Whether you’re purchasing your teen’s first car or upgrading your own car, visiting a dealership can be daunting for many people.
At most dealerships, the second you step out of your car, you are already face-to-face with a salesperson asking what you’re looking for.
While some people enjoy haggling and feel more than prepared asking every question they want, others feel incredibly uncomfortable with the entire experience, especially when dealing with a pushy salesperson.
At the Lemon Law Experts, we know that buying a car is not a cheap, quick buy. Rather it’s an investment into a form of transportation that you will hopefully enjoy driving for many years.
When pushy salespeople try to shorten the sales process it can lead to unhappy customers and vehicles with unresolved issues that only surface after the paperwork is signed.
That’s why we set out to learn where Americans have had the pushiest experiences when car shopping. To do this, we collected Google reviews from more than 10,000 car dealerships in 100 U.S. cities and analyzed the text for mentions of keywords related to pushy sales behavior like, aggressive, harassed, and intimidated.
We then used this data to rank individual dealerships across the country as well as cities overall. Read on to learn more about our findings.
Key Takeaways
- Twin Cities Auto Enterprise in Saint Paul, MN, is named pushiest dealership in America.
- DriveTime Used Cars in Atlanta, GA, is named least pushy car dealership in America.
- Portland, OR, Spokane, WA, and Phoenix, AZ, rank for the pushiest dealerships in America.
- Laredo, TX, Buffalo, NY, and Miami, FL, rank for the least pushy dealerships in America.
- Georgia, Washington, D.C., and New York are top three states with the pushiest dealerships.
- Fiat, Tesla, and Genesis rank as pushiest dealership brands in the U.S.
The Most and Least Pushy Dealerships Across the U.S.
Ignoring the total cost of a car to push the focus onto monthly payments. Getting passed from one salesperson to another to wear you down. Rushing through paperwork and glossing over explanations. These are all common tactics pushy car dealerships utilize to try and make a sale.
Regardless of their success in making a sale, no one ever wants to feel pressured into making a decision when it comes to a big purchase like a new car.
Unfortunately, these behaviors are not limited to certain parts of the country or even to a specific type of dealership. The truth is — it happens everywhere and all too often.
When analyzing dealership Google reviews, we found some locations are more likely to push you toward a sale than others.
Topping the list with 12.500% of reviews including a mention of pushy salespeople is Twin Cities Auto Enterprise in Saint Paul, MN.
With an overall star rating of 1.9 on Google, it’s possible that forceful sales tactics are partially to blame for this used car dealer’s ranking.
In second place is Steve & Son’s Auto Sales Lot 2 in Portland, OR, with a pushiness frequency of 11.538%. Up next is the first brand-specific dealership, Toyota of North Austin Pre-Owned Vehicles. With 7.368% of reviews mentioning pushy salespeople, this used car dealership in Austin, TX, claims third place.
Rounding out the top five pushiest dealerships are Plaza Used Cars St. Louis in St. Louis, MO, (7.143%), and AGN Auto Gallery in Atlanta, GA, (6.767%), earning fourth and fifth place, respectively.
While independent dealerships make up 20 of the top 25 pushiest dealerships, we wanted to learn which car brands are most likely to have pushy salespeople.
Topping the brands is Fiat with a pushiness score of 99.60 out of 100. This is followed by Tesla with a score of 82.20 in second place and Genesis with a score of 77.35 in third place, showing interested buyers frequently experience pushy sales tactics at these dealerships.
Although it can be a daunting aspect of car buying, you can employ tips for dealing with pushy salespeople like staying firm on your budget, bringing a spouse or friend for support, not being afraid to walk away, and more.
If you’re still feeling a little wary about handling a pushy sales team while shopping for your next car, perhaps it would be best to visit one of the least pushy dealerships in America.
One dealership that we saw time and time again in our least pushy ranking is DriveTime Used Cars, which has more than 100 locations across the U.S. When looking at the top 10 least pushy dealerships, DriveTime dealerships claim seven spots.
DriveTime Used Cars in Atlanta, GA, claims first overall with just 0.025% of reviews mentioning pushy salespeople.
This is followed by Foreign Auto Imports in Newark, NJ, and DriveTime Used Cars in San Antonio, TX, which both tied for second place with a pushiness frequency of 0.027%.
Cities with the Pushiest Salespeople
To gain more insight into the cities where people are most likely to come face-to-face with a boundary-ignorant salesperson, we calculated a pushiness score on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 representing the most pushy. Topping the ranking as the pushiest city is Portland, OR, with a score of 99.88 out of 100.
Overall, when looking at the top 25 pushiest dealerships, Portland is the only city to have more than one location, claiming 4 of the top spots. Spokane, WA, is up next with a pushiness score of 91.44, and Phoenix, AZ, follows closely behind with a score of 91.05.
On the other end of the spectrum Laredo, TX, is home to the least pushy dealerships in the country with a score of 32.41 out of 100. Buffalo, NY, comes in second (39.34), followed by Miami, FL, in third place (42.29).
When looking at pushy dealerships by state, Georgia (99.98) ranks first, followed by Washington, D.C. (97.53), and New York (87.50) in second and third, respectively.
For those shopping cars in Kansas, it is likely to be smooth sailing as the state ranks first for the least pushy dealerships. Nebraska (27.12) and Hawaii (28.25) follow closely behind, claiming second and third place.
Conclusion
High-pressure sales tactics at dealerships don’t just make car shopping uncomfortable, they also shorten the time buyers spend asking the right questions.
When a salesperson pushes you to make a decision quicker, they could be causing you to miss important warnings like unresolved recalls, repeated repair history, and more.
While our team at the Lemon Law Experts can’t stop pushy salespeople from rushing you through the car buying process, we can help if the sale turns sour.
If you find that your new car keeps requiring trips to the local mechanic for the same repairs, your car might be a lemon.
As experts of lemon law, we are dedicated to quality and are skilled in finding economic and expeditious solutions.
Get started today by submitting a free case evaluation to learn if your car is a lemon and what your next steps should be.
Methodology
In this study, we set out to learn which car dealerships in America are home to the pushiest sales people. To do this, we collected Google reviews from more than 10,000 car dealerships in 100 U.S. cities.
We then analyzed reviews with 3 or fewer stars for mentions of keywords related to pushy sales behavior like, aggressive, harassed, and intimidated.
We then divided the number of reviews with 3 or fewer stars with a keyword mentioned by the total number of reviews to calculate a pushiness frequency for each dealership. We then used these percentages to rank all dealerships from most to least pushy.
In addition to our individual dealership ranking, we average the pushiness frequency for all dealerships by city and then adjusted those scores on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 representing the most pushy.
We then ranked cities according to this score. Finally, we followed these same steps for both states and car brands to determine which states and brands have the pushiest sales people.
States not included due to a lack of data include: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
