Cars We Drive!

[HRoi]

Most of them don’t give a ****. And seeing this from their perspective, most of the time the customer is spoiled for choice and can demand and get significant discounts. This is their time to be in the position of power. Y’all remember this when we’re back to normal - gouge them so hard that the bone shows.

Kia knows its dealers are marking up - it’s all over the internet. Maybe they are privately making good to people who complain - as Dino said only you can decide whether it’s worth the trouble. But more likely, they are unable or unwilling to give a ****.

 

[otc]

Second thought:

Anyone who has been at a kia dealer for a while is used to selling Rios and Fortes to less sophisticated consumers. ****** terms, huge interest rate holdbacks, tacked on extras, poor trade values, you name it....anything to extract an extra dollar out of whatever poor sap walked in off the street.

Suddenly they've got a winner on their lot and they are selling to much more savvy consumers. These consumers have more money to burn, but they won't fall for the old bag of tricks. So yeah--if the demand is there, charge the markup. And if they forgot to disclose the markup? try to charge it anyways and sell it to someone else if the original buyer refused.

 

[Piobaire]

Having looked into a lease on one of those last fall I can tell you they 100% are used to dealing with unsophisticated customers with ****** credit. I remember the money factor working out to over 8% interest.

 

[double00]

Most of them don’t give a ****. And seeing this from their perspective, most of the time the customer is spoiled for choice and can demand and get significant discounts. This is their time to be in the position of power. Y’all remember this when we’re back to normal - gouge them so hard that the bone shows.

yes yes good

 

[sugarbutch]

Like, now long does Kia think they will be able to get away with these markups?

Kia isn't getting away with anything. They'd almost certainly prefer to have the dealer honor the original deal, but they have essentially no leverage other than to help him find another dealer who is willing to match the original deal.

 

[otc]

And in terms of the extras, the Tiguan we just bought came via a Land Rover/Jaguar dealer. I laughed when the finance guy showed me the list of addon protections you could buy.

Maybe the numbers work when someone is buying a loaded range rover, but we're talking $15k+ of extra coverage on a used VW. $1k+ to put a strip of PPF on the hood. $1k+ for "free" future paintless dent repair of door dings and such...

Do you know how much PDR you could buy for $1,000+? I literally used their own PDR guy prior to picking up the car and it was $60 to pull 2 dings from drivers door panel and another $60 to pull a ding from the other side.

Kia isn't getting away with anything. They'd almost certainly prefer to have the dealer honor the original deal, but they have essentially no leverage other than to help him find another dealer who is willing to match the original deal.

I mean--I know it is the independent dealer, I just lumped them in with Kia since that's the actual customer touch-point. Kia corporate doesn't see the markup, but Kia dealers must know that they aren't exactly selling rare beasts here and that being able to charge these on Tellurides is a limited-time-deal.

 

[patrick_b]

Welp, looks like I got burned by the 2021 car market. My Telly arrived today and the dealer informed me they were adding a "market adjustment" of $6k. I told them no and they immediately pivoted to returning my deposit. Given the market conditions, they don't appear concerned about the fact that they never mentioned a markup and said they definitely tell everyone about the markup. I was like "well putting it on the build sheet when you take a deposit is the right way to charge a markup on a special order" but they DGAF.

Changing the price of a car after taking a deposit on the order is beyond ******.

Ford dealers are charging over MSRP on ordered Broncos right now. People custom ordered their build early this year and now are being told the have to pay $10-15k above the price they were quoted. They probably can do so because a deposit isn’t usually a contract, it’s an agreement to make an contract at a later date.

That sucks. Hate to hear that but I'm not surprised.

I've read about this about the Bronco, Telluride and whichever Hyundai SUV is popular right now. Dealers are more than happy to return deposits as they can then mark them up even more than the $6K your dealer is adding. I'd be livid but there really isn't anything you can do.

As @otc mentioned, go scorched earth on google reviews/yelp after you decide to walk or pay the ADM. If you do decide to pay the ADM, give them hell on the manufacturer survey. That stings. I'd go so far as to use the survey as leverage pre-purchase. Indicate that you will happily give them all 10's on the survey if they honor their original price. You don't even have to threaten a bad review, just dangle the carrot/good review.

It seems so short sighted. Chip shortage and supply issues aren't permanent. Dealers stand to lose a lot of repeat customers with these tactics.

 

[m0butt]

Yeah dealers are trash these days. I was able to get an XC60 lease at under MSRP but only with incentives that I was qualified for anyways, no actual negotiation. Based on the state of things though I think I was lucky.

We’re trying to find an MDX for my BIL and no dealer wants to play ball at all.

Sold my M2C with 18k miles for over what I paid so I was happy about that.

