six40

Guy 2 doors down from me just picked up one, in white. Got it with 17kms on the clock off the showroom floor. I went to check it out last night.

WarmMilk

iTrader: (1)

bullsh*t. just tell them they won't do business with them anymore.

I really don't understand why auto manufacturer's put up with this crap, if they wanted to they could put a stop to this very easily. car dealers depend on them to get cars, its as easy as that. really makes me think they don't care and they just release statements like this just to day face

ambystom01

iTrader: (7)

Why would they care? It helps the hype.

fafaforza

iTrader: (3)

A Civic for the price of an Audi S4. What are they smoking. Yeah only 6000 Type Rs, but do people think they'll actually appreciate in value?

And what's stopping Honda from making more. By buying the car for $54k, you're only making it more likely Honda will release them next year model since dealers made a killing on the first shipment.

GTijoejoe

iTrader: (25)

The dealer network is very very powerful.

LetsGetThisDone

iTrader: (1)

They care because on every car, the engineers battle the bean counters through every step of the process. Every vehicle brought to market is a compromise of price point vs each and every performance metric. Then the dealers arbitrarily slap on a $10k-$15k mark up. Making the bean counters mad that they worked to keep MSRP in line with the segment, and the engineers mad because of how much more performance they could have gotten out of the car if they had that higher MSRP to work with..

ambystom01

iTrader: (7)

That doesn't answer the question. Why would Honda be mad if their car is so popular that it can and does attract a $10,000-15,000 premium? It doesn't affect their bottom line. It doesn't affect "the bean counters". It's free hype.

LetsGetThisDone

iTrader: (1)

It would annoy me if I worked at a manufacturer. They set an MSRP for a reason.

ambystom01

iTrader: (7)

No it wouldn't. Why would it? You'd be paid a salary to design or build a car. You wouldn't give two ****s, and you certainly wouldn't be upset, if the car you designed was so popular it was attracting a premium for the right to buy one.

That's what a markup is after all. It has no correlation or connection to the costs incurred by the manufacturer in building the car, which is all they care about.

I think you're talking out your butt here claiming you'd be mad if you built the car. That doesn't even make business sense.

LetsGetThisDone

iTrader: (1)

From an engineer's stand point, you're constrained with what you can do by a budget. Dealers adding mark up blow that budget out of the water.

The mark up is 0 (ZERO) additional profit for Honda. It is purely for the dealers, who are independent retailers not owned by Honda.

ambystom01

iTrader: (7)

No, it doesn't.

There is no correlation between the budget that Honda gives its engineers, and what a dealership, a private business, thinks it can sell the car for. Honda sets an MSRP, but dealers are businesses and can vary the price they sell at if they feel it is appropriate.

Honda engineers have zero reason to care. Honda gets the same amount of money regardless of what the dealer sells for.

Biggiesacks

i would think the marketing guys would be more pissed then the engineers. The whole argument for making these niche cars is to drive up numbers in certain segments, but if the dealers are pricing the cars out of the segments you care about penetrating then it kinda screws up your plans.

Biggiesacks

You can look at the active steps Dodge has taken to try and suppress dealer markup on the Demon as evidence that the MFG does actually care about dealers marking the car up out of the intended segment.

kaj

iTrader: (60)

I could see Honda America being upset..
I'm sure Honda would rather sell 3000 cars than to be able to brag their dealerships sold 2000 @ a premium.

moparfan

The markup bothers me. Even though I can afford cars that are fairly expensive, I just won't buy them because I don't think it's worth it after a certain price point.