I hate the drama of buying a new car. I hate having to listen to people brag about how clever they were (not) in “getting one over on 'em.”
Can we just buy a car the same way we buy anything else, please? Same price for all. Don’t like it, go check out the competition. Lower prices by getting rid of high school drop out salesmen who make $200k per year.
What do you think? (I might send the thread to the major auto manufacturers).
The way I buy new cars is to go to Edmund’s website, find the car I want and ask for quotes from dealers (this is a feature of the website). The dealers all know that they are competing with each other, so there is no BS. Pick the best price and go get your car.
I always get used cars that are 1-2 years old (why pay for the first year of depreciation?), so it’s usually a fixed price at a place like CarMax. Which is what I prefer.
When I say “always” I mean, that is what I plan to do next time. I’ve had the same car for 13 years now which I bought new but with a corporate discount that eliminated haggling.
I’m spoiled because my dad works for Ford and we get the A-plan. That means one non-negotiable, cheap price, which can be found on the A-plan Web site along with your configured vehicle and closest dealer.
Buying my car was a breeze.
I only buy used cars. And I live to haggle.
I buy on plan, so it’s effectively a fixed price anyway.
Automakers have a love/hate relationship with dealerships, and the way the system is set up, haggling over new car prices isn’t likely to go away. Dealerships make thin margins on new car sales. The business model is to sell new cars at cost and make obscene profits on parts and labor in the service department.
The way Americans buy cars doesn’t help. Nobody orders cars anymore, they show up to the dealership and want to drive away in something. That means that automakers have to guess, usually months in advance, what sort of cars, trim packages, and options people want. When they guess wrong, it’s up to the dealerships to move the metal. That’s where the “love” part of the relationship comes in. Found out you’ve been making too many big SUVs and gas prices just shot up 50 cents? Who cares, cram them down the dealership’s throat. Not your problem anymore.
And that’s where haggling comes in. The dealership is the only entity in this process who knows what’s hot and what’s not this week, and so they get the autonomy to be flexible with pricing. And part of that autonomy, going back to their business model of not really making any money on new car sales, is to subsidize 10 cars going out the door at or near invoice (an effective loss for the dealership) with 1 car sold to a chump who was too weak to haggle down from MSRP.
The downside of this system is that consumers hate it (which is why automakers also hate it), but the fact that every automaker does it means that consumers tolerate it. All attempts at fixed pricing (Saturn, Scion) have been short lived.
In any case, the internet makes it pretty easy not to be that chump who pays MSRP, so I vote for keeping the system.