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kimcicle posted:Didn't Amazon sell Nissans on their website for a short period of time, or am I making this up in a boredom induced haze? Sort of. It was more of a promotion/product placement/gimmick. If you clicked through, Amazon would connect you with your local Nissan deal to complete the sale. And it was only three of them, total.
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Aug 15, 2017 22:26
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One of the local formerly computer parts store now sells Teslas and BMW I cars, so why not amazon.
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Aug 15, 2017 22:28
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Huge_Midget posted:The entire buying experience can be summed up in one concise sentence. Car dealerships don't make much money off each car sold and profit margins are garbage compared to other consumer goods. I'm sure it would be a different world for people buying cars if everyone just paid the MSRP like they do on nearly everything else. But almost everyone who walks in a car dealership wants to get the deal of the century without having to put in a ton of work to get the deal of the century. My day would be much easier if all I had to do was convince someone that they liked the car and not spend hours of time playing the price game. I would love it if people came in and said I like this car and I'll pay the full asking price. Dealers pricing hot cars above MSRP is just a symptom of them trying scratch back some profit for all the other cars that they had to give away to make a sale. Got to make the money when you can. Listen to this podcast episode if you want to get a bit more of a look at the other side. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/513/129-cars
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Aug 15, 2017 22:56
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Didn't Saturn and Scion have a no haggle pricing policy?
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Aug 16, 2017 00:02
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kill me now posted:Car dealerships don't make much money off each car sold and profit margins are garbage compared to other consumer goods. I'm sure it would be a different world for people buying cars if everyone just paid the MSRP like they do on nearly everything else. But almost everyone who walks in a car dealership wants to get the deal of the century without having to put in a ton of work to get the deal of the century. I hate car dealers.
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Aug 16, 2017 00:15
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Dealers don't make that much money off of car sales, the real money is in fleecing the consumer with financing and extra warranties and nitrogen tire inflation and poo poo. None if that is inherent to the dealership model, it's just that dealerships are lovely pretty universally.
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Aug 16, 2017 00:16
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You'd think with the Internet everyone would just kinda have an idea of what they should be paying for a car and the whole "ehhhh let's negotiate and make a deal!" bullshit-dance would be out the window more or less Deals! The Deals!
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Aug 16, 2017 01:07
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kimcicle posted:Didn't Amazon sell Nissans on their website for a short period of time, or am I making this up in a boredom induced haze? Ford took a very brief crack at it back in like 99-01 timeframe, if memory serves.
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Aug 16, 2017 01:24
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Kraftwerk posted:Didn't Saturn and Scion have a no haggle pricing policy? They did indeed. Some franchises also do this.
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Aug 16, 2017 01:26
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It's funny when a new poster comes along that works in sales for a dealership trying to defend dealerships, then gets run out of AI after getting thoroughly berated making then rethink their career choice. It's happened a handful of times now and never ends well 
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Aug 16, 2017 01:44
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big crush on Chad OMG posted:They did indeed. Some franchises also do this. Lexus is trying it now. The problem is, instead of doing it in a market with one Lexus dealership, they are doing it in places like Southern California where some dealers are doing it and some aren't. And it's not clear which is which.
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Aug 16, 2017 01:53
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Ultimate Mango posted:Lexus is trying it now. The problem is, instead of doing it in a market with one Lexus dealership, they are doing it in places like Southern California where some dealers are doing it and some aren't. And it's not clear which is which. To flip over my 'gently caress dealerships' the Lexus and Mercedes ones in town are very relaxed and friendly places. Suppose that has everything to do with the clientele though. The Lexus dealership technicans especially liked our manual transmission SC300 Even if the dealership model for new cars is artificially held up.
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Aug 16, 2017 02:06
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EnergizerFellow posted:Ford took a very brief crack at it back in like 99-01 timeframe, if memory serves. Yeah, at the tail-end of the Nasser era/beginning of the Bill Jr era Ford was playing with the idea of buying out their dealer network and running the whole thing themselves. I think franchise laws in a few states is what killed it.
