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MARTY CLEARUsed car salesman say the industry, dogged by its unsavory track record, has moved to clean up its act.
A lot of honorable people suffer because their chosen career has a bad public image: lawyers, politicians, reporters and even, these days, priests.
But probably no professional group gets a worse rap than used car dealers. They're often viewed as garish hype artists - like the manic salespeople who scream and cavort their way through annoying TV commercials - or unscrupulous business people or even dishonest con artists.
In recent years, say, the past decade or so, that reputation has started to change. But, perhaps surprisingly, some local used car sales people say that in the not-so-distant past the members of their profession actually deserved their bad reputation.
"It's not so bad anymore," said Ryan McCurdy, a used car salesman for Mastro Subaru in Town 'N Country. "Years ago, maybe 10 to 12 years ago, they had a bad reputation due to the fact that they were unregulated. You could treat people any way you wanted to."
McCurdy has been in the industry long enough to have firsthand knowledge of some of the horror stories from those days. A customer would break down just a few feet from a dealer's lot, moments after the contracts had been signed. Not only were the dealers unwilling to make repairs, but they also treated the customers with scorn. Once the car was off the lot, it was the buyer's problem.
Some dealers would take a potential customer's keys, ostensibly to see if they wanted to take his or her car as a trade-in, and refuse to return the keys until the customer bought a new car.
McCurdy knew a woman who stopped by a used car dealer years ago just before closing time. A salesperson suggested she take a car home overnight for a test drive. The next day, she found that the paperwork she had signed to take the car home was actually a sales contract. She was stuck with a car she didn't want.
It's rare for that kind of thing to happen these days, McCurdy said. In fact, reputable dealers will go beyond their legal and ethical responsibilities to keep customers happy.
"Now," he said, "It's all about customer service. Attention to the customer is of the utmost importance."
Part of the reason is that the government got fed up with abuses in the used car industry and started regulating it.
"The laws are cracking down on them," McCurdy said. "So even if they weren't reputable before, now they have to be."
There are still some operations that treat their customers unfairly, though legally, McCurdy said. Generally, they're in the buy-here-pay-here segment of the industry. One common ploy from those companies is to charge a down payment equal to what they paid for the car, so their expenses are immediately covered. Then they try to repossess the cars so they can sell them again and again.
"If you're late with your Friday payment, if you don't have it in by 5 p.m. Friday, Saturday morning your car's gone," he said.
But those dealers are the few proverbial rotten apples that spoil the whole barrel.
Shady dealers may hinder the industry's efforts to reverse its bad reputation, but the dealers who take care of their customers are ultimately the ones who succeed and survive in the longterm.
"I think a lot of people have had some bad dealings with tough dealers," said Jim Bailey, the general manager of ABC Autos in Seminole Heights. "But that doesn't really affect us. I think over the years in the Tampa area we've done more for the wealth of mankind than all the gold mines in the world."
Most of the dealerships that finance their own sales are reputable, he said, and take pride in helping customers who might not be able to buy a car any other way. It's such an important niche market that many new car dealers who have used car operations have started self-financing cars for customers with bad credit.
Bailey (who might be familiar to local TV viewers as the "Colonel" on ABC Autos' commercials) and McCurdy agree that one way customers can help ensure they're dealing with a reputable used car salesman is to go to a dealership that has an established reputation.
Usedcar operations at newcar dealerships generally fall into that category, they said, but so do many independent shops. They're in the business for the long haul and want repeat customers, so they tend to treat them fairly.
"Fifty percent of all our sales in any week is repeat business," Bailey said. "Twenty-five percent is from our commercials, and 25 percent is from referrals."
One informal way to check on a dealer's honesty is to ask friends or a trusted mechanic for recommendations. Customers can also check with the local Better Business Bureau before they buy. If the dealer doesn't want to allow you the time to do that, be wary.
If you're thinking of buying from a dealer who's not associated with a newcar dealership, Bailey said, look on the office wall for proof that it's a member of the Florida Independent Auto Dealers Association. If you don't see it, ask the salesperson if the dealership is an FIADA member.
The bad guys will be more likely to pressure you into a fast sale because they're interested in a quick buck. The good guys will help you in any reasonable way because they want you to keep coming back.
"We want your business, and your children's business, and your grandparents' business, all of it," Bailey said.
The reputable dealers also want to treat people right because they want to keep reversing their industry's often negative stereotypes. But it's still a hard battle.
"It's getting better, slowly getting better," McCurdy said. "But I don't think it will ever be gone. You do something good for someone, they'll tell one person. You do something bad and they'll 10 people. It's human nature."