When I first got in the car bizz, like many other occupations, the secrets were hidden from the rookies. It was important to keep the liners dumb. That way they couldn’t give away the store standing out on the lot with a customer who is grinding for the “no bull-shit” deal. The thinking is the more a liner doesn’t know the more truthful it will sound when he says, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
The rookie’s job is to land people on a car and get a commitment to buy, then let the desk and closers and F&I make a deal out of it. For the rookie who sells a lot of cars those secrets slowly get revealed, but not without resistance from the more self-important guys.
I made a deal on a new Buick with a friend of mine. I told her when I sold her a car I was going to make money on the car, whatever I sold her. I had to dealer-trade for the car and it was the cheapest Buick with the least amount of profit.
We had a solid deal, she had good credit, and when she asked me how much she needed to put down, I told her three-thousand. She said okay, but if I needed she could put down more. The car was around ten grand plus the fees, so I thought I was safe. That’s the way I took it to the desk.
We sold the car for a little over sticker and got the payments where she liked, (and they were packed to make room for F and I to sell something) and made the deal. I figured I had a $400 commission. When she came out of Fand I she told me she had purchased the extended warranty and the spit polish and special coating. She said her payment only went up a couple of bucks. She even said the sale price was lower than what I’d said. I never checked and thought she had just not remembered for how much I sold it to her. But I thought it was curious how much extras she’d bought and her payment only went up a couple of dollars. I hadn’t left that much room in the payments.
I got my voucher and it said I made $250. I knew that had to be a mistake, I’d sold the exact same model car for sticker recently and made over $300. I went to the general manager and asked him about it.
I could tell immediately there was some kind of kink. He was evasive and mumbled something about the cost of the car was higher or some crap, not thinking that I had traded for the car and they gave me the invoice for it when I picked the car up. So I pressed harder. He still was evasive but said he would get together with the F and I guy and figure it out for me.
A few days later the GM called me into the sales office and told me he would take care of me on the deal. I assumed he meant he would spiff me or something. But I was curious about how the deal got so sideways as far as my cut. So when no one was looking I snuck into the business office one night when everyone was playing poker in the conference room and found the deal file.
Found the problem, I did. The Fand I guy’s commission was huge, he sold the warranty for $2500, he sold the Mop and Glow for $ 2000, and he made his commish on a 3 point buy/sell spread on finance rate. The price of the car was lowered considerably from what I had sold it for.
I asked the F and I guy why he lowered the price and he mumbled something about costs and this and that and “leave me alone I’m busy.” I never had liked 
the guy. He was a pompous little man who refused to drive a Buick demo because it was beneath him. I lit into him some.
the guy. He was a pompous little man who refused to drive a Buick demo because it was beneath him. I lit into him some.Then he told me when he added all his shit that I set him up for, (I’d told her to buy the warranty and the mop and glow, it would only raise her payment $25) he was out of line with the bank structure. So he cut my commission to take care of his. I asked him, “Did you ask her to put more money down?”
He got this sheepish grin on his face and said that he hadn’t because he figured I’d ground all the down payment out of her in my office already. I almost pulled that little punk over his desk right then, but instead, I told him I would if he ever did that to me again. And I told him I’d beat his little whiny ass too.
The GM gave me a house deal for my troubles, I stopped lining payments for the finance guy to fill. When the other finance guy was on duty I lined all his deals with a good pack in the payments. I heard through the grapevine that the little weasel was pissed because he had to work for his money on my deals now.
A few years later I was at a different dealership. My little weasel buddy got hired to be a finance guy. By then I was a closer and had some pull and power, plus my crew outsold the other crews by almost double. My little buddy showed me some deference, and I never had another problem with him.
When I ran a dealership I tried to show my guys all the ins and outs, but still, there were spots where it was better for me to know, them to guess and be able to truthfully respond, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”