251–260 of 612 posts
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Distance typo fixed, thank you! Happy to have provided a chuckle.
> 400k km ? LOL Why not just use megameters? 400Mm OK, something about that looks odd. But what's the point in SI units if you can't actually use them? Maybe 250k miles?
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Diplomacy is the art of saying “good dog” until you make it to the rock. Ford is learning what Tesla knew from the start: dealership interests aren’t aligned with EV manufacturers. There’s very little service revenue, and dealers are incentivized to add “market adjustments” to vehicles (which Ford dealers have been doing) creating a poor customer experience. Ford has existing dealerships and is going to have a heck o…
I've bought 3 cars since 2008, I've spent $0 at the dealer on maintenance, they're all ICE... you shouldn't be going to the dealer unless it's warranty work. [well partly true, had a covered recall]. That said I had a dealer cuss me out for bringing them a quote from a mechanic for the same clutch replacement. "I can't f**ing cover my dealership like that" as if it was my problem. Same dealer who charged me $2k for a…
Heck, the dealers even have a hard time getting parts.
This article takes an off-the-cuff comment from the CEO of Ford and reads too much into it IMO. He wasn’t saying dealerships are going away; he was actually saying the opposite. The point he was making was that Ford is going to adopt some of Tesla’s practices while using the dealership network to compete with them. Here’s the quote with more context: “I believe for retail, we have to -- it's kind of like what happene…
Selling online without negotiated price is a big change. That should make the dealerships really uncomfortable in the long run… he's kind of saying "oh the dealerships could rent out Mustangs" but is that actually realistic?
Their role is to collect orders, provide test rides and service the cars.
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My interpretation is informed by the knowledge that what he’s saying is not legal in most of the United States. It’s understood that dealers cut into Ford’s profit margin, but Ford is not at liberty to change the laws in numerous states.
Ford is however at the liberty to lobby for laws to change, and to simply stop selling (electric) vehicles where the laws don't allow for direct sales - like Tesla did. Tesla has pretty convincingly demonstrated that it's possible to run a car company in the US without paying off the dealerships. It's only going to be easier for the second mover here to also stop.
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It’s not a problem now, it will be a problem when you can easily get a Ford direct at MSRP but you have to pay dealer markup for a Chevy.
It would only matter if their MSRP prices were identical though, right? I don't buy new cars so I don't actually know. Is it common for competing brands like Chevrolet and Ford to price similar models at identical price? I always assumed thered be variations.
Just getting on a centralized waiting list would have been 10x easier and more user friendly.
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The problem is Ford will be the market. They are only offering these EV's direct from their website. There will be no dealerships to compete with on price and service. > This is Hacker News, and I've spent 10s of millions on servers, colo, and cloud. I'd bet you negotiated those contracts too.
I have no idea what you mean with that Ford comment. My best guess is that you think consumers are too stupid to consider anything but a Ford? I did negotiate server/colo/cloud prices, but I spent person-months of effort deconstructing what the right price was. I've never done that for a car. I once interviewed for a CTO job at a major storage vendor, and in the discussion they said that most of their major customers…
What does this mean? Did they perfect the negotiating process? Did they figure out what your margins are, then demanded that you halve them?
I absolutely hate dealerships. I tried to buy a Mazda 3 a few years ago and the dealer took my keys and driver's license with some stupid excuse. I didn't realize until later that it was a tactic to prevent me from walking out the door when I wanted.
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Local profit? That is, in many towns, my understanding is that the local dealerships are relatively well off. Which implies that a bit more of the money is kept local to where the cars are being sold. I'm guessing this is less true today than in years past.
In many small to medium size towns if you find the family who owns the local ($BRANDNAME) dealership they are often among the wealthiest people in the entire county. edit: I can see from the two other comments here alongside mine that this is a common observation.
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When I see "No Haggle, Fixed-Price, Online Only", I think "Rip Off", and I can't be the only one. It's not that I enjoy haggling with car salesmen, walking out the door and getting hunted down in the parking lot like an animal... I don't... in fact I hate it. But at the end of the day I get a deal I'm satisfied and comfortable with - and it's always below MSRP - far below. I think what we're seeing here is a combinat…
The only time you can get a "good deal" on a car, is for a car no one wants anyways. Go ahead try it with a decent car.
Last car I bought, a Subaru Forrester, which is like 25% of cars in Seattle, I knocked $4000, off of msrp by haggling from 28k to 24k, cross shopping across dealers and walking in with a set price I was willing to pay after finding the lowest dealer. Also going in during 2 manufacturer rebates (one cash, one charity match), and at the end of the quarter. 2018s were starting to show up, bought the 2017.
They got real triggered when I said "all you gotta do to put another name up on that trophy board is come down $500 more" (they were writing all of the sales on the window as they happened).
Brought a book to read while they went in to "talk to the manager".
While there is the option to compared to 'no haggle', I can sit there and waste an hour on their BS for $4k. I find it fun and interesting, and I don't buy cars when I have to only when I want to. Helps to have multiple backup transportation methods.
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Every dealership I’ve ever been to has been like that. Sometimes they’re even worth using for “normal” repairs because they will sometimes bill by the book even if the actual labor time is higher.
Every shop I’ve seen uses the book times for any standard job. My experience is that independents are significantly cheaper on a like-for-like basis, are also more willing to do a workable partial or alternate repair, but have worse lounges and often no courtesy car. (So you’re getting something for the extra cost.)
The closer the person who does the work is to being the person who writes the bill the closer you get to clock time in my experience.