I guess the issue is, the salesmen probably make as much commission off these addons as they do the actual car, so what for the customer is a trivial addon barely worth discussing is for them just as important as the bit we care about.
I have a friend who used to be a VW salesman, where we bought my wife's first car and he said the commission on most of the small cars were tiny and he tried pitching finance even though he knew we weren't interested. And that was from a mate.
Fast forward 6 years and at a SEAT dealer it was painful going through all this paint protection, Smart repairs, GAP insurance bla bla bla I said I'm not interested in anything that costs money, but they give it the "we are obligated to to discuss this with you" spiel so it wastes another half an hour in the showroom going through the endless stream of nonsense add-ons.
As someone mentioned, on occasion they even get a bit wound up / incredulous at people rejecting their offers, I don't know if that is all part of the sales psychology but personally I don't feel as a customer I should have to justify myself, or explain what I would do if problem XYZ occurs - that's my problem. Vehicle gets written off for less than I paid? No problem, I'll just buy another car, as I don't want your finance to begin with. They also don't seem to take "you are are wasting your time, I'm not going to sign up to anything, you are better off getting this deal over the line so you can move on to your next customer who might be interested" at face value.
The worry is, some people just can't handle the sales process and get suckered in, my wife would sign up to all sorts of rubbish if left to handle it alone. Just before we got together, she bought a laptop from a high street chain for about £800, with a £500 warranty package on top! It's like they just need someone to tell them something is of benefit, or protects them from something, and they are falling over themselves to hand over cash (or rather signup to more finance).
