew answers to questions that could be found within two minutes on Edmunds.com. Pathetic.
Area Nissan dealers seemed to be above the rest of the pack.
Full disclosure: I was looking for something very specific, I wanted to lease an electric car. So I spoke to Chevy, BMW, Hyundai, and Nissan. Everywhere you look in metro Atlanta, you see Nissan Leafs, but it was still surprising how little most salesmen and even sales managers actually know about them, not even being able to answer simple questions like whether they qualify for free Peach Passes (they do).
After almost giving up, I dropped in Nally Nissan in Decatur to find a salesman who was bright, personable, and knew absolutely everything about this car. He even explained fully how to get the tax credit, providing me with a color printed form, noting that it MUST be sent to the state in COLOR. Other Nissan dealers barely even knew there WAS a tax credit. This salesman wrote up my lease deal and even delivered the car to my house when it came in, since he lives near my home.
His name is Eric She.
See him and you won't be disappointed. A welcome break from a sea of know-nothing car salesmen.
Wow, this story sounds like it was real win for you! I'm not looking for a Leaf, but for a 2015 Nissan Murano; I need the room in the back as I'm starting my business soon. But it sounds like Eric may be knowledgable all around. Thanks a bunch.
One simple way is to contact a dealership you would like to work with and ask one of the non sales employees who they would recommend that has been with the dealership for a while, knows his product and would be straight up. The receptionist answering the phone would be a good start in many instances, he/she would know the sales staff pretty well and could point you to one they would trust. You could even say you would like older/younger/male/female and say you would feel more comfortable working with someone that they trust rather than the first person that would greet you by chance.
In the past couple of years my family and I have dealt with two Nissan dealerships: Gwinnett Place and Stone Mountain.
The difference between these two are night and day.
Generally speaking it seems like the Gwinnett Place mall area has a ton of dealerships. It is a one-stop shop for lots of options, however there are tons of customers. It is a giant car selling mill. Some of the sketchiest most pressure-inducing car salesmen I have ever seen were in that general area and Nissan was no exception. I think part of the reason for this is the high amount of potential customers.
Stone Mountain was the exact opposite: smaller, quieter, and much easier to work with. They were car salesmen and that can't be changed, but they were far nicer to work with.
But I will be honest... since you have an idea of what you want, I would follow a new route. I admit this might take a week or two.
Check out advertised pricing an the "internet" advertised deals. It is more common they actually have an internet sales manager to answer emails. You will get hit with a tons of calls and emails after doing this, but you can list your needs, ask about the advertised price, and make it well known you're communicating with a dozen dealerships and looking and pricing a competing make/model (whether you are or not) at the same time. You can then reply back and say well this dealership has the same thing available for $300 less.. why is that?
It is almost a preliminary negotiation and the easiest chance you get to get dealerships to compete against each other. This might not find the best price ever given to a car, but it should give you a pretty solid price that isn't marked up too high. Some dealerships admittedly were not willing to budge a bit compared to others. I think a part of it has to do with what is in their stock and what is selling well or not selling well for them. But the key thing is I found out who wasn't budging and didn't go there.
In the past couple of years my family and I have dealt with two Nissan dealerships: Gwinnett Place and Stone Mountain.
The difference between these two are night and day.
Generally speaking it seems like the Gwinnett Place mall area has a ton of dealerships. It is a one-stop shop for lots of options, however there are tons of customers. It is a giant car selling mill. Some of the sketchiest most pressure-inducing car salesmen I have ever seen were in that general area and Nissan was no exception. I think part of the reason for this is the high amount of potential customers.
Stone Mountain was the exact opposite: smaller, quieter, and much easier to work with. They were car salesmen and that can't be changed, but they were far nicer to work with.
But I will be honest... since you have an idea of what you want, I would follow a new route. I admit this might take a week or two.
Check out advertised pricing an the "internet" advertised deals. It is more common they actually have an internet sales manager to answer emails. You will get hit with a tons of calls and emails after doing this, but you can list your needs, ask about the advertised price, and make it well known you're communicating with a dozen dealerships and looking and pricing a competing make/model (whether you are or not) at the same time. You can then reply back and say well this dealership has the same thing available for $300 less.. why is that?
