Are dealers discounting the Evo?
With the low level of product knowledge current Mitsubishi salespeople have, it's no wonder people go through a dealership's front doors with a level of aprehension right off the bat. In 2006, the new Mitsubishi Motors North America CEO, Hiroshi Harunari, instituted a training regimen for salespeople to go through that not only included the entire model year's product knowledge, but also individual vehicle certifications for each model. This was a bold step by the parent company. What they did was create a certification program that salespeople had to follow in order to get paid on a vehicle. If a salesperson did not complete their product knowledge exam, they were only given a 50% commission from Mitsubishi. With that in mind it forced salespeople throughout the Mitsubishi dealership network to complete this exam if they wanted their money. But what good is an open book exam? It's not like these salespeople know their product any better. I've got a floor full of 'Certified Mitsubishi Product Specialists' who still won't be able to tell you what MIVEC is, and if they can tell you what the acronym stands for, I doubt they can explain what it is in either technical or lay terminology. I've even heard stories from customers that in another Mitsubishi dealership she was shopping at, the Outlander had front 'chromosomes' to help absorb impact from a front end collision. Amazing. But on the flip-side, you have to understand where these salespeople come from. Most of them have barely made it out of high school or just been re-introduced to society from the penal system (I kid you not). There are salespeople on my floor that have been selling cars for over 20 years and are still floor salespeople. Nothing wrong with that. Everyone has the right to pick and choose the way they wish to earn a living. Salespeople aren't that bad. They're there to do a job and that's pretty much to convince the clients who walk in the door that this is the place they want to pick up their vehicle. For many people, especially on the Evo, it's a simple matter of dollars and cents. We in the automotive world have been faced with the mass appeal of the internet for quite some time now. Sites like Kelly Blue Book, Edmunds and other sites the disclose MSRP/Invoice pricing have forced the industry to change the way it does things. Now, more than ever, the customer is empowered with the knowledge of how much they expect to spend on a car. We can either sit and complain about it or actually use that to our advantage. I chose to do the latter from a long time ago. We also can't underestimate the power that a site like EvoM has on the community either. Dealerships like South Coast Mitsubishi and others have found a home here on EvoM, advertising pricing that smaller dealerships simply cannot meet. It may sound unfair, but that is business. I know many smaller dealerships here in my district that can rant all day long about South Coast Mitsubishi's pricing, but do nothing about it. My dealership moves more Evos on a month-to-month basis than any other dealership in our region, hands down. I don't use trickery or special offers to get people through the door to then hit them with all sorts of nonsense. We're in the business of moving cars, not running parking lots with cars building dust on them daily. Do we get jokers? Of course we do! What dealership doesn't? It's the job of the salesperson to pre-qualify a customer before sitting down to talk numbers. Is this person a serious prospect? Is this person just shopping around? Is this person looking to buy today? Who is the primary driver of this car going to be? Yadda yadda... A salesperson, to me, is a product specialist who knows exactly what a customer wants before they walk through the door, who uses enough of a balance of candor, rapport and humor to put an often nerve-wracking experience into one of pleasureable memory. I often advise those salespeople who have an above 3rd grade reading level to flip through the pages of Sun Tzu's Art of War. They could learn a lot. I've gone through a lot with my sales staff to teach them the finer points of our cars starting with product knowledge. I berate the hell out of them if I hear them give a wrong statement regarding a car and I will do it with a customer there right in front of them for two reasons. One, it will let the customer know that I won't tolerate a salesperson giving them bad information and two, it will embarrass the salesperson enough so that he'll remember what he/she was just taught and burn it into their memory banks. Sure, they may think I'm a royal pain in the bum for doing that, but at the end of the day it gets results. Our future clientele gets a better informed salesperson and it helps the salesperson move more units a month. Win-win, no?
I know a lot of you are still very skeptical of the people who meet and greet you when you walk in the door and I can totally understand the vantage point you are coming from. At the end of the day, it is your hard earned money that you are spending and you have every right to choose where it is you spend it. To all those who own Evos, I commend you for selecting Mitsubishi as your car of choice. For those of you seeking to get into an Evo, I wish you the best of luck in your search and hope your shopping experience is both informative and fulfilling!
