Browsing through some of the AutoSpeed forums, I recently spotted a thread about the bullshit that had been spread at the Melbourne Motor Show by certain car salesmen. Not subjective things like how a car "goes well", "runs on the smell of an oily rag for it's size", "sticks to the road like glue mate" ... but rather technical titbits or details that're downright crap.
Having a squiz at the forum, I thought back over the dags of misinformation that had been tossed my way by salesdrones over the years, and figured I might as well share 'em. Hell, they might not be all that exciting, but I do sometimes wonder how some people get jobs in certain fields!
One of the first Sydney Motor Shows to be held at the then-new Darling Harbour complex was one of the years that Ford released the Kia-built Festiva; the old boxy one, based on the pre-bubble 121. Having amused ourselves by annoying the FSM people (being both over 6-feet tall, just getting in the Niki was enough to make it look undersized and somewhat comedic), my friend and I jumped into the next-smallest car, which happened to be the Festiva. From memory the interior was some hideous United Colours of Ben Eltons scheme, and after we'd finished vomiting and pushing all the buttons (as you do) , I tried to get out. And couldn't. The build quality was so dodgy that the door had jammed, and it required a good shoulder-charge to get it open. Now, a salesman had wafted over by that stage, and when I'd escaped the clutches of the evil thing he said straight-faced that it was a child safety feature; that I had the child safety restraint activated. On the front door? And openable with a hard shove? And no, he wasn't joking.
Then there's the time we were looking over a Cressida Grande for a friend's dad, the model with the 3.0 7MGE straight six. Oh, this was not long after the Holden advertising mob had managed to convince a fair proportion of the great unwashed that the "V" in "3.8 V6" was why the Holden V6 had more power than the Falcon's 3.9 (which it didn't). Anyway, when the salesdroid smarmed his way in our direction, he tried to tell us how great the 2.8 V6 was in the Cressida. And, let me tell you, there was no way he was going to admit he was wrong; we showed him the engine (which was obviously a straight-six), we showed him the build and/or compliance plates (one of which showed 2954cc), and he wasn't going to have a bar of it. So we giggled and walked off.
And then there was the period when another friend was looking at older sporty cars, before realising just how much the insurance companies were going to ream him. So we lobbed at a place on Parramatta Road, right near a well-known rotary specialist, to look at this automatic Series II RX7. Quite a nice car it was too, except it suffered badly from automaticitis. The salesguy very proudly announced that the cam in the automatic rotaries was less aggressive, meaning they did have a little bit less power but idled more smoothly and used less fuel. I'm really not one for arguments, so we walked away and let him have his little delusion.
Have I mentioned the "Australian delivery" turbo 2-door '89-ish (is that R31 or HR31?) Skyline that I was considering whilst looking for my AE82 Corolla Twin Cam? Or the ridiculously overpriced "fully imported" HR31 SVD Skyline GTS-II? Or the "one owner, never been in an accident or even touched-up" Soarer which had overspray on just about every surface that wasn't intended to be painted? Or the multitude of unmodified 100kW AE82 Twin Cams? Or the fact that '93 Galant VR4's are a next class of car faster than a '93 Liberty RS in all facets of performance, or that a 3.5 litre KE Verada is quicker again? Or even the fact that Mitsubishi had a shipment of CE Lancer GSR's on the docks, which would be ready for sale as a regular model at the start of 1997?
As I said previously, it really does make you wonder how some people got into the sales job they have; they obviously have little idea about what they're selling. But then I suppose there are the other group that just lie because they think what they're saying sounds good, regardless of whether they have any knowledge on the subject.
I bought a vacuum cleaner recently (and oh what an exciting purchase - forget cars, now I buy vacuum cleaners), and the vacuum cleaner salesman was showing me how effectively the power head works, how it picks up sand and fluff and lint, how well the filter works in keeping me safe from all the evil little sneezomatic dust mites. I suppose if I knew anything at all about vacuum cleaners, the stuff he was saying might've sounded like a total crock of shit; and I suppose it's people that don't know much about cars who are blinded by the unfounded mutterings of the car saleserson.
Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know all that much about car stereo stuff; with so much conflicting info out there, alleged experts disagreeing with each other, and no real hands-on experience, I really don't know who to believe. And when I go to buy something from one of the car stereo shops, whether it be a specialist or a junk-stuff chain, I really do feel at their mercy and would probably believe what a convincing salesperson told me. So that's probably what it's like to buy a car, for someone who's not a car buff like we are ... it sounds plausible, so they fall for it. Makes me wonder if all this misinformation might be less accidental and maybe more towards the "malicious" end of the scale ...
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