[dillutedfixer]

Dealing with a dealership is all about psychology. They are playing a psychological mind game with you when they make you wait for so long while they're in the back doing "paperwork". They want you to get antsy so you make bad decisions.

The trick to making this interaction go your way is to not play their game. If they seat you at a table and make you wait, just get up and walk away. Go start looking at another car. This will freak them the F out. My last interaction with a car dealer was hilarious. When I started playing mind games with them (walking away while they made me wait, fake-scrolling through ads on my phone, wondering out loud about the dealer across the street) they literally bent over backwards. They lowered the price on the car I wanted significantly. They offered me more than KBB trade-in value for my old car. They even offered to buy my wife and I lunch because we acted like we were going to go think it over while we ate.

It's all mind games. Don't play theirs. The dealerships tactics are not very effective if you take control. They just get a lot of practice and they know that new-car-smell is addictive.

[ISL]

The only winning move with the manipulative is not to play. Their games tend to waste your time and resources.

Somewhere, somebody interested in delivering customer value will sell you a quality car at a price that is respectful to all parties. Buy that one. Do note that a respectful price preserves a margin for the dealer.

[michaelwww]

This is good advice. I discovered by accident a really good technique. Just tell them you don't make any big decisions without sleeping on it. Then don't budge. Once they know they can't get you to sign that day, a lot of the tension goes out of the process. They have to switch gears and be respectful to entice you back tomorrow.

[dillutedfixer]

Anything that throws them off their very-well rehearsed script puts the power back in your hands!