 

[UnFacconable]

The saga is just so ridiculous. The GM tried to convince me why the markup is still a great deal and then to top it off he had the gall to tell me that if I didn't like the markup I should lease the car. I said - are you going to let me lease without the markup? He said of course not and that it wouldn't be residualized - but you can do a 2 year lease and see if the conditions are better for you then! I told him that was the dumbest financial advice I had ever heard and that if I was dumb enough to pay a $6k markup I would buy the car and keep it forever, not pay the equivalent of $250 per month in markup alone for a lease. I mean WTF.

Anyway, the reality is that they are getting $10k for higher trims and $6k for the trim I ordered. The GM offered to come down to $5k and I told him that this wasn't a negotiation. This wasn't a completely unanticipated outcome and I don't *need* the car, but it would be nice to have for the upcoming winter.

 

[brokencycle]

The saga is just so ridiculous. The GM tried to convince me why the markup is still a great deal and then to top it off he had the gall to tell me that if I didn't like the markup I should lease the car. I said - are you going to let me lease without the markup? He said of course not and that it wouldn't be residualized - but you can do a 2 year lease and see if the conditions are better for you then! I told him that was the dumbest financial advice I had ever heard and that if I was dumb enough to pay a $6k markup I would buy the car and keep it forever, not pay the equivalent of $250 per month in markup alone for a lease. I mean WTF.

Anyway, the reality is that they are getting $10k for higher trims and $6k for the trim I ordered. The GM offered to come down to $5k and I told him that this wasn't a negotiation. This wasn't a completely unanticipated outcome and I don't *need* the car, but it would be nice to have for the upcoming winter.

Oh sales managers, never change.

 

[otc]

Oof, all of the ancillary purchases are adding up fast.
I was *this close* to buying an absolute top-trim and lower miles version of the car for like $8k more. Even signed some sort of form, but had buyers remorse overnight and killed the deal.

Yeah, I would have loved a handful of nice features...better lighting, remote start (car will live outside), and seats that remember where both my wife and I left them...

But damn if it isn't better to have that money for all of the other **** I need to buy for it. Winter tires and rims, trailer hitch, hitch bike rack, roof rack crossbars...

And I can buy some of the most wanted features anyways. Just ordered much better low/high beam lighting for $150 and figured out that you can install OEM remote start for the price of an easily installed relay, a new key fob, and some dealer labor to program it.

edit: that lighting is really necessary though. Did a night drive last night and the stock lights are embarrassingly bad for the terrifyingly dark roads were have. The bulbs I ordered are supposed to be great, but I'm thinking about also shelling out for a fog light retrofit.

 

[jcman311]

Yeah I go aftermarket now on all that crap. Did the Subie Ascent trailer hitch for all of $185. Dealer wanted $500+. If it weren’t for the stupid seized mud flap bolts would have been less than an hour and its hidden. I think I had a dealer (or more likely some shop they hired) do what I thought was supposed to be a factory remote start and it wasn’t worth it. That was like 10 years ago. Last 2 cars have had factory remote starts. (And memory seats… man the wife moves my **** and it bothers the hell out of me)

 

[Omega Male]

It was a nice sunny day so I thought I'd take my wife's convertible to do errands, as she's in Atlanta. There's a home under construction on the way out of our neighborhood and when I drove by I felt some debris go crunch under the right front. 15 minutes later it blew out -- luckily I was only doing 30. So I had to change a tire for the first time in many moons, half on the shoulder of a busy road. That sucked about as much as I remembered.

 

[Dino944]

And I can buy some of the most wanted features anyways. Just ordered much better low/high beam lighting for $150 and figured out that you can install OEM remote start for the price of an easily installed relay, a new key fob, and some dealer labor to program it.

edit: that lighting is really necessary though. Did a night drive last night and the stock lights are embarrassingly bad for the terrifyingly dark roads were have. The bulbs I ordered are supposed to be great, but I'm thinking about also shelling out for a fog light retrofit.

Lighting has come a long way! But still, definitely add fog lamps for times when there is oncoming traffic on dark roads and you can't use high beams. I'm glad our hybrid RAV has both LED headlights and fog lamps. It pisses me off that companies like MB, Porsche, and others have decided that since they have been offering Xenon and more recently LED headlights, we don't need fog lamps. I live in a development with some street lights, but the road is winding, and we get deer, coyote and other wildlife that sprint across the road. I definitely want as much lighting as I can have without blinding on coming traffic and causing them to hit me.

 

[gnatty8]

Anyone else regret installing exhaust systems (mine is a Magnaflow cat-back) upon discovering how painfully horrible they can drone at certain RPM? Seriously considering swapping back to the OEM as legit needs noise cancelling earplugs when driving on the highway and at around 1,800 RPM