Car shopping in today’s world...
 

Thinking about upgrading wife’s war wagon. She’s got a 2011 Kia Forte hatchback with 32,000 miles on it. Runs fine and only had one problem with it (CEL) which was fixed for about $500, About a year ago. She wants the creature comforts of today’s cars, like LED’s, heated seats, remote start, etc...

Called the local Honda dealer. They have a 2023 HR-V AWD which would suit her needs (and mine) to a tee. MSRP of roughly $29,000.

So far so good...

Comes to financing now. $602 a month for 72 months with $4,000 down.

Me: uh, excuse me? What’s the interest rate?
Dealer: 5.9%
Me: ok, how do you come up with that number?
Dealer: $4,000 down on a $39,000 vehicle?
Me: $10,000 over sticker price?
Dealer: we’re not the worst ones out there.
Me: Stick it up your ***.
Dealer: sir, you don’t understand...
Me:say hello to Mr. dial tone. :click:

I’ll wait a couple of months, years when we go back to “negotiating” a price. This clowns should be run out of business by the manufacturer’s.

Next to a lawyer or politician, I can’t think of a lower life form than a car “dealer”.

:rant off:

Yeah they suck, just bought a used car a few weeks ago for our new Au Pair. Found a 2020 Hyundai Sonata for $15k, test drive it, had my wife drop me off so I could do the paperwork, final out the door price almost $20k. I was like how do you get that number? Come to find out they had a high dealer fee and a $2k refurbishment fee or some BS like that. Walked right out. I guess this is somewhat common at used dealerships, haven’t bought used in a while. Needless to say I bought a used Kia from a dealership with no BS fees. Ugh.


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Worst part was they wanted more for a used one with 23,000 miles on it. :gtfo2:

My dealership sells everything at sticker price while other dealerships in the area are selling @ $5k over sticker. - Madison area

Inventories are starting to fill back up and the prices are starting to come down.

I hate having to go buy a car also. I can't stand it. When I bought my 2013 Nismo I did it all over the phone and had the car shipped to me. That was easy enough. LOL

My '99 Ram 1500, 08 Power Wagon and '13 Grand Cherokee TrailHawk. I used my employee discount. All 3 was special ordered. Bought my Nismo used. Dealer wanted $39,000. I offered $35,000, and they took it. My '22 Jeep Gladiator. I special ordered it too. I used my Tread Lightly membership on it. 1% under dealer invoice.

New Bronco's are ridiculous. Anywhere from $5K to $15K over dealer. :shakes head:

My opinion:

We're in a bit of a weird spot. On one hand, due to COVID, there still is a global supply/parts/labor issue. On the other hand, the feds are trying to fight inflation and raising rates beyond belief (three 75 bps raises YTD), with a few more increases expected by the end of the year. While the feds are trying to discourage spending to bring inflation under control (which is good for a still qualified buyer, as the dealership knows there will be less potential buyers and in theory should be more likely to work with a buyer to get their business), this still doesn't help with the supply/inventory side. At least in real estate, this contributes to the inflated home prices and values, and I would imagine this would be the same concept for the auto industry with elevated car pricing and values.

In regards to the 5.9% rate, was that the bank/lender talking or a car salesperson that gave you a random number? Especially in today's climate of a rate-rising environment, what you could do is go to your local bank and see if they have an option to do a soft-pull on your credit and see what you could qualify for in terms of loan amount and rate - that way, you have an idea of where you stand and not just relying on the F&I Manager of hopefully doing their job. Just keep in mind though that the F&I Manager may be able to offer a better rate through his lender network than what your bank/lender could offer (this is the reason for the soft-pull as you don't want your score potentially decreasing). Think of it this way: if you get pre-approved through your bank, you are a $29K customer vs the dealership being a $1 million+ customer to the bank, so who's more likely to get a better deal?

I come from mortgage lending, so things may be a bit different in auto lending. When it comes to rate, no bank/lender has a magical rate, and should be relatively the same across the board. For example, if you see 4 gas stations at an intersection, there is a good chance they may offer different pricing for gas, but by a few cents difference and not by a dollar - same principle with interest rates.

