Why is buying a car so hard?

A month or so ago now, I traded in my car for a lease on a new Ford Taurus. Generally I'm happy with the car, although that's not really the point of this post (you can expect that later). My question is, how on earth did the car buying process end up as miserable as it is?

In my car shopping experience, I had an odd series of events go down. I rolled into the dealership on a Friday after work, and was soon met by a car salesman on the lot. We sat in some cars, no big deal. I was driving home when I realized that sitting in the car wasn't what I went to the dealership for; I wanted to know how much these cars would cost me. Unfortunately when I went back, 10 minutes later, the salesman had left already. So I had to deal with some awkwardness as I was assigned to a new salesman who would crunch some numbers for me. Then a few days later, the second person I talked to wasn't available, and I was assigned back to the first salesman that I saw in the lot.

My main complaint here isn't really the variety of people helping me. Both of the people were equally creepy, actually. It's the tension that happens when one salesperson sees their potential commission going to a co-worker. I mentioned to one of these people that I had actually worked with another salesperson in the dealership for my last new car, and you could immediately tell the sadness in his face, as he thought I might again be departing of his services. Moral of the story: It's not about you, car salesman. It's about me, the customer.

My next complaint: the whole car buying process is carefully crafted to make you buy a car. I suppose this makes sense. Meijer is also carefully crafted to make you buy stuff, but it's not nearly as creepy. Any car salesman that I've talked to, you can just tell when he's using a "power phrase" he read in some sleazy sales pamphlet. "Man that's a sharp car". Even when he's telling me about his kids in the test drive. I mean really? I know you for all of about 5 minutes, I'm here test driving a car, and you want to tell me some stupid story about your kids? Perhaps I'm a little busy here, you know, driving, and I'd prefer not to chit-chat? Call me cynical but I think you're just trying to improve our relationship so I'll buy your car at a ridiculous price. Yeah, I'm onto your game salesman. Breaking news: No, I don't really care to help send your kid to college, thanks. Complaint here: Stop being so creepy. Be a real person, car salesman. I don't want to feel like a lab rat here.

Here's one of my favorites: why is it that car salesmen are never really super knowledgable about the cars they are selling? I mean, while I enjoy cars, I don't consider myself a car buff. Yet time and time again, it's really not worth asking many questions of the salesman if you've done 10 minutes of research beforehand. The salesman tried telling me that the car that I bought only came with faux-woodgrain on the dash, even with black leather seats. Really sir? Really? That doesn't even make sense, at all. I know, that's kind of a tiny detail, but when your job is selling cars, that's what I expect you to know. That's exactly the kind of knowledge that I need, and you never ever have it.

And speaking of options...option packages are downright insanity. Even worse, is the dealership's promise of "oh we can definitely find that for you" when clearly that's not the case. I've bought two new cars, and I've had eerily similar experiences. Both times, I'm interested in a lot of the options, but without leather seats. Both times, the car salesman has expressed exuberant confidence that they would definitely be able to find a car for me. Both times, it's been a giant failure.

The first time, I actually had the car built to my specifications. This time, I caved and got leather seats (which are nice, by the way, though it hurts to know I gave in to the stupid dealership). But the best part of it was this - when I put down the deposit, they showed me the window sticker of the exact car that I wanted. A few days later though, I got a call saying they couldn't find the car anywhere in the midwest. That's odd, because you totally told me before there was one available, no problem, right? What gives?

Ford has a lot of their new car inventories searchable, online. It was incredibly inconvenient, but I did some searching in the greater Detroit area and I actually located the car that they printed the window sticker for. I even called the dealership and asked them if the car was on the lot (that was a weird phone call, FYI). When I told this to my car salesman, at first he was a little surprised at the effort I put in. Then his manager told me that the dealership with the car wouldn't trade with them, and he refused to work it out. So while I could have had exactly the car I wanted (and was promised) from a dealership in Livonia, I didn't really want to have to deal with a dealership that far away. Two morals of this story: 1) While I get why they exist, from my point of view, option packages are really stupid and a pain 2) Don't tell me you can find my car when you can't, and instead sell me a more expensive one - that's a jerk move.

All of this leads me again to wonder - how did we get here? How did car dealerships get to be such a creepy place of pain and sorrow? Has it always been this bad? Buying a new car should be an exhilarating experience, especially new cars because you're blowing a lot of cash. If you think about it, one of the biggest, yet financially-speaking worst, yet (to a point) most necessary investments of your life. Unfortunately, it's a complicated mess of psychological games, incompetent salespeople, and endless hoops to jump through. I want it to be like Amazon. I want a fair price, I want to be left alone while I shop (unless I ask for help), and I want to be able to deal on my own terms. Although maybe a good start would be just not feeling like I'm constantly getting screwed by the man.

Epilogue: Despite my rant here about the car sales process, I do enjoy my car. A necessary evil it appears.