Fancy a laugh? trying buying a car......

[mph1977]

Ari said:

Butter Face said:

I think the whole '60 hour' week thing is massively overplayed by some.

Some days you'll go 8 hours without actually 'doing' something. You're only working when you're 'doing' something.

So you don't count an hour spent at work as part of your working hours unless you're 'doing something'?

i think people are confusing time spent working with time spent at your place of employment

[milner993]

HTP99 said:

Butter Face said:

hora said:

milner993 said:

earned between £35k and £40k

For a 60hour week still?

I think the whole '60 hour' week thing is massively overplayed by some.

Some days you'll go 8 hours without actually 'doing' something. You're only working when you're 'doing' something.

I don't work a 60 hour week or anything close to it, I hit my targets, I get paid (better than a lot of my friends who work 'normal' jobs) and I'm happy.

One of my colleagues was here til 8pm last night working his diary as he'd let it go for too long and was getting hassled for it. Never happens to me.

Yep, same here I am here in work around 40-45 hours a week + every third Sunday and pretty much out of the door on the dot at 6:00pm and my work is left at work.

Ok I'm at the dealership from 8:30 until 6 Monday to Friday with one day off in the week 8:30 until 5:00 on a Saturday and we have every other Sunday off.
Not counting the hours which you’re not paid overtime for when you have to go to events and prospecting evenings.
But of my 60 hour week I probably deal with a customer between 3 and 7 hours a day the rest is paper work or other

[Butter Face]

mph1977 said:

Ari said:

Butter Face said:

I think the whole '60 hour' week thing is massively overplayed by some.

Some days you'll go 8 hours without actually 'doing' something. You're only working when you're 'doing' something.

So you don't count an hour spent at work as part of your working hours unless you're 'doing something'?

i think people are confusing time spent working with time spent at your place of employment

My point was that although some claim a '60 hour week' and it sounds oh so arduous and painful, it's hardly like it is.

I'll say it again that I don't spend anywhere near 60 hours a week 'at' work and I spend a lot less than that actually 'working'

Whereas some of my friends work 9-5 mon-fri but spend all of that time 'working'




I still don't know if that will make sense to some, but to answer your question Ari, I think if you base your whole job around time spent at work rather than the productive 'working' hours then you probably don't like your job or should be doing something else as you're probably on an hourly wage rather than looking at your monthly/yearly pay as a whole.

I haven't looked at my hourly wage for a decade now as it's completely irrelevant to how much I actually earn.

[jimmyt1202]

funkyrobot said:

Is this you?

Off topic but this bloke now does a 1-man hand car wash at a petrol station in Hitchin out of an old Sainsbury's trolley

Seems the BBC well and truly finishecd off his outfit!

[HTP99]

kentao said:

Out of interest what sort of commission % do dealerships offer sales staff from say arnold clark upto the more prestigious dealrships?

It varies from dealer to dealer and group to group, some packages, such as mine; sell 1 car or 100 and earn a set percentage, some are based on bandings so sell 1-5 cars per month and earn 5% per unit, sell 6-10 per month and earn 10% per unit retrospective back to unit one and sell 11+ and earn 15% per unit retrospective back to unit 1.

Some places the salesman earns a set amount per unit which is banded as per the example above and some also base bandings on finance/GAP/paint protection penetration.

It can get confusing, fortunately for I earn a set percentage per unit, a set percentage per finance case and a set amount per GAP and or paint protectionm so I know from day 1 what I am going to be earning.

[milner993]

Not every part of my working week is productive, I'm not paid by the hour I have a salary + commission I actually only feel productive when I'm with a customer.
I could play games on the internet for 8 hours of the day and have a customer walk in at 5:00 and buy a vehicle! Job done, management happy, me happy, easy day in the office.

