A Note From A Leaf Salesman

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cgaydos said:
I sympathize. Did you haggle in person or via email/phone? And since you wanted a LEAF with QC why did you settle for a Focus that has no QC?

It's probably too late for you now, but if I were in the same situation I'd have gotten quotes from bay area high-volume LEAF dealers such as Boardwalk Nissan and Sunnyvale Nissan. You'd almost certainly save more than enough to pay for the cost of shipping your LEAF to LA (or you could drive if you wanted to take your time and recharge).

It was both via phone and in person. I settled on the Ford, mostly because of price -- it was really that much better than any of the Leaf quotes I received. It does have a few other aspects I like better than the Leaf.
 
RPadTV said:
After going through five LA-area Nissan dealerships, I was unable to get a price that I could accept. To be fair, it would have been better if I started at the end of June. The whole process of haggling, getting dealers to match prices, etc. was annoying and outdated. While I really wanted a Leaf with QC, I'm settling for a Ford Focus Electric. My experience with two of the Ford dealers was just as annoying as the five Nissan dealers I tried to work with. Thankfully, the third dealer was able to nail everything down over email with me and I'm going to sign tomorrow, for a price much better than what I could find for Leaf S + QC.

I do agree with the other posters that say the Tesla model is the future.

that is one hell of a settlement. curious as to your impressions 6 months from now. keep us posted
 
I do sympathize with the OP in regards to the surveys being their livelihood. If something goes awry, though, what other recourse do we have? For example, a long time ago, I pre-ordered one of the new, hot vehicles at the time. Talking with the salesperson, I agreed with $500 over invoice. Not great, but I enjoy being an early adopter sometimes.

When my car came in, the salesperson didn't work there anymore and the dealership "lost" my paperwork where we agreed for $500 over invoice. They said they want $2000 over invoice or they're not selling the car to me. I had just sold my previous vehicle to a private buyer so I was pretty much over a barrel. I ponied up and took the car since I knew they could sell the car for the same price to someone else, so there was no disadvantage to them if I walked away.

When I got the corporate survey in the mail, I gave them all "1"s. I felt bad about giving the "1"s to the service department, which was very good and helpful, but I wanted to inflict the maximum damage I could to these bastards. Sure enough, about a week later the owner of the dealership called me, quite irate. Tough s--t. I told him if I wasn't screwed by his dealership, he wouldn't get such a poor review.

The dealership lost their "5 star" award for that month and, shortly thereafter, was sold to another owner. While I don't think I had much to do with it, I feel good that my bad survey actually had an effect.

I feel bad for poor reviews on surveys when they are not warranted and their effect on salespeople, but don't take that away from us as consumers. If something is truly wrong, we still need some method of making our displeasure known. If surveys have a 1-10 rating, maybe the scale should be less granular. Make a 1-5 scale or even a 1-4 scale.
 
mkjayakumar said:
What surveys..? I have never filled any surveys for any of my cars in the past.

they are only for new car purchase/leases and you normally get them by mail or email within a week of delivery. it would be very unusual for you not to have gotten one
 
Oh it is possible I might have received one for each car I bought in the past. I don't fill surveys unless someone puts a gun in my head. I had always presumed surveys are done for self-aggrandizement and not for improving the experience.

I
 
Were I to buy another Leaf in the future, I would go back to Danny and Joanne at Fontana Nissan in a heartbeat, even though they are 65 miles from me! The absolutely best dealership experience I have ever had!

RPadTV said:
After going through five LA-area Nissan dealerships, I was unable to get a price that I could accept. To be fair, it would have been better if I started at the end of June. The whole process of haggling, getting dealers to match prices, etc. was annoying and outdated.
 
I must appreciate my Leaf salesperson, Christian Penafiel, at Kings Nissan in Cincinnati. I saw a complaint in this forum about other salespeople at this dealership. Christian has been attentive and informative. I have purchased three Nissans from him including my current Leaf. Negotiations are effortless and purchases are usually near dealer cost even without VPP.

I recently sold my wife's Land Rover and have experienced some of the horrors that I have been reading about on this forum. Many auto dealers and their salespeople really stink. It's shameful. Selling cars is a lot easier than they make it out to be. We would have bought a car by now had we run across a decent salesperson at a decent dealership. I found one dealership in Nashville that tried to charge me a $595 documentation fee. Really? $595 for five bucks worth of documentation?

