She may be right; she may be wrong. I saw the in transit and allocation sheets by week. Or, at least that's what my dealer told me I was looking at when he put those papers in front of me. He sat me down and said, "Here's how to read the color and trim codes. Those are the units I have coming in. Knock yourself out." There was a different sheet for each weekly date period, about three months worth. Many of the dates on the later sheets were marked with a "TBD" next to the ship dates, meaning (so I was told) that they had been built, but not shipped. Others had the TBD in the VIN column, meaning (so I was told) they had been shipped, but had not yet cleared U.S. Customs, which is when they start being tracked by their VIN. I picked my white Sport AT, with an ETA at the dealer of 3-4 weeks from the time I ordered it (I was looking at the fourth sheet in the stack.) That's what made me decide on an automatic, in fact: the first white MT Sport was on about the ninth or tenth sheet down in the stack, and the dates were TBD. I didn't want to wait.

But my real question I guess is, "Why are you going so far out of your way to be a jerk to this poor person?" She's going by what she's been told, and you seem to want to revile, insult, degrade and mock her for not being the master of an industry that is notoriously obfuscationary. So why not cool it a bit? She doesn't know nothing, and you don't know everything.

 

She may be right; she may be wrong. I saw the in transit and allocation sheets by week. Or, at least that's what my dealer told me I was looking at when he put those papers in front of me. He sat me down and said, "Here's how to read the color and trim codes. Those are the units I have coming in. Knock yourself out." There was a different sheet for each weekly date period, about three months worth. Many of the dates on the later sheets were marked with a "TBD" next to the ship dates, meaning (so I was told) that they had been built, but not shipped. Others had the TBD in the VIN column, meaning (so I was told) they had been shipped, but had not yet cleared U.S. Customs, which is when they start being tracked by their VIN. I picked my white Sport AT, with an ETA at the dealer of 3-4 weeks from the time I ordered it (I was looking at the fourth sheet in the stack.) That's what made me decide on an automatic, in fact: the first white MT Sport was on about the ninth or tenth sheet down in the stack, and the dates were TBD. I didn't want to wait.

But my real question I guess is, "Why are you going so far out of your way to be a jerk to this poor person?" She's going by what she's been told, and you seem to want to revile, insult, degrade and mock her for not being the master of an industry that is notoriously obfuscationary. So why not cool it a bit? She doesn't know nothing, and you don't know everything.

 

The sheet you saw, sounds a lot more detailed than the one I was looking at, so I may have only seen a portion of it. I do remember seeing the TBD next to a few along with the dealer names the cars were being shipped to. The list the saleslady at Marshall Lawrence Dodge showed me had about a total of 12 cars or so on the list. I believe that was her allocation list of MT Sports for the country. I know some on her list were not going to arrive at dealerships till the end of this month.

 

because she is going out her way to pretend to know something she clearly doesnt.

i dont want to revile, insult, degrade, and mock anyone.

our industry is indeed hard to understand, and if you dont understand it, dont pretend to.

not knowing is not a problem. not knowing, pretending to know, calling those that do know incompetent and full of it??

want to attack the industry when you have no clue to what's really going on, fine, dont blame me when i revile, insult, degrade, and mock you.

 

Those who are incompetent are those who sell a product but don't know what they are selling. They may know about the business side of their product, but not knowing about the product itself is their downfall in my eyes. Yes, I am familiar with the specs on the car and I expect those selling it to be too especially if they are wanting me to buy. It just seems that when you are looking for a good salesman it is really hard to find one that knows the business and their product really well. This is not just the case with car dealerships, but with other services as well.
As far as the business side of Honda...I am going by what was told to me by the salespeople, whether they are spitting out the truth is another story in itself. I heard different stories from different dealerships...it all boils down to who you believe the most.
Like I have already said...I had one dealership swear to me they could get me a MT sport by the end of the month or beginning of next month. Obviously we know the likelihood of that happening.

 

WOW, and you wonder why car dealerships get a bad name for attitudes and customer service......

 

She didn't pretend, she's merely stating facts that her dealers provided. Perhaps you're implying the dealers are pretending to know something in front of potential buyers. I don't know anything about Honda Locator, but I did see sheets of arrival schedule from one of the dealers that I visited. Interesting enough, the salesperson that talked to me had problems reading it himself...

But you do it anyway.

Yes even some salesmen appear to not understand and mislead the consumers.

Is she attacking the entire industry or selected dealerships?

 

aywwsd has got oodles of 'tude. I do agree that his contemptuous attitude isn't condusive to a reasoned discourse and does a disservice to his profession.

 

yet somehow, i sell the most at my dealership, with most if not all my customers satisfy with their purchase.

funny how i act like some asshole on some weboforum, but it doesnt really mean anything, as i am not trying to sell any fits here.

 

i'll share with you a fun and interesting fact.

who lies more during the business transaction?

the salesperson or the customer?

the customer!!!

 

This is a "fact", eh? I wonder, O master of demonstrative knowledge, how you came to this enlightened "fact"? Do you understand that in order to make a universal statement, that the object of such a statement would have to apply to all "customers" everywhere, and in every time? How can this be? Do customers in fact have a different nature that makes them lie in every circumstance? A creature with such a nature could scarcely be called human.

And exactly how, O teacher of ethics, even if such a spurious claim as you make (that "Buyers are Liars") could be true, does that justify unethical behavior on your part?

Please, ye Knower of All Men's Hearts, enlighten us.

 

Now I know this is gonna sound really weird to you AYWWSD, but bear with me for just a sec. Maybe, just maybe, your value as a person isn't based on how many units you move in a month.

And there might be the slimmest of chances that if your customers are satisfied, it has more to do with the quality of the FiT (and Hondas generally) than with your obvious mastery of social graces.

And (now this is really gonna blow you away, as you may be unfamialiar with this idea) your behavior here has consequenses that you cannot forsee, and (weird as it may sound) maybe what other people think of you is based on more than how many cars you sell.