I will say that I think you do have some leverage to negotiate because you are going in with a trade-in and you have the potential to the dealership to be the starting domino effect of yielding multiple deals for them because of your trade-in.

You think the Broncos are overly marked up, you should see what they’re asking/getting for the new Z. Oh, wait.... :shakes head:

All good advice, but my issue wasn’t with the financing, it was with the $10,000 markup on a $29,000 vehicle. That’s a 35% markup!

One other forum I'm on. Guys have traded in their 2020 for a 2022 model. They got more on traded in for their 2020 than what they paid for it. Plus got a hell of a deal for the 2022. :eek: Unreal.

Haha, that’s just crazy


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Gotcha. Yeah, in today's world, unfortunately, crazy mark-up's are the norm at least for now until sh!t starts to go back to the pre-COVID era.

I had a client that paid $85K over the appraised value of a home :shakes head:

I paid almost $100K over. :eek:

7% credit union loan for my kid. His Altima died. He bought a used 2004 2500 Silverado for $6500.00. dented, scratched, broken tail light, rusted rockers.
Market is efing crazy.

I’m working with a Mazda dealer who actually took $2,000 OFF the MSRP. He’s got tons of stock. I’ll wait for even more stock before we finalize a deal.

Auto inventories are really starting to fill back up. Ours has tripled in the last month with much less buyers. Prices should start dropping pretty hard. There's gonna be a lot of people upside-down in their car notes.

This is assuming that you have buyers that actually qualify for a loan, regardless of pricing. Feds just raised rates another 75 bps yesterday (4th one this year and another expected before 2023, and with a few more expected in 2023) to discourage borrowed spending and lessening the money supply in the economy via quantitative tightening.

When the Feds drastically reduced rates (COVID), you had an imbalance of too many buyers and too little supply. At the rate of the Feds increasing rates, it seems we will be headed to the opposite end of the issue with too few buyers and too much supply.

What does it cost to import a BT-50 and legalize it for the states? Probably too expensive

Dealerships have really shown their true colors. I hope they all go out of business other than the ones that at least stayed at MSRP (and that's really all the other dealerships had to do while still making a pretty penny, but they got too greedy). I for one will no longer buy from a dealership and rather buy direct from previous owner if possible. Other option would be to buy direct from manufacturer like Tesla. Doesn't help how these auto manufacturers made false promises of punishing dealerships who overmarked cars by throttling their inventory. Once the supply and demand reverses, it'll be comical seeing the dealerships beg for business. Good luck, but of course they'll always have the people who are willing to buy cars for 32% APR for 60 months.

Greed may have been a variable (every business strives to make more money, or even survive during the pandemic), however, it’s not just car prices that have skyrocketed, but rather in every imaginable industry due to inflation, in addition to the global supply chain issues and labor. Look at home prices – average value increases is near 20%.

In regards to your comment on the supply/demand reversal, the bigger issue now is how the Feds have aggressively raised rates, and will continue this trend, and therefore disqualify many potential buyers or qualify buyers at a lesser amount with a higher rate.

I am not a fan of car dealerships myself, and buy from whoever you want, but keep in mind that the value/price of anything is worth whatever a buyer is willing to pay.

What do you think is the best car for a girl right now? Because my boyfriend bought himself a TOYOTA LC PRADO 150 and I can't drive that car. Even though he changed the multimedia system from CarPlay https://smarty-trend.com/toyota-land...head-unit.html to make it easier for me, it's still a big car for me.

Well what does she need it for? Does she go on track-cross events? Maybe a miata. Does she go drifting? Maybe a Z. Does she have 3 kids she needs to pick up every day? Some minivan then. Does she have less than a mile to work? Maybe walk then.

I mean, why don't you start by actually asking a question.

Bentley or Rolls Royce.

A girl as in any biologically born female? A 48 yr old female they thinks like an 18 yr old in Cancun? Or a female ape?

A best car for a girl to….do what? Drive in? Model on? Attract opposite…or same sex with..?

:rofl2: Ok I’m back to normal now, carry on

I retract my previous statement.

Get a Bugatti.