Why so many 2009 models at dealers?

Jordo!

Yeah, well that's not for the consumer to worry about. If the salesperson doesn't like the offer s/he can choose not to sell and sit on the car.

If you walk in determined to help the dealer make a profit, you are going to get taken advantage of.

Holdbacks, incentives, trading cars from lot-to-lot (rather than actually putting up money for it), depreciation on the car, tons of mark up over the wholesale value, etc.

Even if there was an honest to God loss on a particular car (frankly, unlikely), then there may be other incentives to make the sale like getting rid of a car to free up space in the inventory for a new one, because sitting on it longer will just result in it being even harder to sell or having to make even less on the car as it slowly depreciates to get rid of it later.

These aren't diamonds or rare pieces of art they are cars -- and with the exception of the odd "collector's car", they are never worth what you paid for it and lose value every day.

Again, the dealer can say, "Sorry, no sale" if the deal really is going to result in them taking a loss. Guess what, it probably won't if they agree to it.

Generally you're just haggling over how much of profit they will make, not whether they will make a profit.

They are not obligated to sell and you are not obligated to buy -- THAT is the free market.

__________________
Enjoy it. Destroy it.

marie9999

I'm such an idiot - I read that wrong - what a deal - I need to get some sleep!

fullmonty

Haha I was gonna say that doesn't sound to bad. Good luck with it!

__________________

Jordo!

Yeah, that's actually a pretty good deal. Call back and ask them to make it 29K even and you'll take it (they'll probably counter with 29.5 or so).

A dealer tried to sell me the same set of options on a '09 with a 5K miles on it for nearly 40K.

How many miles? If low, check it out and if it looks good, jump on it.

That said, that MSRP is BS -- it's a year old car. Even if it has 0 miles on it, it's last year's model, and in a few months it will be a TWO year old car.

I don't know what's up with that sales pitch, but they seem motivated to get rid of it -- probably need to clear out the inventory and they are close to getting some sort of big bonus if they unload one more car. Make sure the carfax is clean and check it over with a fine tooth comb.

29K give or take is reasonable if it has low mileage -- good luck!

__________________
Enjoy it. Destroy it.