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

themanual.com

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

#81

Post by brigade »

tmpz22 wrote: post #39
tptacek wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't buy a Tesla from Carmax (I wouldn't buy a Tesla from anyone), but for everything else, it's pretty great. I bought my last car from them online at an extremely sane price, and they delivered it to my door; a few weeks later a better trim of the same car popped up on their site (many hours away), and I was able to exchange without any drama. I got pretty decent at car buying from dealerships over the years,…

My personal experience was that sites like carmax and vroom had significantly higher mark ups then dealerships and lots of complaints that their “360 inspection” had terrible quality control problems and frequently shipped bad cars. I can see these sites working for very specific models and trims but overall bad. Honestly it’s all bad unless you get lucky it feels like.

Vroom and Carvana are shit with mechanical inspections/repairs, but CarMax should be fine; unlike Vroom/Carvana their in-house mechanics operate basically identically to the service center of other dealerships. Also they actually look and drive trade-ins before making an offer.

CarMax should be a little bit more expensive because you're paying for a 30-day return policy and 90-day warranty even if they're not itemized. But like, for the Tesla linked, nearby RWD 2022 Model 3s are priced between $55-60k from other sellers. So that's 5% over the cheapest comparable listing.

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

#82

Post by thrown_22 »

kenniskrag wrote: post #53
ramraj07 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most states in the US have laws banning the direct sale of cars without dealers.

why?

No business wants to sell to consumers, they are irrational and a huge liability. Much better to have some poor schmuck deal with that and be universally hated.

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

#83

Post by yellowapple »

spoonjim wrote: post #60
kenniskrag wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why?

The auto manufacturers themselves lobbied for these laws ~100 years ago. Cars were very new and they wanted to encourage the construction of single-brand dealerships all over the country. They knew that local businessmen would not invest in dealerships if they could have the rug pulled out from them so they lobbied for much of the legal framework that governs franchisor-franchisee operations today.

> They knew that local businessmen would not invest in dealerships if they could have the rug pulled out from them

If only they realized that sometimes those local businessmen deserve to have the rug pulled out from them.

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

#84

Post by massysett »

fny wrote: post #66

I feel like consumers writ large are forgetting they can protest. If everyone collectively rejects higher prices, the price will come down. Everyone is manipulating this inflation sentiment to wring consumers out of every penny until they're broke. Stop paying for things where the price has exploded higher and force businesses to deal with tighter margins. Prices will normalize.

This doesn’t work when your car is totaled, body shops are backed up for weeks, and you need a car to get to work.

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

#85

Post by zachshefska »

Gh0stRAT wrote: post #48

Hey @TreyGuy (or others from Markup.org) How do you account for dealers which sell for $0 above MSRP but then include a non-negotiable $700 "paint protection" service? As a crowdsourced site, you'll get a ton of reports that a particular dealership has no markup and few if any reports from people who have actually been far enough into the purchase process to discover these hidden markups.

Great point (I’m the Zach Shefska referenced in the article), and have been working in this space to advocate for consumers. Two things:

1) new FTC proposed rules (which are open for public comment!) would ban the practice of “surprise” add-ons at the dealership.

2) a lot of folks that contribute to markups (and other crowdsourced initiatives) go all the way to getting a buyers order and then report those add-ons when they show up then.

If you’re interested in the FTC rules, read here: https://joinyaa.com/guides/ftc-dealer-rules/

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

#86

Post by yellowapple »

brigade wrote: post #81
tmpz22 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal experience was that sites like carmax and vroom had significantly higher mark ups then dealerships and lots of complaints that their “360 inspection” had terrible quality control problems and frequently shipped bad cars. I can see these sites working for very specific models and trims but overall bad. Honestly it’s all bad unless you get lucky it feels like.