[Butter Face]

doogz said:

Butter Face said:

I still don't know if that will make sense to some, but to answer your question Ari, I think if you base your whole job around time spent at work rather than the productive 'working' hours then you probably don't like your job or should be doing something else as you're probably on an hourly wage rather than looking at your monthly/yearly pay as a whole.

I haven't looked at my hourly wage for a decade now as it's completely irrelevant to how much I actually earn.

All the hours I spend at work are productive, I quite like my job, and I'm paid by the hour.

My hourly rate is directly proportional to how much I actually earn.

Your ramblings appear to be just that. It really doesn't make any sense.

So as a structural engineer you're on a fixed contract with an hourly wage and paid £x PH?

I'd imagine not, so you choose how much you work and how much you earn?

I think my 'ramblings' will make perfect sense to those who do the same job. It's not a job where you do 40 hours and get paid for 40 hours, as Milner puts it, you might spend all day doing not a lot then sell a car, you've done what you need to do that day.

[oldnbold]

Butter Face said:

So as a structural engineer you're on a fixed contract with an hourly wage and paid £x PH?

I'd imagine not, so you choose how much you work and how much you earn?

I think my 'ramblings' will make perfect sense to those who do the same job. It's not a job where you do 40 hours and get paid for 40 hours, as Milner puts it, you might spend all day doing not a lot then sell a car, you've done what you need to do that day.

I think the point people are trying to make is the number of hours you spend per week at your place of employment. You may not actually be "working" for several hours per day/week. but the point is you can't be elsewhere with your family/hooning around in your car/playing sport/down the pub.

Having previously spent a few years in car sales I remember that the hours were fairly long and with lots of long periods of inactivity. And I was one of the fairly concencious with follow ups, prospecting, diary up dates etc.

[Sheepshanks]

POORCARDEALER said:

Part of the issue is a good salesman in the early to mid 90s (bmw, merc) was earning 40K +++, car, fuel.

Probably similar or less now...would need to earn close to 70K to match that with inflation, so the earnings have nearly halved in real terms.

Funnily enough I read the other day on one of the Merc forums that a decent MB dealer salesperson makes £70K/yr and some much more.

[andymc]

Sheepshanks said:

POORCARDEALER said:

Part of the issue is a good salesman in the early to mid 90s (bmw, merc) was earning 40K +++, car, fuel.

Probably similar or less now...would need to earn close to 70K to match that with inflation, so the earnings have nearly halved in real terms.

Funnily enough I read the other day on one of the Merc forums that a decent MB dealer salesperson makes £70K/yr and some much more.

the top ten percent maybe.

[POORCARDEALER]

Sheepshanks said:

POORCARDEALER said:

Part of the issue is a good salesman in the early to mid 90s (bmw, merc) was earning 40K +++, car, fuel.

Probably similar or less now...would need to earn close to 70K to match that with inflation, so the earnings have nearly halved in real terms.

Funnily enough I read the other day on one of the Merc forums that a decent MB dealer salesperson makes £70K/yr and some much more.

Think the very top ones might in certain dealership groups, wouldnt be the norm, but back in the 90s you would have to be below average to get 35-40.

[Thankyou4calling]

Sheepshanks said:

Funnily enough I read the other day on one of the Merc forums that a decent MB dealer salesperson makes £70K/yr and some much more.

Something doesn't add up with that. Car dealers are often saying there is only a tiny profit in cars, often only a couple of hundred so I'm struggling to see how this is achieved by more than a handful.

[toppstuff]

Thankyou4calling said:

Sheepshanks said:

Funnily enough I read the other day on one of the Merc forums that a decent MB dealer salesperson makes £70K/yr and some much more.

Something doesn't add up with that. Car dealers are often saying there is only a tiny profit in cars, often only a couple of hundred so I'm struggling to see how this is achieved by more than a handful.

Thats because car salesman are not really paid to sell new cars anymore. They are paid to find clients for PCP and lease schemes; thats where the money.

Just like cinemas only really show movies in order to sell you sweets, car salesman are only really there to get finance deals done.

