Another blog post from Mr. Deals…
A guy walks into a Cadillac dealership. He’s in his young 30’s, he’s got long shaggy hair, is unshaven (probably hasn’t shaved for 3-4 days), his sideburns are a little longer than the norm, he’s wearing his “weekend jeans” and a patagonia jacket. The sales guys look at him like he’s in the wrong place, and yeah, he probably is.
So of course, Mrs. Deals signed me up for the Cadillac test drive promotion with American Airlines before it got shut down. Yesterday was the day and I ventured out to White Plains, NY to check out some Cadillacs. I don’t think I’m in the demographic that Cadillac looks for and if this blog has said anything about Mrs. Deals and me, it’s that we’re probably not in the market for the luxury brands when it comes to cars. We drive a Honda (great car – low maintenance and does the job) and if I were in the market for another car, it would likely be a Subaru, Toyota, Honda or maybe a Jeep.
I had never been in a Cadillac dealership before and the cars really are not my style. But, if I am being forced to take part in a miles earning promotion, I’ll take the test drive opportunity any day. I decided to take the SRX for a ride. It’s probably the one Cadillac that may be a little bit more geared toward a guy like me. It’s got all-wheel-drive, it’s a bit of an SUV and I could see throwing some roof racks on it, loading up some surfboards and bikes and taking it for a weekend adventure. That said, I think when I said that to the sales guy he was completely confused, but he rolled with it.
I did a short drive, taking it out a couple exits on the highway to see what the power was all about. Truth be told, it was a great ride and I couldn’t find a real flaw in the car. The interior had all the bells and whistles and far too many buttons on the steering wheel. It was even equipped with wifi, which to me is a stupid feature if you’ve got a smartphone and pay for data already, as this just adds to the cost of an already expensive car. Â The space was pretty good, especially if you’ve got a small family and you definitely feel like you are in a solid piece of machinery.
Now I’m not currently in the market for a car. If anything it’s probably another year before I would be but I do like to keep up on new car tech. The Cadillac’s have all that fun stuff you can ask for and you definitely pay for it. All that said, I would never buy one. It’s just not me. I looked out of place in the dealership and completely out of place driving that thing. However, Cadillac and American Airlines was smart in doing this promotion because I never would’ve walked into Cadillac otherwise. For some others, this could’ve been a good incentive to check out a car they otherwise never would’ve considered. If anything it gets you into a dealer network and they could potentially win just with that.
This wasn’t exactly what I was planning on doing on a Saturday afternoon but sometimes I just can’t say no to Mrs. Deal and after all was said and done, I do like test driving new cars! And, I was promised I would be getting a good number of miles for this promotion.  Now I am just hoping that Porsche decides to do a promo like this.  I’ll be all over it. Come on Porsche, Mr. Deals needs some miles…
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So you, with absolutely no interest in the car, took your salesperson’s slot in the queue and completely wasted his/her time just because you couldn’t say no to your spouse? Regardless of your sophistry, it was never a ‘potential’ win for the “dealer network”, much less the person on commission (who needs ethics when you’re just “following orders”?). Hope you at least gave the salesperson a tip…
@JEN – there literally wasn’t one other customer in the dealership so wasn’t taking away from anyone else.
Add me to the list of Honda owners with no interest in a Caddy. The (only) salesman handed me the keys for my solo test drive and when I returned, asked if I had any questions. I spent maybe 3 minutes with him and never saw his desk. I was the only customer in the dealership. Every salesman knows they will sell to every x out of y customers. Increase y and you increase x. Cadillac marketing isn’t stupid. They are leaving Detroit for NY, after all.