Just some info here as I work at a dealer and know a lot of wholesalers.

Since I'm in the market for an X, I asked how Evos are doing at the auction.
They told me 8/9 are extremely hard to come by and they are getting crazy money.
As for the X's, most are cycling off lease and the market is getting flooded.

A side note as I saw it firsthand: guy bought a Lamborghini murcielago roadster two years ago for $375k.He was offered $140k as trade for a Ferrari 458, LOL
He said the car was worth more on fire, LOL

 

^^^ haha, "car worth more on fire" thats a good one

its true, dealerships are "Stealer.ships". they're out to do two things, screw the seller and make a big profit.

i try to stick to two rules when it comes to cars
a) buy private
b) sell private

i bought one car from a dealer (my old wrx).. the dealer said all this great stuff, then when i went to pick the car up, i noticed the dash clock wasn't working at all.. so i asked if there's anything they can do about it and he said "What you think this is BMW 200 point inspection". ..... .. . . . enough said.

stick to buy/sell private and profit in every way shape and form

/dave

 

We're a business, just like any other, dude. It's not UNICEF. You may have gotten hosed by a dealer, and that sucks. But when you buy privately, you have ZERO protection. A dealership is, at the very least, more heavily regulated. And you'd be surprised to know that some of them actually treat customers fairly.

 

Unless you purchase one of the many aftermarket warranties out there (which most dealerships try to push some type of warranty onto you), then, no you have zero protection.

At the same time, I know plenty of people that have gotten severely burned on cars they thought they were covered on when it came to dealerships. Many dealerships I've personally dealt with do everything possible to not do warranty work.

I am curious as to how dealerships are heavily regulated? When my brother bought his Z06 from a local dealership (not a small one by any means, the owner owns 80% of the dealerships in town), the tires had MAYBE 40% life left (that is being entirely generous). By most modern standards, he should not have been able to pass inspection with how badly worn the tires on that car were. Somehow though, the dealership is allowed to sell a car like that lawfully?

 

Depends on the state. For example, in Minnesota we are REQUIRED to present buyers, even on new cars, extended warranty options.

 

Dealerships are out to make money, when they look at you car as a trade in they think: we could sell this car for say $30k. We'll offer $20k trade in if you take great if not they may offer you more. They need to be able to mark up the car to sell it, probably at least 10% to 20% just to make money after expenses on a $30k deal. Depending on what you are buying at the time of trade in you may get more or less in trade depending on how much profit is written into the deal. Some dealers my take no profit on a car if you are buying a warranty.

On a side note most retailers make 30-50% gross profit on your purchase, you are being raped for money everywhere you go by retailers if you apply the same standards you would against a car dealership.

Everything with cars is a negotiation, learn to do it. I negotiate with my dentist. There is money to be saved everywhere.

 

Not sure sure where you're getting this data from. What I can tell you, straight from the Rydell group though is that the profit margin on the average vehicle sold in America is about 6-9%. That true of both Best Price, and traditional negotiation stores. Best Price stores will straight up control their profit margins by setting the non-negotiatable price that way, where as with the negotiating stores, they completely screw over about as many people as they have that know how to shop for a car and end up getting an amazing deal. So in the end it works out about the same.

 

My numbers were all generalizations, just random to illustrate the point that most retailers claim much higher profit margins than auto dealerships.

 

I think the issue on the trust side is the thousands of threads like this where someone posts the crap trade-in value they've been offered combined with the well known going rates of used cars at the dealer.

OP was offered >$25k< for a low mileage 011. A quick look at Autotrader tells me there is *one* 2011 low mile GSR for less than $28k and that one is at $27.9. That would still be over the 9%

So that poster was, IMO, 100% right.

9% is the *profit margin*. They are marking up trade ins a *lot* more than that to cover salesman commission (which really sucks since I have *never* had a good car salesman), "prep", time value of money, etc.

6-9% is what they end up making, but most of the cars you see out there are marked up quite a bit more than that to cover the overhead and still be in that 6-9% *profit* range.

Really does make a lot of sense to sell privately unless you can truly work a good deal all around and are in a high sales tax state.

 

I just bought my 11 GSR from a cadillac dealer for $25,800. It's got leather/sunroof and SSS. Maybe it's not that far off.

 

This crappy sales experience you've described, and the sour taste it's left in your (and many others) mouth about all dealerships in general is exactly why a lot (60%) of the retailers in Minnesota are now Best Price dealers.

Sure, people may walk away from the store once in a while saying our prices are too high, but no one ever walks away feeling like someone tried to screw them over. Yes, the mark up is higher than 6-9%. But as you mentioned that greater mark up has to cover our costs, mechanical inspection, repairs, labor, sales person's time, tax (yes, we pay tax when we buy a car from you), detailing, etc.

 

Dealers never give good trade in prices. Then they will try and sell it 5k over what they paid you..

 

I paid 30k for a 2010 GSR with 11k miles. It felt like a great deal. Only one I could fine in the PNW in reasonable condition for a reasonable price. They were asking $32k. Next best one I could find was an 08 with 40k and the asking price was $28k. I'm sure it was negotiable but the car was obviously a return to stock. Also had likely been wrecked as there was obvious paintwork and the front bumper was not quite straight.

 

Oddly a dealership in a neighboring large city called and said they wanted to buy my car outright for summer stock. My advertised price was 30k so we'll see.

 

Where in MI are you? I may be interested in another Evo if I don't keep the WRX.