Vroom and Carvana are shit with mechanical inspections/repairs, but CarMax should be fine; unlike Vroom/Carvana their in-house mechanics operate basically identically to the service center of other dealerships. Also they actually look and drive trade-ins before making an offer. CarMax should be a little bit more expensive because you're paying for a 30-day return policy and 90-day warranty even if they're not itemize…

> Also they actually look and drive trade-ins before making an offer.

Do they? I brought in a prospective trade-in that had a misfiring cylinder (and thus a perpetually-blinking CEL and a very rough idle) and they were still willing to give me close to the top of the Blue Book range for it.

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

#87

Post by zachshefska »

Panzer04 wrote: post #45

TBH, the only real issue I have with this is dealers capturing all the markup - this is happening because paying those prices gets you a new car now , and not in 12mo when the supply shortage is relieved. I'm not exactly sure how these things work, but if the manufacturer is forbidden from selling direct and dodging the dealer, that's a problem. If the manufacturer could, but is choosing not to, well, that's on them…

You'll enjoy this read: https://joinyaa.com/guides/how-did-car-dealerships-become-so...

The reason car dealers are so powerful is because they influence so many aspects of local government.

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

#88

Post by sokoloff »

TreyGuy wrote: post #19
andrew_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I stated; S10e. Not iPhone. It looks like you just reacted rather than reading, but to answer the question in earnest: no, we don't have to make sites work perfectly on every device. That doesn't preclude criticism, however. Might want to check out current stats for mobile browsing. I've been in web development for 20 years and the numbers continue to go up. So again; no, but you're excluding a lot of traffic, and…

Crowd sourcing the data is the only way to uncover the real pricing that happens behind the scenes 3 hours into a dealership trip to buy that new car once you finally sit down at the finance guys office. It happened to me and it's happening in crazy high numbers of interactions. The prices listed online or initially viewed then get bludgeoned by "the mandatory addon and adm" bat once you burned half a day at the deal…

Start with “I have 60 minutes to conclude this deal [90 if for some reason you need to test drive it]” and start packing up your things at the 55 minute mark.

If you spend 3 hours at a dealer after you’ve identified a single car you’re interested in, part of that is on you.

Yes, I’ve walked out twice. One dealer rescued the deal; the other lost the sale to a dealer about 20 miles away.

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

#89

Post by philjohn »

Gh0stRAT wrote: post #67
WalterBright wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is "non-negotiable" in business. Just say "no".

That's exactly what I did. I had my checkbook and was there to put in a deposit when I found out. Here's an abridged version of how the conversation went: > Me: I don't want that and won't be paying for it. > Them: Well we do it for all new cars and you can't have us not do it. > Me: Well then you can either eat the cost of this unnecessary "service" or sell me the car for $700 under MSRP to make up for it. > Them: S…

In the UK but have another data point - was looking to buy a demo car from a VW dealership - paid the deposit and it was a decent amount under MSRP as it had 1500 miles on it.

Phoned up the next day to say another dealer in their network had already sold it earlier in the day but not uploaded the paperwork yet.

Polite, but firm, email was sent back opining being disappointed in their customer service as the dealership was so close to work and would have loved to have a long-term relationship with them yielded - a 1250 GBP discount on ordering a new car, as specced, at MSRP.

There are good dealerships out there, but it's liking finding a diamond in the rough.

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

#90

Post by [deleted] »

yellowapple wrote: post #86
brigade wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vroom and Carvana are shit with mechanical inspections/repairs, but CarMax should be fine; unlike Vroom/Carvana their in-house mechanics operate basically identically to the service center of other dealerships. Also they actually look and drive trade-ins before making an offer. CarMax should be a little bit more expensive because you're paying for a 30-day return policy and 90-day warranty even if they're not itemize…

> Also they actually look and drive trade-ins before making an offer. Do they? I brought in a prospective trade-in that had a misfiring cylinder (and thus a perpetually-blinking CEL and a very rough idle) and they were still willing to give me close to the top of the Blue Book range for it.

[deleted]
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