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Nonprofit markups.org is exposing the most egregious new car prices

themanual.com

21–30 of 272 posts

Re: Nonprofit markups.org is exposing the most egregious new car prices

#21

Not for nothing, and this is a cool use of technology and the internet, but was I supposed to be under the impression that car dealers aren't greedy? Greed is the central axis around which capitalist economic activity is oriented. It works very, very well. I'll take greed over feigned compassion and breadlines any day of the week. Recently I bought a Toyota SUV for a $7000 markup. But I was able to sell my lease (whi…

Greed also drives the other side of the equation... The consumers side as it pertains to getting the best deal possible! Markups.org is merely trying to use freedom of speech and press to force more transparency and competition across the dealership market segment.

Re: Nonprofit markups.org is exposing the most egregious new car prices

#23
post #20

carmax has been doing this with teslas. visited a carmax lot and saw around 10 model 3s, identical specs, with less than 50 miles (the 1k miles is the lowest the site will show) and selling them for 10k markup. they’re literally scalping teslas now, not to mention the rest of their overpriced inventory. https://www.carmax.com/cars/preview/23029935

Oh jeez, ya I know CarMax is bad. We dont really have a clean way of reporting teslas or scalping of resold vehicles by 3rd parties like that right now at markups.org

Re: Nonprofit markups.org is exposing the most egregious new car prices

#24
post #18

Recent and related: Ford CEO Had Enough: Dealers Raising Prices Need to Stop or Else [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32318698 - Aug 2022 (128 comments) Specifically https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32319225

Indeed, it will be interesting to see how this plays out with Ford and if they truly plan to curb the markups or force pricing transparency

Re: Nonprofit markups.org is exposing the most egregious new car prices

#25
post #20

carmax has been doing this with teslas. visited a carmax lot and saw around 10 model 3s, identical specs, with less than 50 miles (the 1k miles is the lowest the site will show) and selling them for 10k markup. they’re literally scalping teslas now, not to mention the rest of their overpriced inventory. https://www.carmax.com/cars/preview/23029935

I doubt CarMax is actually placing orders, but I wouldn’t be surprised if CarMax is the first place anyone goes to scalp their own new model 3 and CarMax is happy to add an extra 5k to profit on their sale.

Re: Nonprofit markups.org is exposing the most egregious new car prices

#26
post #15
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. It is greatly appreciated! We are certainly after UI and UX experiences!

Great to hear. When I sit down in front of my laptop tomorrow, I'll try again.

We plan to really give it a UI and UX scrub and upgrade as soon as we have some funding. We are operating an MVP right now gathering as many data points as possible and trying to figure out which tasks need implemented first.

Re: Nonprofit markups.org is exposing the most egregious new car prices

#27

As if car buyers are any different. They would not take anything less than the highest offer for selling their used car, just like the dealerships. Is a dealership wanting to sell for the highest price any different than a labor seller wanting to sell for the highest salary?

I know so many people who knowingly sold their used cars that had structural issues that are hard to diagnose.

Selling used cars in the current market is one area where information asymmetry probably tends to play out in favor of sellers trading into dealers. Of course, it probably screws the ultimate buyers in a lot of cases. It's not just structural issues. There are a lot of known mechanical issues that a used car manager isn't going to notice in a 5 minute examination for a tradein.

Re: Nonprofit markups.org is exposing the most egregious new car prices

#28
post #16

As if car buyers are any different. They would not take anything less than the highest offer for selling their used car, just like the dealerships. Is a dealership wanting to sell for the highest price any different than a labor seller wanting to sell for the highest salary?

There's very little difference between a dealership, and a scalper. Both capture all the items in the market, then work together to inflate the value, artificially. The difference is that many places have laws preventing scalpers, and many places have laws requiring that you buy a car through a dealerships.

Dealers and scalpers provide liquidity. Sellers want the item off their hands now, buyers want something without waiting months for a seller.

Dealers link these two needs together and take a cut for the service. There is no monopoly or requirement to sell a car through a dealer. It’s just that people find the service worth the cost.

Re: Nonprofit markups.org is exposing the most egregious new car prices

#29
I've contributed a few dealerships around Illinois.

Wife is looking for a Chevy Bolt after her car was scraped in an accident (the other person's fault).

Every dealership other than a single local one is charging between $5K and $10K "market adjustment".

I'm sure many of these are just charging the markup no matter what. But I have a theory many charge this if you're from out of town and won't be paying them later for maintenance services. This the local dealership that seems to be the odd one out not charging this.

Re: Nonprofit markups.org is exposing the most egregious new car prices

#30
post #21

Not for nothing, and this is a cool use of technology and the internet, but was I supposed to be under the impression that car dealers aren't greedy? Greed is the central axis around which capitalist economic activity is oriented. It works very, very well. I'll take greed over feigned compassion and breadlines any day of the week. Recently I bought a Toyota SUV for a $7000 markup. But I was able to sell my lease (whi…

Greed also drives the other side of the equation... The consumers side as it pertains to getting the best deal possible! Markups.org is merely trying to use freedom of speech and press to force more transparency and competition across the dealership market segment.

Yeah, I get it, and it's a cool site.

I just thought the headline was a bit much. Although maybe I was thinking of the article's headline, not your headline here on HN. I want to say they were the same when I posted my comment, but I'm not sure.

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