We just leased our third Chevy Volt, avoiding the games car salespeople play

My wife, Laurel, should be hired by General Motors as a Chevy Volt spokeswoman. She absolutely loves the car. Me, not so much, which is why I drive a VW GTI.

So Laurel and I don't always agree on what makes a car lovable. But we do agree on this: it is super annoying when car salespeople give you the runaround, playing ridiculous sales-games rather than being up front and open with us. 

This is why we've leased all three of our Chevy Volts through Kelly Stewart of Salem's Capitol Auto Group, even though Kelly is with the Toyota side of the dealership. 

I believe we got to know Kelly either when we bought our first Toyota Highlander, or maybe it was a Prius. Regardless, we liked Kelly's style so much, we asked him to handle the leasing of the three Chevy Volts.

Our attitude toward car buying/leasing hasn't changed since I wrote a June 2012 post, "Welcome to our day old car baby, Chevy Volt."

Thumbs up also to equally personable Allan Hadley, Capitol Chevrolet/Subaru Fleet Manager, who worked with Kelly and us on finalizing the sale yesterday. My wife and I appreciate car salespersons who act like normal human beings, and treat customers the same way -- as contrasted with the traditional sales games played by car dealership employees. After all, a high quality product should almost sell itself; just look at how Apple is doing.

In 2015 we leased another Chevy Volt through Kelly. That time he put us in touch with Nate McCall, the Toyota fleet manager (photo above). Nate also was a pleasure to work with, as I blogged about in "Lured with biscuit incentives, our dog buys a car at Capitol Toyota." 

But this time around, at first my wife talked with several salespeople at the Chevrolet side of the Capitol Auto Group.

Unfortunately, that didn't work out very well. She just couldn't get straight answers from them about anything: like whether it would be possible to turn in our leased 2015 Volt a month or so early, or what the price would be for a 2018 Volt. She ended up contacting some other Chevrolet dealers in the mid-Willamette Valley, but those encounters didn't go much better.

So in the end, Laurel emailed Kelly Stewart and asked if he could once again shepherd us through the process of leasing a new Chevy Volt. And today, once again, we spent a pleasant few hours with Nate McCall after he was able to procure what apparently was the only Chevy Volt within hundreds of miles that was the color, and had the features, my wife wanted.

(See photo above. The magnetic sticker on the right rear fender says "Kindness is Contagious." It used to be on the rear bumper of her 2015 Chevy Volt, but the 2018 Volt has plastic on the rear, so the magnet had to go on another part of the car.)

What we can't understand is why some car salespeople play the games that they do, because those games don't work with us. Several times Laurel asked staff at Capitol Chevrolet to give her a price for the Chevy Volt she wanted, taking into account that this would be the third Volt we've leased.

Each time they said, "Come in and we can talk." Laurel would respond, "I don't want to come in and talk. I just want to know the price of the car."

Now, those sorts of car-selling games must work with some car buyers, or I assume salespeople wouldn't keep on playing them. However, they sure don't work with us. Laurel did her best to give one of the Capitol Chevrolet staff a shot at leasing her a 2018 Chevy Volt.

All they had to do was be as direct and honest with us as Kelly Stewart and Nate McCall have been. When they couldn't do that, we returned to Kelly and Nate, because life is too short to waste time on the games some car salespeople play.

Laurel is going to send those Capitol Chevrolet staff a letter explaining why they didn't get to close a lease deal with us. Hopefully this will help them learn what works with car buyers like us.

Comments

[tucson]

I bought a Subaru WRX STi in 2002 online from a Subaru dealer in Beaverton. I can't remember the salesman's name or the name of the dealership (or where Beaverton is for that matter), but the price was clear and up front and the process was a pleasure. No BS.

I wanted a performance car that was fun to drive for a change after decades of driving heavy, cumbersome trucks. I sold the car a few years later because it was turning me into a jackass. Somehow I avoided getting a ticket or killing anyone. Now I drive a slow vehicle again with my greed for speed satisfied.