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I sold cars at a Toyota dealership in Coeur d’Alene Idaho. It wasn't a dealership where salesmen swarmed you. It had what's known as an "Up" system. There is a board with all of the salespeople names on it. A little marker next to your name meant it was your turn. If a customer came, it was your customer.If you're not aware, Coeur d'Alene is in Northern Idaho. Right next door to Hayden Lake, Idaho. Very very racist area back in the day. It's not as bad now, but there still are vestiges of racism. Especially against Indigenous Native Americans.My very first day at this dealership was actually my very first day selling cars altogether. There were 4 or 5 people ahead of me when I see this Native person looking at trucks. He's looking pretty closely at a few of them. He stumbles a little bit, appears not so much drunk but somewhat intoxicated.Nobody was going out to help him. I asked the salesman whose turn it was, "WTF? There's a customer out there."This old timer looks as me with his all knowing smug little smile and says "It's a drunk Indian with a bag of beer." F**king racist B**TARD!Yeah, the customer was carrying a bag but how could he just assume it's beer?"Go ahead. Take him, but that’s your next turn," he said.I asked the other salesmen who were ahead of me it it was okay with them. They all said, "yeah."I pop on out to the customer and start talking with him. Yes, he's fairly drunk but seems adamant that he wants to buy two 4X4 Toyota trucks. It's already been approved and that's his reason for being in town today. They'll be for the Fish and Game Department of his Tribe. He's the Department Head. At the time I knew, but now I don’t remember his Tribe. There are quite a few of them up there.I show him a bunch of different trucks and we settle on two. I take him for a test drive in both. I of course didn't let him drive because of his inebriation but we still go out on the highway and then up some off road hills behind the dealership. He loves them.I ask, "Do you want to buy these right now?"He answers, "Yes."Holy Moly am I ever thrilled!We go inside to my little office. I write the sale up for the two vehicles with the sale price the same as on the sticker on the car. I turn it around to him explaining everything and ask him the normal question - wanna buy now...He answers, "OK."Remember, this is my first sale ever so I'm pretty green. I didn't realize we hadn't negotiated or anything.I have him sign the paper and excitedly rush towards the sales office. As I pass the other salesmen, they're laughing at me like I'm a dumb little dipstick. I don't get why but continue to the office."Boss, this guy wants to buy not one but TWO TWO TWO trucks!" I'm thrilled at how easy this all is."Good job, Greg," Dale, the manager, says. "How is he going to pay for them?"Wow, am I ever the dummy. I grab a credit application and go back to my office. The salesmen out there are laughing their asses off.I'm back at the desk with my customer and ask him, "How would you like to pay?"He places that paper sack up on the table. It has $25,000 and some change in it.There's a look of stunned anger from the other salesmen as they each peek into my office and see me counting through all of this cash. Once I have the correct amount counted out, I return to Dale’s office.Of course as I pass the salesmen, they're babbling how I'm not going to get the sale because it wasn't my turn, blah, blah, blah.Dale's face showed a bit of surprise as I came in with all that cash. Professional that he was he counted out the money himself and told me to go shake the customer’s hand. He also told me not to worry about all the BS these other salesmen were laying on me, the sale was mine, that he hoped the other salesmen learned their lesson.I go and shake the customer's hand, "Congratulations!" I asked if he felt he was too drunk to drive. He answered in the affirmative. I suggested we pull the trucks around back of the dealership and that he takes a nap before leaving. He agreed. I pocketed both sets of keys.A few hours later my customer came out and said he was now fine to drive. I first made sure he still wanted the vehicle - after all, he was drunk when we started.He left in one truck and came picked up the other later on. Over the next few years I sold this individual seven trucks. He also sent me a good 8 or 10 referrals who also bought. We became good acquaintances.My wife and I had dinner at his house a couple times with a bunch of other people from the tribe. We were always welcome there on the reservation. Whenever we’d show up tribe members would bring us a smoked salmon or two. I of course always appreciated them but also found it a little disturbing. It bothered me that white people still took advantage of the Indigenous to the extent that me, a white boy, was a sensation just because I knew we were all the same, human beings.Those other salespeople were sure pissed at me. Should've been pissed at themselves for being so racist. Dale slapped them down and told them all to STFU.You asked "If I walked into a new car dealership with $20,000 in cash in a briefcase, how would the buying process be any better/worse?"It really wouldn't affect anything. EVERYTHING is cash to the dealer. If you finance your car, it's still CASH to the dealer. You may save a little time because the Finance person doesn't have to try and get your deal bought but that's about it IMHO.Actually, you may not get quite the same deal on the car because they know finance won’t make any money from your lack of payments.If you’re not aware, when you go finance a car at a dealership, they send your credit application and the sales contract to a variety of different banks. So say one of the banks says they’ll finance the deal at 4%. The dealer will then come back to you and say, “We got you a really good rate on your loan. It’s only 7.8%!” The dealer then gets the 3.8% difference in CASH.Here is the math:$523.07 per month = $30K at 7.8% for 72 months$469.36 per month = $30K at 4% for 72 months$523.07–469.36=53.71$53.71 X 72 = $3,222.60 additional profit to dealerEDIT: My answer is based on the U.S.A. during the 1970s into the late 1990s. Based on an answer from a reader from Romania, I question if what I typed is even pertinent today. Please research yourself before taking anything I said into consideration when you’re buying a car.