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Aug 16, 2017 02:11
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Q_res posted:Yeah, at the tail-end of the Nasser era/beginning of the Bill Jr era Ford was playing with the idea of buying out their dealer network and running the whole thing themselves. I think franchise laws in a few states is what killed it. Several manufacturers have made some noise about this; they know the dealerships tend to be cesspools filled with the scum of the retail industry, and they'd have a lot more control over their brand reputation (and probably actually make more money) if they controlled the whole chain. These laws exist for a reason, the dealerships wouldn't have spent the money to buy protectionist laws if the manufacturers didn't want to control that part of the chain. This is also why the dealership system is collectively losing their poo poo over Tesla's model. If Tesla continues to "get away" with it, you're probably going to see the larger manufacturers taking another long look at changing their business model.
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Aug 16, 2017 03:47
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tesla's model only works because they sell so few cars
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Aug 16, 2017 03:54
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MikeyTsi posted:Several manufacturers have made some noise about this; they know the dealerships tend to be cesspools filled with the scum of the retail industry, and they'd have a lot more control over their brand reputation (and probably actually make more money) if they controlled the whole chain. These laws exist for a reason, the dealerships wouldn't have spent the money to buy protectionist laws if the manufacturers didn't want to control that part of the chain. I have a feeling that Tesla won't actually get away with it for very long - but for economic reasons, not legal or political. They'll soon learn that building only to customer order is incredibly inefficient, and the parking lots of dealers are a great place to buffer inventory while plant output winds up and down. They don't have to do that yet due to backlogs, but they'll clear eventually. Tesla already has a couple law suits pending from pissed off customers whose problems got lost in the shuffle and they couldn't get stuff fixed. That's only going to get worse as more of their cars get on the road. Devolving power to individual dealers to keep more control over service and sales seems inevitable. IMO the dealership model in and of itself is fine. What needs to be fixed is the dealers themselves. I'm not really sure of the best way to fix that.
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Aug 16, 2017 03:55
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Deteriorata posted:I have a feeling that Tesla won't actually get away with it for very long - but for economic reasons, not legal or political. They'll soon learn that building only to customer order is incredibly inefficient, and the parking lots of dealers are a great place to buffer inventory while plant output winds up and down. They don't have to do that yet due to backlogs, but they'll clear eventually. Make dealerships like normal stores. poo poo has a price tag and that's what it sells for. Dealers stock inventory from multiple competing brands. It works for every other product ever.
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Aug 16, 2017 04:25
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Deteriorata posted:I have a feeling that Tesla won't actually get away with it for very long - but for economic reasons, not legal or political. They'll soon learn that building only to customer order is incredibly inefficient, and the parking lots of dealers are a great place to buffer inventory while plant output winds up and down. They don't have to do that yet due to backlogs, but they'll clear eventually. If dealerships don't actually make money on new cars and instead on servicing them they why can't the buying process be taken out? Think of all the money they could save on showroom costs, dealer inventory and sales members! Why, think of the cost savings on all of that they could then turn around and focus on the real money makers: servicing the vehicles themselves. Buy a car from an Amazon-like place or in a store where you take one of those paper tags off and bring it to the register. Manufactures get to control their brands more without dealing with the dealerships potentially loving it up for them and the former dealers can make fat stacks of cash on the servicing of the cars. Instead it seems like it's a 'welllll dealerships don't actually make money selling cars so think of how they feel about it besides they service them and it's just too dang hard to deal with all that stuff better let the established system that everyone (besides dealerships themselves) dislikes that just happens to have a bunch of in-law protections written into various legislation stay put' sort of slight of hand thing. Like it was mentioned before every time this conversation comes up it's always revealed that whoever is trying to defend the dealership model either works at a dealership (usually a very new hire too) or has family or friends that do. So uh, what dealer do you work for EDIT goddamn you KillHour why don't you go lease a kia 
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Aug 16, 2017 04:26
