151–160 of 272 posts
Based on all other comments I have an unpopular opinion: I think this is fine. If 10 people want to buy 1 car, how do you choose which person gets it? You raise the price until there's only 1 person. How else would you do it?
If you think that the process of buying a car at retail is the market working efficiently, your expectations are incredibly low.
Based on all other comments I have an unpopular opinion: I think this is fine. If 10 people want to buy 1 car, how do you choose which person gets it? You raise the price until there's only 1 person. How else would you do it?
The market is SO inefficient. While you’re right in describing the principles of supply and demand, the reality is that buying a car should be 10x simpler and the price should just be the price. No games, no haggling, no BS add-ons that increase dealer profits. Retail auto is due for a wake up call, and I sense it’s happening right now. You wouldn’t need markups to make extra profit if the cost infrastructure associa…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Notably, this would be illegal in Europe. The advertised price has to include everything a typical buyer will end up paying. Eg. it was found illegal to advertise a certain price which only applied if you paid with a certain quite rare credit card. (and there was a surcharge for other cards). You have to show that a good chunk of buyers end up paying the advertised price.
Based on all other comments I have an unpopular opinion: I think this is fine. If 10 people want to buy 1 car, how do you choose which person gets it? You raise the price until there's only 1 person. How else would you do it?
> How else would you do it? Sell to first buyer, easy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
There you go. You couldn't reach agreement so no deal. Nobody was forced into anything.
Based on all other comments I have an unpopular opinion: I think this is fine. If 10 people want to buy 1 car, how do you choose which person gets it? You raise the price until there's only 1 person. How else would you do it?
how about you sell it at the listed price to the first who comes in to sign the contract? Maybe those who were too late will come back and be quicker to decide next time, because they think you are fair. If you make it all about who has more money, they'll go to another dealer. There's no shortage of them. Imagine if any store did that: you go to an Apple store to buy a new iPhone, there are 20 people in front of you…
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The concern is not that. Yes increase price if demand is high and supply is low. However, they play those games where they advertise one price but actually have tons of mandated fees when you show up to purchase. So it makes shopping around very hard, you can’t compare between 2 dealerships as even calling them won’t give you that info. It’s predatory and anti consumer.
This is literally the process of purchasing a vehicle in 2022. I needed a car (My old one had broken down after 9 years of service) Advertised price was 24,500. I walked out totaling 30,000 after all the bullshit and that was with a 4000 downpayment. I left an honest review on Google Reviews about how misleading and unhappy I was with that dealer in particulars process but I loved the car so I just sucked it up. When…
I reached out to maybe 7 or 8 dealers, had a couple that refused to provide a total itemized cost, and then got back 5 quotes that varied quite a bit (like $7500 on a $30k car).
Did one round of negotiation which ended up lowering the lowest price another thousand bucks or so and went with that dealership.
Comments in this thread remind me why it’s so efficient to use the auto buying program from Costco. You deal with the fleet managers instead of regular sales staff and all required/optional costs are upfront and non-negotiable. If you are an expert haggler you can likely negotiate a better price than what you get through Costco, but for the rest of us it gets you 90% of the way for very little effort.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The concern is not that. Yes increase price if demand is high and supply is low. However, they play those games where they advertise one price but actually have tons of mandated fees when you show up to purchase. So it makes shopping around very hard, you can’t compare between 2 dealerships as even calling them won’t give you that info. It’s predatory and anti consumer.
This is literally the process of purchasing a vehicle in 2022. I needed a car (My old one had broken down after 9 years of service) Advertised price was 24,500. I walked out totaling 30,000 after all the bullshit and that was with a 4000 downpayment. I left an honest review on Google Reviews about how misleading and unhappy I was with that dealer in particulars process but I loved the car so I just sucked it up. When…
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 whe…