It is almost a preliminary negotiation and the easiest chance you get to get dealerships to compete against each other. This might not find the best price ever given to a car, but it should give you a pretty solid price that isn't marked up too high. Some dealerships admittedly were not willing to budge a bit compared to others. I think a part of it has to do with what is in their stock and what is selling well or not selling well for them. But the key thing is I found out who wasn't budging and didn't go there.
This is pretty good advice. I've been doing a lot of research on the car buying process; I won't be walking on to the lot cold, but will instead do everything by phone and email/internet. I'm only interested in talking to sales managers. I'll never forget years ago when I bought my first Volkswagen, and every time I would negotiate with the salesman, I had to wait for him to keep running back and forth to the sales manager for approval. Tedious. Car salesman, no matter how "nice," just make me ill. I have always felt the Gwinnett area had a production line feel, and I totally believe you on this. I'll keep Stone Mountain in mind; that's a good lead, thanks.
This is pretty good advice. I've been doing a lot of research on the car buying process; I won't be walking on to the lot cold, but will instead do everything by phone and email/internet. I'm only interested in talking to sales managers. I'll never forget years ago when I bought my first Volkswagen, and every time I would negotiate with the salesman, I had to wait for him to keep running back and forth to the sales manager for approval. Tedious. Car salesman, no matter how "nice," just make me ill. I have always felt the Gwinnett area had a production line feel, and I totally believe you on this. I'll keep Stone Mountain in mind; that's a good lead, thanks.
Yea they definitely have a self-created process where they try to have all the control.
They make it hard to price compare different cars and/or options on a post-negotiated price. Say they are willing to deal on a Rogue vs a Murano the end cost savings might be enough to make some buyers choose one over the other, but they make it hard to find that information out, unless it is advertised.
One reason I feel like I got a decent deal on my last car purchase is I was more willing to buy several different types of cars. I had flexibility and the time and willingness to cast a wide net in trying to get every offer I could. I learned some makes/models were really popular and were prices highly for what they were. I was willing to buy (and actually liked very much) one of the less popular makes/models of the type of car (crossovers) that I wanted that year.
I learned that the Hyundai Tuscon was priced high at that time and no one was willing to match competitors pricing for small crossovers. They were willing to deal with Santa Fe considerably, which would often go for much cheaper than a Tuscon despite much higher list prices. That same year the Nissan Rogue was fairly cheap comparatively. The Murano was a bit more expensive, but moderately priced compared to crossovers with V6s and comparative features.
If I "had to have" a Tuscon that year, I was not getting a good deal. That is what I hate about the process, the list prices don't help you really price compare makes and models against each other well. For me price matters, I'm not saying I won't pay more for a car I like more... I'm just saying I want to know how much more I'm paying to get car A instead of car B that is 95% of exactly what I want. I'm not the type of a person where what car I drive defines me. I'm a bit more of a practical use type.
Dealerships would rather you nitpik and find the one car you really want without thinking about comparative price details and lock you into that path. That path might or might not be much more costly to a very similar car elsewhere.
You really only have one negotiation ploy once your in the dealership, which is to leave. Once you're at that desk they know what car you really want and you're separated from other sellers.
What I have noticed is the salesman's job is really just to be friendly, guide you through the cars, guide you through the process (their process), and then in the end is really when they are taught to be coercive to keep you from backing out or having last minute doubts or stressing over just a few hundred dollars (a few hundred dollars profit for them). It is that final 5-15 minutes where people think back on their experience and get left with a bad taste in their mouth. Before that the dealerships don't want you to be personally judging the salesman like you're negotiation with them personally. They'd rather you like them or at least have a clean slate with them, so you're less likely to react negatively to that one moment of coercion with skepticism. The negotiation from your point of view is suppose to seem an non-personal as possible with the actual salesperson until a few final moments of a more personal coercion.