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Network42 posted:Dealers don't make that much money off of car sales, the real money is in fleecing the consumer with financing and extra warranties and nitrogen tire inflation and poo poo. In NY at least the maximum finance percentage bump is 2% which does not exactly make for crazy profits. KakerMix posted:Like it was mentioned before every time this conversation comes up it's always revealed that whoever is trying to defend the dealership model either works at a dealership (usually a very new hire too) or has family or friends that do. So uh, what dealer do you work for I've been in the business for about 6 years at this point and know my way around the industry pretty well at this point. I don't think it's anything that I've kept secret in the years I've been posting about it here. Yes there are lovely dealerships and it's not the ideal model for the consumer but it's what works for the industry and even if it's a horrible experience for some most people only have to go through it once every few years. I know this is AI and everyone here knows everything about everything but 75% of people who walk in the door have no loving clue what they want. That is why Internet car buying could never be the primary way people buy cars and it's been shown by the Saturn and Scions of the world that adhering to the MSRP doesn't work because you aren't going to get every dealership of every brand on board with that simultaneously. There is too much competition to make a sale for it to work that way. kill me now fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 04:44
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kill me now posted:In NY at least the maximum finance percentage bump is 2% which does not exactly make for crazy profits. Sure but that still points to a problem with the dealership model itself. Who cares if the MSRP things didn't work before because not all dealerships agreed to it, get rid of the dealership model so that doesn't happen. Artificial barriers to stop novel approaches (at least in car buying terms) like Tesla is attempting is full-stop not defendable, especially when you play the 'well consumers don't know what they want' as the defense. Consumers know exactly what they want, they want what they've been sold through culture itself. 99% of all Wrangler sales are based on the idea of what a Wrangler says about the person driving it. It works identically to phones, TVs, houses, clothes, dogs, food, everything. There is nothing special about a car besides this artificial idea of it being some sort of special purchase that exists outside everything else that consumers buy.
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Aug 16, 2017 05:18
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I think it's just Tesla that wants to not have dealers, the rest of the industry is just fine with it mostly, except for when they are trying to weasle out of franchise agreements or otherwise screw someone else to cover for their own incompetence because that's just how GM rolls.3
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Aug 16, 2017 06:56
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The consumers "don't know what they want" is only an issue because things are obfuscated as possible. People generally know what model they're looking for when they go into the dealership, it's the exact trim that's the issue because of two reasons: 1) Dealers make it as hard as possible to know what's actually on the lot 2) The trim levels themselves are complex packages that may have overlapping features and random one-off additions and it's never stated clearly. For example. My local ford dealership says they have a Focus RS. It's listed at a $40,675 MSRP. It's a 2017 with the RS2 package. So I price that out on Ford.com. Focus RS with the RS2 package is $39,780 MSRP. So, clearly, it has something else. Oh, they have an "Additional options" section on the dealer website...that lists things like tach. Um, ok. Oh, it lists heated seats, but heated seats were already listed under the RS2 package. Now I see that the "Additional Options" also lists the RS2 package so it's like an ouroboros of options. So, I try to parse though the literal 75 "additional options" which lists things like "AC", "Turn signals", and 000miles trying to figure out what's different about this car. I take a different approach and go back to ford.com and and see what option is $895. Turns out it's the moon roof. I go back to the list and sure enough option #16 listed is power moon roof. No, gently caress you and gently caress your website. How hard is this? Standard Equipment Package Name with included options Additional options. All should have links back to the manufacturer website explaining each. Simple. None of this written diarrhea of anything that passed into a sales manager head that afternoon as a "option" that should be listed. It's a self created problem. Standard procedure is to inundate people with as much noise as possible so they need to be "guided" to the proper choice. bull3964 fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 06:57
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Monkey Fracas posted:Feel like the SS did some things wrong from a marketing standpoint (why was the name of the car the same as a trim level designation on other Chevy products? Couldn't they have made the styling stand out a little bit? Wasn't a lot of the money in the MSRP for a bunch of non-optional interior luxury crap that almost made it butt up against GMs Cadillac line? I dunno it's kind of a weird car) but I kinda feel it was more a miscalculation that the general carbuying public was interested in big sedans anymore. Probably would have helped if: 1)They called it "Chevelle" instead of "SS," leaving the latter to be a V8-only trim package while leaving room for a hairy-rear end "Z0-whatever" trim in the spirit of the Charger SRT8 or Hellcat. 2)They left most, if not all of the Holden poo poo on it minus the badges. Sure, people will go out of their way to pretend they're driving a bonafide Holden straight outta 'Straya without the RHD flippery, but whatever. At least it wouldn't have looked like a Malibu.
