Car Lot Terms with Definitions

Here are some Car Lot Terms typically used by car salespeople to describe the situations they get into on a car lot with car buyers and also some terms that describe their car buying customers.

Be Back (BB): A term used to describe a consumer that goes to a car lot and then leaves without buying a car.

Bird Dogs: Someone that gets a commission or a flat fee every time they refer a car buyer to a car dealer.

Buried: A consumer with a car loan with very little or no equity.

Buyers Remorse: The emotion frequently felt by car buyers soon after buying when they realize they paid too much for the car or they really don't know how they are going to handle the payments, insurance and maintenance for it. Bottom line is that they wish they had not bought the car.

Chained: When a car dealer offers the consumer a super low ball price just to keep them on the lot. God help the poor bastard consumer when they find out how little they are getting for their trade-in or once their ass ends up in the finance department!

Clocked (Clocker, Clocked): An odometer that has been rolled back thus showing lower mileage. Highly illegal.

Creme Puff: A trade-in that is especially clean with low miles.

Curbing (Curbing, Curbstoner, Curbstoning): Any private party that buys used cars and sells them for a profit to another private party from their front yard or the curb in front of their house is a curbstoner.

Demonstrator (Demo, Loaner Vehicle, Loaner): A car used by consumers to take a test drive in but not necessarily the exact vehicle they are going to buy.

Down Dip (Dipping): When a consumer doesn't have enough money for the down payment, the car dealer might structure their loan so it appears that they did.

Down Stroke (Put Down, Down Dump, Lump): This is the cash or trade-in value of their old car that a buyer has to put down on the purchase of a vehicle.

Hard Dollars: The money that a car dealership invests in a trade-in.

Lemon: A general car term for a new car that was built poorly from the start and is always breaking down.

Looky-Lou: Someone that is just on the car lot to look around and not to buy.

Off Lease Vehicle: A previously leased vehicle that is now for sale.

Repossession Vehicle (Repo, Repossession): Vehicles that were taken away by the lender because the owners failed to make the monthly payments. The finance companies will usually sell these to a wholesale car dealer.

Soft Dollars (Show Dollars): An inflated price a car dealer will offer a buyer for their trade-in vehicle. They will always make up what they appear to "lose" on the trade-in by raising the price of the vehicle or additional fee's, etc.

Spiff: A car lot term describing the name for a contest that a car sales manager offers to their sales people as an incentive to sell more cars.

Unit: Just one of those general car lot terms that describes a sale for a single car.

Up: This term describes the order that a sales person gets the next customer that visits a lot. It means that it is their turn to get the next customer and the customer is referred to as their "Up".

Upside Down (Negative Equity): A car lot term describing when a consumer owes more an their car loan than what they could sell their car for at that moment.

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