Has a car salesman ever let you walk out the door when you couldn't come to terms?Yes, many times.Generally with the salesman making statements like “if you leave, this deal will be gone and you won’t be able to get it back” or “if you walk away from this deal, it’ll cost you $1000 when you come back tomorrow”.Every time. Every. Single. Time. I got a call back with a better deal. Sometimes I took it, some times I had already gone to another dealership and had purchased the vehicle at the price I was willing to pay.Story time:My wife and I decided our ancient, well-worn pop-up camper wasn’t what we wanted to go camping in anymore. We wanted a travel trailer with more room and features to make our camping more comfortable. We had decided to become glampers. After poking through a lot of different models and features, we settled on a specific model and set of features that we wanted. When we went to searching for one we looked for used models, but there were very few available and had to consider purchasing new.The brand was StarCraft and StarCraft only allows one dealer per area, so there really was no local competition, but calling around to the dealerships in neighboring cities we got a good sense for what the camper would really sell for. We headed down to our local StarCraft dealer and they had the exact model we were looking for on the lot. It was everything we expected, but when it got to talking about the price, the salesman would only quote the MSRP for the camper and the MSRP was $5000 over what the dealership in the next town was asking. I mentioned this and response was that as a salesman, that was the only price he could quote and if I wasn’t willing to pay that I’d have to talk to the sales manager, but he had gone home for the night. I set an appointment to meet the sales manager over lunch the next day and headed home.The next day at work I called the dealer in the next town over and asked him to verify all of the features and the out the door price. The salesman did me one better, he faxed me a sales order and said that all I had to do was sign it and fax it back to him and the camper was ours. I headed to the local dealership armed with the offer from the other dealer. When I arrived, I was put in a room and asked to wait. After 30 minutes I was needing to head back to work and went out to the sales floor to ask what was going on. The salesman from the other night said he’d have the paperwork for me in 5 minutes and asked me to just wait in the room. I went back and about 5 minutes later the salesman walked in and put a credit application in front of me and told me to fill it out. I told him I wasn’t filling out a credit application, I was here to negotiate the price with the sales manager. He said that the sales manager had left for lunch, wouldn’t be back for an hour, and it would take at least that long to process my application. I pulled out my checkbook and said I was paying cash, so no, I wouldn’t fill out any application for credit under any circumstances and since he had wasted my lunch hour, I was leaving.The salesman had a blank look and said he would get the sales contract as the manager had given him the bottom dollar. I agreed to wait for that. The sales contract he put in front of me discounted the price by $1000, but now the camper magically suddenly had over $1000 in add-ons like scotch-guard, upgraded wheels, UV protectorate, etc. I just shook my head and walked out of the room. I got the same old “if you don’t sign this the price goes back up” spiel from the salesman. I turned around and showed him the sales order from the other dealership that had an out the door price $5000 less than what they were trying to offer me. The salesman wanted to keep it so he could try to get the sales manager to match the price. I told him not to bother as I had a bonafide offer in hand that I didn’t have to battle for.I went back to the office and the sales manager had already left me a message and begged me to call him back, so I did. Now he was so apologetic that he couldn’t meet me because he had a family emergency, but now that he was back he could straighten it all out. He would match the price from the other dealership, but he couldn’t remove the added items because they had already been applied and you couldn’t un-ScotchGuard the fabrics. I told him that was unfortunate as I had a bonafide offer and was willing to drive 60 miles to get it, so he was again wasting my time.I ended the call and immediately called the other dealer to tell them I’d take their offer. The salesman asked if I had been trying to deal with my local dealer. I told him I was. He said the sales manager had called him trying to discourage them from selling their camper to me calling me an overbearing and demanding customer that they’d regret dealing with and that they had ultimately refused to sell me the camper. I was gobsmacked and asked what he was planning on doing. He said a deal was a deal, so it was mine if I wanted it. I did.At the closing table, the owner of the dealership where I purchased asked me a few questions about my local dealership. I relayed the experience I had and he confirmed that I wasn’t the first buyer that had made the 60 mile drive because of that sales manager. He then handed me a card with the 800 number for StarCraft customer service and suggested I may want to share my experience with them. (I did) Then he gave me card for 10% off of any accessories and service for the lifetime of the camper since I’d have to drive an extra hour to get to their dealership.I still make the drive every time.9/12/20 Update:Credit where credit is due. The dealership with great customer service is K C RV in Colorado Springs, CO. Still in business and still treating their customers right.

A story that might be apocryphal.The scene is the Head Office of a major bank, a telephone us ringing and no-one is answering. A General Manager (very senior) is passing and answers the phone.“General Manager's Office”“it's Archway Branch here. I'm calling about the credit application for Very Big Company Ltd.”“Oh Yes, we approved it yesterday.”“Yes, but you have given us some instructions on taking the security for the loan that I don't agree with.”“I recall that. You need to follow the instructions to the letter or the security will be unenforceable.”“I don’t agree. I'm not sure that you know what you are talking about.”“Do you know who I am?”“No”“I'm Len Mitchell, General Manager and author of several books on taking security. You have probably used them when studying for your exams.“Oh…………. Do you know who I am sir?”“No”.So he put the phone down!(Names changed)