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Aug 16, 2017 07:23
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KillHour posted:Make dealerships like normal stores. poo poo has a price tag and that's what it sells for. Dealers stock inventory from multiple competing brands. It works for every other product ever. Hi, yes. I'd like to stop at the V8 store and maybe the hot hatch hatchery. Maybe even check out the convertible emporium.
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Aug 16, 2017 10:39
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Guinness posted:It might help if they actually lowered the price of the car rather than relying on these "secret" discounts and markdowns. Only a small handful of diehard enthusiasts keep track of that sort of thing. When I was at the dealership a few weeks ago buying my truck there was a brand new red SS in the showroom. I asked the salesman about it, since I wasn't married to getting another truck, and he didn't really seem interested in trying to sell it. I mentioned I had seen advertisements for 20% off MSRP and the response was 'Oh that promotion ended already'. OK then, good luck selling your SS.
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Aug 16, 2017 12:58
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Dealerships are loving slime. We recently bought a new CR-V for my wife. When we made the decision to pull the trigger, we met with the finance guy. It was on a Sunday and the credit union that my wife's old loan was through was closed, so we couldn't get an exact payoff amount. We gave a ballpark figure that we pulled from CreditKarma, and the guy said it was fine, that if they overpaid the outstanding amount, we'd get a check sent to us for the difference. Then, he went into his spiel trying to sell us on all the dealer-offered "goodies", like interior fabric treatment, "forever" warranty, etc. including what he called "Data Dots", which are basically car DNA they spread into various areas in the car to identify it should it ever be stolen or whatever. We turned them all down, signed the paperwork, and were told the car would be delivered to the dealership in a couple days. The car didn't get delivered until a week later, which was our first red flag. My wife went to pick it up and was told that since they had "accidentally" sold the same vehicle to both us and another party, we'd be getting an identical car but with a couple extra options that they were throwing in "for free", like mud flaps and a privacy screen in the hatch. Also, data dots. Red flag 2. Because it was a different VIN, she had to re-sign the paperwork. All the other information including the price and payment were the same, so she signed and drove home. When I looked at the revised paperwork, it turns out that the dealership had actually gotten the exact payoff amount for her old car in the meantime. A payment had recently gone through, so the payoff was a little over $300 less than the first set of paperwork we had signed. Guess what they added to the paperwork that my wife didn't notice, for $300, to make it all balance out and keep the price/payment the same? You guessed it: Data dots. Turns out that for whatever reason, the amount they actually sent to the credit union for the payoff was for the original estimated amount, so they did overpay it. The credit union sent us a check for the difference. The dealership then had the gall to demand we sign over the check for the overpayment. I told them to go gently caress themselves for sneaking in the data dots charge, which we clearly didn't want, as evidenced by the first copy of paperwork we had signed where we turned it down. They backed down after that and we haven't heard from them since. Dealerships are shady loving places.
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Aug 16, 2017 13:22
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In Canada my dealership experiences have varied. When I visited a KIA dealership before I bought my Mazda they used extremely aggressive and greasy sales tactics. The salesperson didn't even have a computer. He would write the details on a paper form and take it to the manager who had a computer. Then when they saw I wanted to leave he tried to hustle me and even offered me "free winter tires" if I bought the car. Except the tires he was offering me were like 3 years old. When I bought my Mazda I had a car enthusiast salesman who posted on forums and was well known among mazda salespeople. He was honest about everything and told me exactly what the margins were on the car and how much he needed to make on it. I wasn't gonna nickel and dime him on a few hundred bucks so I took the deal. It was when I ended up with the finance manager that the entire experience went south. They wanted my money real bad. He tried to upsell me on an extended warranty. The pressure was intense. He even went as far as producing a signed document showing he sold his family members an extended warranty and he wouldn't be pushing this if he didn't believe in it. I was horrified. Then the general manager showed up and also began turning the screws on me. It almost turned into a shouting match before they finally released me. If they could waterboard me into buying that loving warranty they would have done that too. Extended warranties and service is where the real money gets made at dealerships. The rest is just promotional advertising. I'm guessing these dirty tricks and weird markups don't happen at German car dealerships. My experience with VW had sales people refusing to negotiate on price. It was not even a discussion. Sometimes they'd talk if they wanted to clear something off the lot but for the most part - nada. Mercedes in my area has "corporate stores" meaning that pricing is final. They give you something like 400 bucks off take it or leave it and you can't shop other dealerships because pricing will be exactly the same. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 14:02
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You owe them for the dots technically but they are smart to not push it .
