Reply to Sigh, will we ever get rid of the stupid dealership system we have for new cars at the moment?

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Reply to "Sigh, will we ever get rid of the stupid dealership system we have for new cars at the moment?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you do your homework (you should . . . it is only a car but it is an important purchase), it isn't hard at all.

I bought a car on '22 brand new.  I knew what I wanted, the color, the price I was willing to pay and how I was going to pay for it.  Walked in and when the dealer started to try to negotiate I just got up and started walking out.  They stopped me and 10 seconds later I had a new car.  Total time spent was under an hour waiting for 1 other buyer to finish and  the filling out of forms.

NBD[/quote]

OP here... oh, it's not hard. It's just stupid, unpleasant and unneccessary. And counter-productive and bad for consumers.

For some reason reddit has been serving me posts from autodealers and it is mind-blowing their mentality. They apparently get really irritated at people who come i and "look around" and ask for prices—they don't want to tell you the price until you're going to sit down and ready to make a deal, so they talk about how they put it off. The reason they don't want to give prices is because they're afraid people will get up and walk out and go to another dealership and ask their price there! They're outraged that people want to waste their time like that...

like how people shop in literally every other industry!

Their response is smug satisfaction knowing that the Subaru dealership down the road, or whatever, will have the same price, because the reality is that there is a floor price, which is about the sticker price, and it's only a question of how much they can lard on, there's not going to be any serious reduction below the sticker.

And as another poster pointed out, it's because it's all super tightly controlled thanks to heavy lobbying. Auto dealers are a powerful special interest at the state and federal level.

The dealers claim that if you just posted prices, like they do in every other retail setting, it would drive buyers away, because they wouldn't like "the true cost" of a car... so what's wrong with that? Isn't it worse if I go into a dealership thinking I can buy a new CRV Hybrid for $39.5k and it turns out that, in all reality, I can't get it for less than $42k? Well, if I can pay $42k, save me (and you) a lot of grief and just tell me. Don't tell me it's $39.5k, but you've added on "dealer enhancements" that can't be removed... I don't want to negotiate! It's a waste of time! If I can't pay $42k, I shouldn't be looking at it, and I should go check out Rav4s or a HRV. It's more efficient and more likely to put me in the car I want and the car I can afford. [/quote]

Are you actually shopping for a Subaru? One of the reasons I buy Subarus is that their dealers have been willing to give me prices over email. Not all of them, but several around me will do it.[/quote]

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