Dealerships do this all the time, they think they can get you approved and bought, so they let you drive the car out. Usually this happens when they don't have direct communications with the lender, as in Dealer Track or similar and is simply guessing what they think they can sell to the banks come Monday or the next business day. Most dealerships know that for the most part anyone with a job and a pulse can get approved for a car loan as long they fit certain criteria, like gross income (before taxes) that is 5 times the amount of the loan. However, with a more bearish market lenders are getting a bit nervous before funding a loan, so we get what they call rollbacks. This is when the dealership can not get your application approved or bought by a lender.
The nice thing about this is when you are shopping for a new car, you may want to consider a rollback car. You can ask the salesperson to see the rollbacks. Since someone already has driven the car, and the paperwork has already been filed with the DMV, this car can no longer be sold as a new car. So the dealership would sell it 15% of the asking price, and will usually discount it more to get it out of the lot. They already counted it gone and they want it gone. Many sales people will hesitate to show you rollbacks since the commission is not the greatest and would rather have the credit for selling more new cars. Remember the name of the game is to move as much new inventory as soon as possible. Most of the cars in a dealership is not paid for by the dealership but is there on "credit". The longer it sits the more money they lose.
Some sales people will want to sell used cars as well to get their own nests padded. They make the most commission on used cars, but new cars gets them that neat crystal-like plaque at the end of the year and drives their volume up which allows them to have a job for a little bit longer. So depending on how late it is in the month, the sales person will push accordingly. Beginning of the month you may see them pushing new cars to get their volume up and meet their quotas or draw. After which, they can now make commission, if they don't meet their draw or quota, they get stuck making the minimum, which in the Bay Area is around $7 per hour or $1300 a month. So by the middle or the end of the month you will see most sales people, at least the ones who met their draw or quota push used cars for the fat commissions. So unless you are selling the R8 once a month, you will have to sell some used cars. The commission is usually about 20% of the gross profit on the car. So if they sold a used car for $10,000 and the dealership paid $6000 for it, they they make 20% of the $4000 gross profit. around $800. Sell two of these a day and you already made more than the minimum. Now the R8 is usually marked up $40K over MSRP, which means the sales person will not only collect 20% off of the 40K Markup, but whatever the profit is from the Invoice v. the MSRP.
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Originally Posted by toaster
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