Haggling only works in a Neutral or Buyer's market, not in conditions like today.....although a dealership is often more likely to give you a break if you are a repeat customer (dealerships and manufacturers like loyalty), know some people at the dealership closely, or don't go in acting like a jerk, thinking you know it all, and deliberately start confrontations over the sales-process. Customers can sometimes be as arrogant or hard to deal with as the sales-managers.

 

Haggling does work still, you're just haggling to get to MSRP

 

MSRP is a number. I don't get the hangup on it.

 

That's the point of the thread.....one should not have to haggle to get down to MSRP.

 

Says who?

If you can expect to benefit from a price lower than MSRP when supply and demand is in your favor, its completely unfair to be angry when a dealer asks more than MSRP when supply and demand are in their favor. Its the same thing.

So while I hate the ADMs, I understand them.

 

Hey.....I'm not being one-sided here. As I said in earlier posts (and I meant what I said).....customers who act like jerks and make unreasonable demands from the dealership are, IMO, just as bad, if not worse, than arrogant dealerships. I have had the (unfortunate) experience of shopping with a couple of people like that....one of them a co-worker in my own section. You couldn't satisfy him if you gave him a free ticket to Heaven. He came in to work the next morning, griping about the truck he had just bought (it was a year-old Factory-Program / never-titled F-150 with the old straight-6) and wanting to take it back for a refund...which he probably couldn't have gotten away. Our office-supervisor listened to this for a couple of hours, and then told him...."Look (Name), if you don't want that truck, and you think you got a bad deal, I'LL buy the truck from you right now, for exactly what you paid for it....tax and all. I've been looking for something like that. Here's my checkbook."

We didn't hear a peep after that. In fact, my coworker decided to keep it, and drove it for a number of years...up until the point I retired.

 

None of that has anything to do with dealers charging over MSRP.

 

In his case, he didn't pay anywhere near MSRP. In fact, he got it way under MSRP, for several reasons.

While MSRP is not necessarily a figure set in stone, it is usually determined by the manufacturer as a good compromise of profit, what it cost to build the vehicle, what projected depreciation will likely be (for lease-prices), what kind of profit the dealership is entitled to (between wholesale/invoice and retail) and what they think the public is willing to pay for it. It is usually a carefully-researched figure, and not just something pulled out of thin air.

 

Which is completely meaningless in this marketplace. Anecdotes from decades ago have no relevance today

In fact, its a suggestion. Its the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price. When there is more supply than demand, which is almost always, then buyers can negotiate and often do even by default, prices lower than MSRP. In this rare situation where there is more demand than supply, such as right now. then dealers can demand more. Its a two way street, and you can't expect one without allowing for the other.

 

mmarshall and LexsCTJill, i deleted recent posts on saturn/scion. mmarshall, please don't bring up saturn again in discussion's of pricing today. it is not relevant.

 

what some cranky co-worker got a truck for decades ago has ZERO relevance to this thread. please try to at least use anecdotes from this century.

right, so it's a suggested price based on an analysis by the manufacturer. because we have the competitive dealer system in place, they can charge whatever they want, above or below MSRP, because it's their business, and consumers are free to try to convince a dealer to sell for less, or buy something else, or somewhere else, or not buy at all. it's an adversarial system a century old, so it's not going away any time soon, but in short supply times, charging over msrp seems actually reasonable because customers have fewer choices, and because the sales volume is down at dealers, they want to maximize profit for each sale. this latter is always true of course, but due to competitive pressure and higher supplies in 'normal' times, they're more willing to lower prices.

in other words...

exactly.

 

That's wild, I would never imagine that high of a % of people paying over MSRP. Interesting to me that Lexus is only able to command $235 over asking price (especially looking at some of the brands ahead of it) and I'm surprised Porsche's ATP isn't high to be honest. Even the Macan gets pretty pricey when checking a few boxes, and seems like most of the ones I've seen on the lots (going back a year or two now) are usually well optioned.

 

The market sets the price. Dealers are in business to make money. The dealer is not your friend; they want your money.
The car business is a simple demand vs supply game.
And MSRP is just a number in that game.

I will say Lexus seems to be the best of the dealerships regarding today's supply issue due to you-know-what.
I have to believe this is due to their commitment to their repeat customer business model.

Good luck to anyone in the market right now...

 

I somewhat disagree, but since you are a mod, I'll respect that and not bring it up again in the thread.



Well, I made it clear (and I agree) that it is not necessarily cast in stone, but a lot of research went into that MSRP, and it was done for a reason.

 

It's gotten to the point, though, where even manufacturers are becoming embarrassed, and some of them (particularly Ford and GM) are telling dealerships that enough is enough.