I know a lot of you are still very skeptical of the people who meet and greet you when you walk in the door and I can totally understand the vantage point you are coming from. At the end of the day, it is your hard earned money that you are spending and you have every right to choose where it is you spend it. To all those who own Evos, I commend you for selecting Mitsubishi as your car of choice. For those of you seeking to get into an Evo, I wish you the best of luck in your search and hope your shopping experience is both informative and fulfilling!
You can't really compare buying a car with buying a house. They're both big transactions, but that's where the similarity ends. A new EVO IX on one lot is identical to an new EVO IX on another lot. The only real difference between the two is price.
With a house, there are hundreds of variables that make every one different - location, neighborhood, school district, taxes, land, age, builder, design, upgrades, problems, etc. etc. the list goes on forever. And real estate transactions can become very complicated.
That isn't analogous to a car salesman. You don't really need the car salesman to buy a car. In most cases (especially with an enthusiast car like an Evo), the buyer knows more about the car than the salesman!
With a house, there are hundreds of variables that make every one different - location, neighborhood, school district, taxes, land, age, builder, design, upgrades, problems, etc. etc. the list goes on forever. And real estate transactions can become very complicated.
That isn't analogous to a car salesman. You don't really need the car salesman to buy a car. In most cases (especially with an enthusiast car like an Evo), the buyer knows more about the car than the salesman!
im not comparing the 2. i said its some of the fewest things we negoiate for. do you go negoiate for you cheese burger at BK or mickey d's? or your tshirt your wearing today?
Newbie
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 79
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From: Columbus, Ohio
With the low level of product knowledge current Mitsubishi salespeople have, it's no wonder people go through a dealership's front doors with a level of aprehension right off the bat. In 2006, the new Mitsubishi Motors North America CEO, Hiroshi Harunari, instituted a training regimen for salespeople to go through that not only included the entire model year's product knowledge, but also individual vehicle certifications for each model. This was a bold step by the parent company. What they did was create a certification program that salespeople had to follow in order to get paid on a vehicle. If a salesperson did not complete their product knowledge exam, they were only given a 50% commission from Mitsubishi. With that in mind it forced salespeople throughout the Mitsubishi dealership network to complete this exam if they wanted their money. But what good is an open book exam? It's not like these salespeople know their product any better. I've got a floor full of 'Certified Mitsubishi Product Specialists' who still won't be able to tell you what MIVEC is, and if they can tell you what the acronym stands for, I doubt they can explain what it is in either technical or lay terminology. I've even heard stories from customers that in another Mitsubishi dealership she was shopping at, the Outlander had front 'chromosomes' to help absorb impact from a front end collision. Amazing. But on the flip-side, you have to understand where these salespeople come from. Most of them have barely made it out of high school or just been re-introduced to society from the penal system (I kid you not). There are salespeople on my floor that have been selling cars for over 20 years and are still floor salespeople. Nothing wrong with that. Everyone has the right to pick and choose the way they wish to earn a living. Salespeople aren't that bad. They're there to do a job and that's pretty much to convince the clients who walk in the door that this is the place they want to pick up their vehicle. For many people, especially on the Evo, it's a simple matter of dollars and cents. We in the automotive world have been faced with the mass appeal of the internet for quite some time now. Sites like Kelly Blue Book, Edmunds and other sites the disclose MSRP/Invoice pricing have forced the industry to change the way it does things. Now, more than ever, the customer is empowered with the knowledge of how much they expect to spend on a car. We can either sit and complain about it or actually use that to our advantage. I chose to do the latter from a long time ago. We also can't underestimate the power that a site like EvoM has on the community either. Dealerships like South Coast Mitsubishi and others have found a home here on EvoM, advertising pricing that smaller dealerships simply cannot meet. It may sound unfair, but that is business. I know many smaller dealerships here in my district that can rant all day long about