buying a used car is a pita
my daughter got rear-ended at a stop light by some goof last month. no-one was seriously hurt, but the whole insurance experience has been a total PITA. first, she had to deal with two diff. companies (hers and the one for the person who hit her). second, the whole process of getting the settlement for the car is *completely* unfriendly (note to insurance companies: these baby-boomers are going to eat you alive!). finally, once we got over the crap from the insurance people, dealing with the used car folks is a 'whole-nuther.'
anyway, we spent time trolling the local car lots this weekend and narrowed it down to two places. in one case, they were really friendly and spent most all their time trying to get may daughter to 'level-up' to a more expensive car (why do the do that?). the other folks did a better job of listening to her and showed her cars within her price range. but they were all about closing the purchase today - lots of pressure. it's really annoying.
so, my point? in both cases (insurance companies, car sales) they were too focused on what *they* wanted to accomplish for the day - not on what we (the customer) wanted to accomplish. a sorry state of affairs. at least in the case of the car sales market, the internet has put a lot more power into the hands of the customer. insurance - not so much (yet). i can only hope that customers continue to gain power in the relationship and vendors of all types learn their lessons and start paying better attention to the customers. only then will the companies make a decent profit.