This "One Price" / "No Negotiation" is Getting Tiring

[yates ™]

The fact of the matter still remains that dealer consolidation of the 2008 era has hurt buyers and made it more of a sellers market. Everyone knows what happened at that time period.

I feel like I have gotten better deals locally than I did previously and only really haggle over trade in, this is on new vehicles.

 

[WillCO]

I feel like I have gotten better deals locally than I did previously and only really haggle over trade in, this is on new vehicles.

I'd agree that the trade end of the business is still where the dealing gets done. I bet the dealerships make a larger slice of their profit on that end than they do on new car sales.

 

[yates ™]

I'd agree that the trade end of the business is still where the dealing gets done. I bet the dealerships make a larger slice of their profit on that end than they do on new car sales.

They absolutely make more money reselling your car then they did on selling you a new car. The only way they really make money on a new car is to hit incentives from the manufacturer which they get paid on. It baffles me that there is still dealers that are worried about getting maximum dollar out of a new car instead of selling in volume.

I have found though that the volume dealers and no haggle dealers typically give less for a trade in as they sell it for less. As an example, when buying my wifes new car the local dealer was $3ish cheaper than a competing dealer but was offering $3kish less for the trade in so in the end the deal was the same just all in how you looked at it.

 

[mattt]

One thing that happened was the internet, and now any buyer who wants to be can be fully informed on the car, the price, and the financing and never set foot in the dealership other than to close the transaction, and maybe not even then.

I think dealers are smart to embrace that change. They become order takers, move to a no-haggle culture where they know they will make less money on the average deal but can get through 30% more deals each month.

The internet's effect on car buying was not a new, untested thing in 2008. It was well in play by that point. Those who choose to be informed are informed, even without the internet.

My point is that dealers have more power in the market now and are not making less money on any average deal. That is what they want you to believe but using critical thinking skills and understanding the laws of supply and demand, economics shows what happened when an established market was collapsed in favor of a few. ONLY the free market should be picking winners and losers, not any other entity....regardless of how important they think they are.

 

[yates ™]

Depends on the dealer I guess. Volume dealers will absolutely lose money on a new vehicle to make it up on manufacturer incentives, also some in used cars.

Not sure when the internet changed the game but it did. Most successful dealers are hard pressed to put their best price out there as it is simple to compare tons of vehicles on one screen from any distance.

My opinion is the days of asking top dollar and negotiating is gone, at least for successful dealerships.

 

[Onebadsss]

Depends on the dealer I guess. Volume dealers will absolutely lose money on a new vehicle to make it up on manufacturer incentives, also some in used cars.

Not sure when the internet changed the game but it did. Most successful dealers are hard pressed to put their best price out there as it is simple to compare tons of vehicles on one screen from any distance.

My opinion is the days of asking top dollar and negotiating is gone, at least for successful dealerships.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. I love Laura GMC’s approach of “here’s the aboslute lowest price you can expect to pay for a vehicle + $175 doc fee” to take all the hassle of negotiating sale price. For cash buyers and people bringing their own financing this makes the headache of buying nonexistent. I wish I lived closer to them since the idea of flying out there and then having to drive 17 hours/1200 miles home doesn’t really appeal to me!

 

[Rdr854]

I just bought a new car last month and the price difference for the identical vehicle for dealers in Maryland nand Virginia was $6k. Matter of fact, the dealer selling the car I purchased was less expensive for a top of the line trim than other dealers were for the mid line trim.

 

[Wolfbraid]

I'd agree that the trade end of the business is still where the dealing gets done. I bet the dealerships make a larger slice of their profit on that end than they do on new car sales.

Yup, big dealers they make the bulk of their $$ on reselling trades, and the financing department.
Hold your cards till the end of the deal... get a price first(before talking trades or $)

Now for used(only) car dealers, cash is king, but those who finance on lot, still bank on finance fees.. so again settle on price first before saying "hey I got "cash" what can you do" unless you are dealing with the owner, cause the sales guy doesn't care about your cash, only the "extras" and markups for his commission.

 

[inmypassatlife]

The new car dealers that do the no haggle crap we deal with in the family hate us lol

We get GM family pricing due to having a GM executive in the family and they've grown to hate/love us. One particular dealer in town really, for a new car, they have a really good service department and that's why our family goes there exclusively

 

[At Law]

There is a significant variance in prices based on the dealer.

I understand these dealers have significant overhead (in fact, I frankly have no idea how any of them actually stay in business from a financial perspective), however, keeping one price on a vehicle that has been in stock is not a wise financial move.

In my business, there are situations where I have to make an educated decision with my clients to accept an offer of settlement rather than wait and wait for a potential better outcome that may or may not ever come--in the form of a jury verdict.