[gaz1234]

which garage?

[milner993]

toppstuff said:

Thankyou4calling said:

Sheepshanks said:

Funnily enough I read the other day on one of the Merc forums that a decent MB dealer salesperson makes £70K/yr and some much more.

Something doesn't add up with that. Car dealers are often saying there is only a tiny profit in cars, often only a couple of hundred so I'm struggling to see how this is achieved by more than a handful.

Thats because car salesman are not really paid to sell new cars anymore. They are paid to find clients for PCP and lease schemes; thats where the money.

Just like cinemas only really show movies in order to sell you sweets, car salesman are only really there to get finance deals done.

I'm sorry but what gives you the impression that car dealers are only interested in selling finance, finance is a funding method for the purchase of a vehicle without the sale of the vehicle you cant sell the finance or anything else for that matter, I accept I would rather sell a car on finace rather than sell it for "cash" as I earn a % of the commission made.
as already mentioned by someone else carsales earnings can be made up in many different ways so if a sales man tells you they earn £70k which I know isn't the norm not even top 10% I would guess it doesn't matter how much margin/profit the car makes the sales man could have a set amount per car maybe its £20 maybe £200 maybe they have a high basic if they sell enough vehicles they could get there so its really irrelevant what profit the dealer makes in some cases.
The manufacturer doesn't gain their market share by the amount of finance sold it does so by the amount of new car registrations.

[oldnbold]

toppstuff said:

Thats because car salesman are not really paid to sell new cars anymore. They are paid to find clients for PCP and lease schemes; thats where the money.

Just like cinemas only really show movies in order to sell you sweets, car salesman are only really there to get finance deals done.

Thats nearly true, when I was in car sales selling a new car would earn me between £35 and £100 per unit depending on model.

But I could earn another £250 + if I sold all the add on's

You don't earn a lot just selling cars.

[CarlT]

toppstuff said:

Thankyou4calling said:

Sheepshanks said:

Funnily enough I read the other day on one of the Merc forums that a decent MB dealer salesperson makes £70K/yr and some much more.

Something doesn't add up with that. Car dealers are often saying there is only a tiny profit in cars, often only a couple of hundred so I'm struggling to see how this is achieved by more than a handful.

Thats because car salesman are not really paid to sell new cars anymore. They are paid to find clients for PCP and lease schemes; thats where the money.

Just like cinemas only really show movies in order to sell you sweets, car salesman are only really there to get finance deals done.

You can't sell finance without selling a car. Car manufacturers make cars - not finance. The finance is to facilitate the purchase of the car, which in turn keeps the factory turning...

[Sheepshanks]

CarlT said:

You can't sell finance without selling a car. Car manufacturers make cars - not finance. The finance is to facilitate the purchase of the car, which in turn keeps the factory turning...

For the big dealer groups, it's very much the other way around. The car is a means to an end - the end is to sell F&I products.

[funkyrobot]

jimmyt1202 said:

funkyrobot said:

Is this you?

Off topic but this bloke now does a 1-man hand car wash at a petrol station in Hitchin out of an old Sainsbury's trolley

Seems the BBC well and truly finishecd off his outfit!

[Pit Pony]

The last purchase I was involved in, required me, to help my Father In Law (Seller) and Son (Purchaser), fill in the V5 correctly. And explain to Both Seller and Purchaser, that there was no warranty, implied or otherwise.
Father in Law insisted on polishing it one last time before it changed hands.

And then I had to find 1/2 the insurance as a 21st Birthday present.

Previous purchase involved a back street garage and a 13 year old mini. It was a piece of cake. Car was on Forecourt, showing a price £400 over the internet print-out in my pocket. Took a test drive, pointed out faults to be fixed, agreed a price, paid a deposit, went back a week later and picked up perfect car. Salesman, was a bit of a Smarmy tt, but Responded well, to "Do you know that for sure or are you guessing?"