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.

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