We had a very similar situation with the Bedford Volkswagen several years ago. We didn't make an appointment ahead of time, but we got there and said something like "we're interested in manual transmission station wagons and want to take a look at the 2015 jetta." And the guy sat there at his computer looking over the website trying to sell us a used model of various cars for ~2k less than the new model that weren't manual transmission or weren't jetta wagons. Jonathan tried to explain several times we didn't want a used model, we wanted a new model because the price differences weren't enough to make us want a used model. If we'd wanted to sit and shop on the website, we could have done that from home.
IIRC he was confused by the fact that they didn't have a manual transmission on the lot? But we just wanted to look over the interior and see if we liked it better than some subaru model we'd looked at earlier in the day. Finally we convinced him to let us look at the interior of the jetta wagon they did have on the lot.
We left with no intention of back. We then went to the VW dealership a coworker had recommended (a 50 minute drive from our house vs the 10 minute drove of the original). The guy there showed us the one car we actually cared to see and when we talked about we might want it in a different color he told us we didn't need to go to another dealership, he could get it on his lot in 2-3 days. He got the sale, despite being a little pushy on getting all the paperwork done on a specific day once we'd agreed to the sale.
We were nearly a sure sale. We knew exactly the car we wanted. The Subarus were all large and boaty in that generation. The jetta was not.
Fortunately the nearby one has an excellent service department, so they get our car for maintenance.
Same here
IIRC he was confused by the fact that they didn't have a manual transmission on the lot? But we just wanted to look over the interior and see if we liked it better than some subaru model we'd looked at earlier in the day. Finally we convinced him to let us look at the interior of the jetta wagon they did have on the lot.
We left with no intention of back. We then went to the VW dealership a coworker had recommended (a 50 minute drive from our house vs the 10 minute drove of the original). The guy there showed us the one car we actually cared to see and when we talked about we might want it in a different color he told us we didn't need to go to another dealership, he could get it on his lot in 2-3 days. He got the sale, despite being a little pushy on getting all the paperwork done on a specific day once we'd agreed to the sale.
We were nearly a sure sale. We knew exactly the car we wanted. The Subarus were all large and boaty in that generation. The jetta was not.
Fortunately the nearby one has an excellent service department, so they get our car for maintenance.