I also get the feeling that if you merely only walk on to a dealership and don't go to too many, you get the worse deal. I often feel the larger dealerships mostly have set prices for what they know they can sell a car for and they spend most their time going after those people. I think they will give minor to moderate discounts (we're really talking about a reduction on their part of the mark up afterall) to people that left and they honestly believe aren't coming back unless they can entice them back. The advantage to the internet communication is they have to entice you into their dealership first. You aren't their favorite customer, but you might be an easy low cost customer for a moderate profit too.
Some dealerships resist this entirely. If you want to do some test drives, so you know exactly what you want up front, with no intention of buying or messing up the internet communications where you are convincing them to entice you there.... go to Gwinnett Place. They're less likely to deal anyways
Wow, that was a lot! LOL. It's just such a game out here in the car buying world; just reading your last post gave me a headache (not because of you, but just thinking about the process again). I had already decided to test drive without any intention of buying at that time, but just to confirm that I like the feel of the car. I've glanced at the Toyota Highlander, (which I preferred the previous body style) and now the new Honda Pilot has come out. Although I've always found Nissan's styling to be the sexiest. They may not beat Honda and Toyota mechanically, but visually they've always been the best IMHO.
Basically when I walk onto the lot, all of my negotiating and final pricing agreements will be settle before I arrive. I'm just showing up to read and sign paperwork; that should be 45 minutes, TOPS. I'm not interested in hanging around the dealership. Like, AT ALL.
I wonder how popular the Murano is vs. some of their other cars? How much negotiating room will I really have? I'll never forget a girlfriend of mine's husband bought her a brand new Lexus SUV a few years ago for her birthday. He use to be a tech guy for employment, but his uncle died. He flew down to Texas (where's he's from) for the funeral, and came back home with a plant in his hand from the wake, and $7,000 every month plus a lump sum of $40,000 every January for the rest of his life in his uncle's will. So anyway, he paid cash for the Lexus. The sticker price was $41k, and he walked off the lot paying $30k cash. From that day forward, I pledged to be a hard core negotiator on any automobile I would buy from then on out!
Wow, that was a lot! LOL. It's just such a game out here in the car buying world; just reading your last post gave me a headache (not because of you, but just thinking about the process again). I had already decided to test drive without any intention of buying at that time, but just to confirm that I like the feel of the car. I've glanced at the Toyota Highlander, (which I preferred the previous body style) and now the new Honda Pilot has come out. Although I've always found Nissan's styling to be the sexiest. They may not beat Honda and Toyota mechanically, but visually they've always been the best IMHO.
Basically when I walk onto the lot, all of my negotiating and final pricing agreements will be settle before I arrive. I'm just showing up to read and sign paperwork; that should be 45 minutes, TOPS. I'm not interested in hanging around the dealership. Like, AT ALL.
I wonder how popular the Murano is vs. some of their other cars? How much negotiating room will I really have? I'll never forget a girlfriend of mine's husband bought her a brand new Lexus SUV a few years ago for her birthday. He use to be a tech guy for employment, but his uncle died. He flew down to Texas (where's he's from) for the funeral, and came back home with a plant in his hand from the wake, and $7,000 every month plus a lump sum of $40,000 every January for the rest of his life in his uncle's will. So anyway, he paid cash for the Lexus. The sticker price was $41k, and he walked off the lot paying $30k cash. From that day forward, I pledged to be a hard core negotiator on any automobile I would buy from then on out!
Go to any of the myriad of online car buying sites to get an idea of what is the invoice and what incentives there are from Nissan in the forms of either dealer cash or rebates. They will also give you a range of what you should expect to pay for the vehicle. Two of the most reliable are Kelly Blue book (Kelley Blue Book - New & Used Car Price Values) and Edmunds (New Cars, Used Cars, Car Reviews and Pricing | Edmunds.com).
Some of the big American SUVs and pickups will have deals on them with $11k off the list price but that seems a stretch for a Lexus. Must have been the end of the model year with a lot of markup from dealer accessories and a lot of help from Lexus to move the end of model year. Or your friend might be exaggerating a bit. At any rate don't go offer $11k off a Murano, or at least don't go talking bad about car sales guys when they so no. Muranos (nor any other Nissan or Toyota or Honda for that matter) typically don't have that kind of mark up and/or manufacturers incentive or combination thereof.
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