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Apparently Men Find it Tough to Shop for Cars, Too

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From georgiana, Featured Contributor
Posted on July 21, 2008

Could it be that it's not a gender thing at all?

A recent post on this blog highlighted the difficulties women are rumored to encounter while car shopping. This got me thinking about men that I've known who were completely intimidated by the process. Whether they hate haggling, have trouble making decisions or just don't like being pressured, having a y chromosome did not make making the deal any easier for these guys. Here are their stories. Names changed to protect the innocent:

"Jim," a gentleman I knew from the theater, went to a Toyota dealership planning to buy a new car. He'd already done his homework; he knew what he wanted and how much he was willing to pay, and thought he would be in and out in very little time. He didn't even care about the color of his new vehicle so thought the purchase would be no fuss no muss. Instead he was a victim of the old bait and switch. The car he'd seen in the paper was thousands more than the ad but he didn't find that out until he'd been there for some time, driven the car and spent quite some time at the dealership. He called me for advice. "Leave," I said. "Go somewhere else." "I can't," he replied. "They've thrown my car keys onto the roof and won't give them back. They say I have to buy the new car." I rolled my eyes, kind of a pointless gesture since I was on the phone and said, "That's ridiculous. Tell them to give you back your keys. They can't kidnap you. If they won't give them back call the police." But instead he bought the car, an act that still horrifies me to this day because when we give in to these kinds of insane tactics we encourage more of them.

"Bob," a friend of mine from a previous job who asked me if I could get a girlfriend of mine to go car shopping with him, hated to haggle. He asked for "Laura's" assistance because she was the self professed queen of yard sales and her ability to get the best deal on used items carried over to the new car arena. She could make the manager of a lot cry and beg her to accept a deal that would supposedly bankrupt him. While Bob felt uncomfortable and guilty asking for lower than sticker price Laura wasn't happy unless she was going home with the best deal and every freebie the company could offer. You know, I'm just thinking you could probably start a company matching up the Bobs and Lauras of the world. They say service industries are the wave of the future, right?

I had another friend we'll call "Bill" who had a terrible time making up his mind even in the most stress free situations. When it came to car shopping, the second most expensive purchase most of us make, he fell apart. Committing to a make, model and price when he thought there might be a better bargain somewhere else became impossible. He spent weeks looking at cars and finally ended up buying a used car from a friend of his parent's – and he was still unhappy because it wasn't the car of his dreams. He would have been much better off shopping online where he could compare specific cars quickly and easily. Maybe his eventual decision would have been just as difficult but at least he would have saved some travel time and gas money.

What's your experience been? Any men out there want to support the claim that hating the bargaining process isn't purely a female thing?

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georgiana is a featured contributor for vLane.