My Leaf is now our only vehicle limiting us to 80 mile round trips or less. I'll deal with it for now and rent something else if I need it.
 
mkjayakumar said:
Oh it is possible I might have received one for each car I bought in the past. I don't fill surveys unless someone puts a gun in my head. I had always presumed surveys are done for self-aggrandizement and not for improving the experience.

I

i actually deleted the first two attempts at a survey due to my spam filter. it was not until my salesman advised me he was sending it that i realized "hey, I've seen this before!"
 
My spam filter is smarter than I thought! It invariably flags everything from Nissan Corporate... :lol:

DaveinOlyWA said:
i actually deleted the first two attempts at a survey due to my spam filter. it was not until my salesman advised me he was sending it that i realized "hey, I've seen this before!"
 
the only issue with surveys is that when it's a rating of 1-10, it seems like a 9 means they did a very good job. salespeople always say that it's binary...10 is acceptable and 9 and below mean poor service.

i always give all 10s for the sales guys. i usually give low scores to the finance guys since i have yet to meet one that doesn't insist that i buy useless crap and is smart (can add math in his/her head).
 
Ironic that survey, which is meant to improve the quality of the buying experience causes so much grief. Since when is 9 out of 10 such a bad thing? You base a big chunk of a salesman's salary on a single item and you don't think they are going to manipulate the system?

I was told a long time ago that fleet & internet sales have a different pay structure than the regular sales team since the work/volume is different, is this not the case? If LEAF sales are that much different than maybe they should get compensated differently too.
 
Ironic that survey, which is meant to improve the quality of the buying experience causes so much grief. Since when is 9 out of 10 such a bad thing? You base a big chunk of a salesman's salary on a single item and you don't think they are going to manipulate the system?

I was told a long time ago that fleet & internet sales have a different pay structure than the regular sales team since the work/volume is different, is this not the case? If LEAF sales are that much different than maybe they should get compensated differently too.

Yeah. The survey basically falls on deaf ears. Nissan does nothing but punish the dealer with responses. There are no changes made based on your input, as all dealers are basically independently owned and operated. 9/10 on every questions equals a 900/1000, and salesman are required to maintain a 962.

This is not the case. Internet and Fleet are basically paid the same. We don't have a dedicated fleet department at my dealerhship, but as I understand, it's basically the same MINUS the benefits from surveys because of the sheer volume.

And yes, Leaf sales should be an independent department above surveys and Nissan's iron fist. However, that would essentially cost Nissan a lot of money, so they will not do that.
 
I remember a long time ago buying a Honda and the dealer told me when I got the survey in the mail to bring it in (not filled out) and they'd give me a free tank of gas for it.
 
Leo:

This is a pretty stale post, but I'm well aware of most of what you said. The "spin" was new to me though. I have a close friend who was a Nissan salesman for many years. I leased my Leaf from him 2 years ago. The stress from his job seemed like it would kill him, but fortunately he retired before that happened. The whole process is dehumanizing for ALL the people that work in the dealership. I was planning to do some more research on buying a Rogue this morning, but after reading your post, it reminded me we would be supporting a company that treats it's employees poorly. I've already test driven a CR V, so I suppose that will be what we get.

THANKYOU for putting this out there, and all you folks PLEASE be kind, polite and considerate to everyone at any dealership. They really do have a tough job.
 
walkinwolk said:
it reminded me we would be supporting a company that treats it's employees poorly. I've already test driven a CR V, so I suppose that will be what we get.
you are in error, the dealerships are privately held businesses that hold franchises from Nissan. Nissan doesn't treat the salesmen poorly the owners of the dealerships do. you are misplacing your anger onto Nissan when you should be angry at individual dealerships
 
And it's the case the other car companies do this type of thing, too. We got much the same spiel about the Honda survey when we bought our Odyssey - a "10" was the only acceptable answer.
 
No, one should be angry at a completely broken and corrupt dealer system! Telsa has it right!

apvbguy said:
you are in error, the dealerships are privately held businesses that hold franchises from Nissan. Nissan doesn't treat the salesmen poorly the owners of the dealerships do. you are misplacing your anger onto Nissan when you should be angry at individual dealerships
 
megger5963 said:
Yeah. The survey basically falls on deaf ears. Nissan does nothing but punish the dealer with responses. There are no changes made based on your input, as all dealers are basically independently owned and operated. 9/10 on every questions equals a 900/1000, and salesman are required to maintain a 962.

My salesman told me that they recently raised it from like 940 to 962. Crazy system. Sure hope the Model III comes out on time. Eliminate the whole dealership insanity.
 
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