South Coast Mitsubishi's pricing, but do nothing about it. My dealership moves more Evos on a month-to-month basis than any other dealership in our region, hands down. I don't use trickery or special offers to get people through the door to then hit them with all sorts of nonsense. We're in the business of moving cars, not running parking lots with cars building dust on them daily. Do we get jokers? Of course we do! What dealership doesn't? It's the job of the salesperson to pre-qualify a customer before sitting down to talk numbers. Is this person a serious prospect? Is this person just shopping around? Is this person looking to buy today? Who is the primary driver of this car going to be? Yadda yadda... A salesperson, to me, is a product specialist who knows exactly what a customer wants before they walk through the door, who uses enough of a balance of candor, rapport and humor to put an often nerve-wracking experience into one of pleasureable memory. I often advise those salespeople who have an above 3rd grade reading level to flip through the pages of Sun Tzu's Art of War. They could learn a lot. I've gone through a lot with my sales staff to teach them the finer points of our cars starting with product knowledge. I berate the hell out of them if I hear them give a wrong statement regarding a car and I will do it with a customer there right in front of them for two reasons. One, it will let the customer know that I won't tolerate a salesperson giving them bad information and two, it will embarrass the salesperson enough so that he'll remember what he/she was just taught and burn it into their memory banks. Sure, they may think I'm a royal pain in the bum for doing that, but at the end of the day it gets results. Our future clientele gets a better informed salesperson and it helps the salesperson move more units a month. Win-win, no?
I know a lot of you are still very skeptical of the people who meet and greet you when you walk in the door and I can totally understand the vantage point you are coming from. At the end of the day, it is your hard earned money that you are spending and you have every right to choose where it is you spend it. To all those who own Evos, I commend you for selecting Mitsubishi as your car of choice. For those of you seeking to get into an Evo, I wish you the best of luck in your search and hope your shopping experience is both informative and fulfilling!
I know a lot of you are still very skeptical of the people who meet and greet you when you walk in the door and I can totally understand the vantage point you are coming from. At the end of the day, it is your hard earned money that you are spending and you have every right to choose where it is you spend it. To all those who own Evos, I commend you for selecting Mitsubishi as your car of choice. For those of you seeking to get into an Evo, I wish you the best of luck in your search and hope your shopping experience is both informative and fulfilling!
Thread Starter
Newbie
Joined: Dec 2006
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I know there aren't '07 Evos, the '06s are at the end of their life cycle.
I will say that the Mitsu salesman wants my money more than the Subie sales person. Every Q was answered, etc. about their remaining Evos. The Sube dealer has sent numerous generic E-mails about a WRX TR when I inquired about an STi.
I will say that the Mitsu salesman wants my money more than the Subie sales person. Every Q was answered, etc. about their remaining Evos. The Sube dealer has sent numerous generic E-mails about a WRX TR when I inquired about an STi.
No I don't. I also don't see why I should negotiate for a car either. If it's a second hand car then i understand, because it's a subjective value, but an Evo at dealer A is the same as an Evo at dealer B, so why do I have to play silly games bouncing them off each other over the period of 3 weeks to get to the actual price i said i wanted to pay 3 weeks earlier? Because for some reason, some car manufacturers still think that is the best approach. One day, soon I hope, all cars will be sold on a "price you see is the price you pay" then dealers can compete on service, after sale care, and support. Now that is the sort of buying choice I'd love to be able to base off.
"limited edition" (last of the 5,000 to be made, they could even stamp the numbers on the engine, so you would pay a massive premium to be the last or "no. 1" 4g63t evo ever !!! Step right up ladies and gentlemen, get them while you can, soon everyone will want one and no body can. )
I just bought a TB IX MR SE and got a great deal. way off sticker. Less then 32K yes dealers will deal. I recommend buying near or at the end of the month, but be ready to sign the papers at that time though.
New? As in less than 25 miles new?
thats the best I've heard under 32K!
where was this at?
I got my GSR with 5 miles for 27500 and tax at victorville. No haggle, just used the EvoM price reference earlier this summer.
