Age discrimination & bad behavior

[SADARE@xxxxxxx]

Young Chris Graff wrote:
 << Hi everyone,
  (snip) 
 First a little background. I'm in high school, and yes I have my own
 car, bought with my own money I worked for, have a license and attended
 a defensive driving school (classroom and track), but no special driving
 schools as of yet. (snip)>>

Chris: 
Let's look at how you really got treated at your local dealer--
You're in high school, so except for unusual circumstances you are not yet 18.
You have your own car, and you help your parents make their auto purchase
decisions.

One question-- Is "your" car titled in your name? In most states you cannot
legally own a vehicle until you are 18, so I'd bet that "your" car is legally
owned by one of your parents.

Regardless of who owns your car you cannot legally execute a contract in any
state. If a dealership were to sell you a car with your signature on the
contract, you could not pay a dime drive the car and return it with mileage,
damage, whatever. The dealer would be stuck. You must be 18 to execute a
contract.

So, in your case I'd say that your dealer was very accomodating. Every
salesman probably knew you were in for service, and service customers
routinely pass the time in the showroom. Since they were busy they were not
willing to commit time to a non-customer. They did seem very accomodating to
let you sit in, and snoop around the cars in their showroom. 

Keep in mind that it's a teenagers job to go test drive cars they can't buy,
and I did more than my share way back when. I also approached salesmen when
they weren't busy and told them that I was interested, and I might be a future
customer. I never had a problem.

If I had been the sales manager in the dealership you visited I would have
told you to bring back someone of legal age and then we could talk, test
drive, whatever. You wouldn't have gotten away with your little teen
stunt/tantrum. I also might have called your mommy (number is on the service
records) and asked her to come pick up her brat, who was disrupting the entire
business.

Now before you write this off because I called what you did a stunt,think for
a minute about the dealer's point of view. Here is this "kid" who I can't sell
a car to if I wanted. I've got real customers making real deals, who also can
tell your age, and wonder what happened to good old respect. You ask for a
test drive, rather than explaining that you help your parents make their car
purchase decisions, and you want to evaluate an M3, since your mothers car is
getting older. And the employees of this multi million dollar enterprise now
have this teenage kid standing in the middle of the showroom disrupting their
real business.

So if i can modify your perception just a bit--- When you go in with your
parents (ie as a real customer), you get treated well. When you don't have a
chance in hell of buying something, and disrupt an entire business, you
complain about the service.
Methinks you have this a little twisted.

To connect this to all the other posts on this subject, It seems that
customers, young or old, who demonstrate that they are serious customers are
treated well by dealers. This is not age discrimination, but an attempt by a
serious business to determine who its customers are, and who is wasting their
time.

Scott Adare
Spokane, Wa
'95 M3

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