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Aug 16, 2017 14:27
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Data dots? They're charging you for the VIN number that's already on every panel?
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Aug 16, 2017 15:06
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Last dealer experience I had a knowledgeable family member check out a car for me and then went to pick it up (had to travel a bit)- tried to sell me on the extended warranty for about 2 minutes and then gracefully let it go. Price was agreed upon before I got there and they didn't try and pull anything when I arrived to pick it up. May be because it was late Saturday and everyone kinda wanted to get out of there lol. Ford dealership in a suburb of Detroit Some dealers are fine but yeah the experience varies wildly. Part of the problem is that the margin on actually selling cars isn't all that great so getting people to buy a bunch of other poo poo on top of that is unfortunately heavily incentivized. and some of them are just fuckin' scumbags to boot
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Aug 16, 2017 15:11
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euphronius posted:You owe them for the dots technically but they are smart to not push it . Huh, why would he owe them? Anti-theft products seem antiquated today, isn't it really tough to steal any modern vehicle unless the keys are left in or you bring a tow truck?
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Aug 16, 2017 15:15
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Anti-theft products like that are dumb now because people have insurance. If someone steals my car and starts parting it out, what do I care if each piece is identifiable? I likely already got my insurance payout and am buying a new car. These are loving commodity products. As long as I'm made whole, I really don't care what happens to the stolen vehicle.
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Aug 16, 2017 15:19
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Michael Scott posted:Huh, why would he owe them? Because they signed a contract stipulating they will pay for them?
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Aug 16, 2017 15:20
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Deteriorata posted:I have a feeling that Tesla won't actually get away with it for very long - but for economic reasons, not legal or political. They'll soon learn that building only to customer order is incredibly inefficient, and the parking lots of dealers are a great place to buffer inventory while plant output winds up and down. They don't have to do that yet due to backlogs, but they'll clear eventually. Tesla already has a bunch of pre-built new unsold cars in inventory for faster delivery, they've been doing this for a while.
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Aug 16, 2017 15:21
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It would be a $2000 lawsuit to obtain the right to collect 300 . They can write it off as bad debt for approx 60$ so probably a better idea.
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Aug 16, 2017 15:54
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That's a charitable way of saying supply for the Model S and X has outstripped demand for quite a few months now.
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Aug 16, 2017 15:55
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Based on the people I saw in the lines on the news last year, people were putting down deposits for Model X in order to flip them. No idea if that's actually happening though since the reservations are non-transferable and actually taking delivery of the car and then selling it sounds like a pita.
Keyser_Soze fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 19:21
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model x's are so bad looking, i just cant overstate it enough
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Aug 16, 2017 19:44
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I had no issues at all when I bought my Mazda3 - it was an ex demo so not brand new, but it also had a manual transmission (which would usually be something they’d have to order in) and was a colour I liked so I wasn’t too worried about that. I did have to negotiate around the trade in a bit because I knew it was worth more than their initial offer but fairly quickly upped that to something I was comfortable with. They offered accessories but didn’t push it when I declined and specifically said they don’t do extended warranties because all Mazdas get 3 years unlimited kms anyway (plus another 2 years on major stuff) and 3 years services is also included for everything. So I guess the New Zealand car buying experience is pretty good, but then I guess it should be for what we pay- list on my fairly basic Mazda3 was ~$28,000 USD and there isn’t a lot to be negotiated off that
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Aug 16, 2017 19:46
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i love my Ford/Lincoln dealer for the service but gently caress if I'll ever finance a vehicle through a dealership again. gently caress them, gently caress them, gently caress them. "hi this is what I want" "okay here that is!" *gives me what i want plus every bullshit addon possible* "no I don't want that" "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
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Aug 16, 2017 20:03
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