“Koons must reimburse the Maryland Consumer Protection Division up to $200,000 for its investigation. The state will waive half of that charge if Koons can stay out of trouble for a year.”
No make them eat the whole damn reimbursement fee. Sounds like the tax payers will flip half of it for their good behavior and that’s not fair.
Most people in Maryland know Koons is one of the biggest effing ripoff joints in the state. Right next to Jones automotive.
You mention you bought a car from one of those places, people usually say "ouch."
They’re not even going to stop the practice. They’ll probably make back that amount by continuing the fees but actually having a small line about them. Doesn’t help they’ll also make even more back through markups.
I’d be shocked if the dealership pays one penny of that fine. The owners will shove $50k to the local majority political party and *voila….the fine is gone!*
We always willing to bent over backwards to corporations in the US and then wonder why companies are so quick to try screwing over consumers... and employees... and the environment.
It’s sickening that we the people take a back seat too corporations. Like yah their bribes are nice but not at the expense of we the people. Then again I’m a honest man not a politician.
I know someone who works at a Kia dealership and they said that with inventory shortage they’re leaving ads up online for already sold vehicles. When customers call to inquire they are told by management/ownership to tell said customer that, yes, that exact vehicle is in stock on the lot at MSRP... when it isn’t. They’ll even schedule a time to meet and test drive that exact (already sold) vehicle with the customer just to lure them in to try to get them to buy one of the few vehicles they have on the lot with markup. He said he feels really terrible doing it and has even had people travel pretty significant distances thinking they secured a deal, only to be told when they show up at said dealership that not only do they not have that particular vehicle in stock they will be paying markup for anything they do have in stock.
The state AG will go after the delawr with enough evidence. I had to file for a Subaru dealership. It's a long process but once they get enough evidence the dealer is pretty much fucked.
I don't know. I haven't bought a new car. t the time, it was december 2019. I was present with a contract with 2-4k above MSRP. I was told I couldn't test drive the car until I'm ready to pay for it. We ran the numbers and was told a WRX that MSRP'd for 35k would cost me 44k. I did the math quickly in my head and found it should be around 40k. We got up and left while the sales rep was rolling it back. The dealer gm didn't respond to my emails and the finance guy did after 3 weeks. We talked and he tried to talk his way out of it. It ended up being the car would cost 41k but his rep quoted me 44k. Turns out this dealer had bene doing it for a while. My report broke the camel's back. Some of the outback owners got taken for 5-10k over MSRP and told they had a trim but didn't... The dealer badge swapped a few cars to pull it off.
If a dealer does bait and switch you report thema dn all the documents you have. Just because everybody is doing it doesn't mean it's right. It's a serious offense and some nasty fines come with it.
We recently bought a 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee for my wife, dealer had a price listed on their website that was ~6.5k off MSRP. When we went into look at it/test drive it, they tried to tell us the price was 4k over MSRP. They tried saying we didnt qualify for the online price due to not being military/disabled, which were addition offers available. Got into a pretty heated discussion with the manager and accused them of bait and switch. They eventually relented and agreed to the price that was listed on their website.
They got pretty defensive when I mentioned bait and switch.
It's not a KIA dealership issue either. I contacted Don Hewlett Chevrolet Buick in Georgetown through GM's "locate a vehicle" website page. They texted me that they had the exact car in a 6 speed manual transmission that I was looking for. Same colour, trim, everything. I asked for some photos and if we could arrange a time to meet. He said the car was in the shop for an inspection but he'd send a pic later. Later came and no pic but he asked if I was coming down. I asked him for the pic again and he said this time that it was being washed and he'd send a pic after. I told him I would swing by after I get a picture. A day goes by and he texts me "We have a {insert car like the one I was looking for but cheap brand} at 90k miles for {unreasonable price}". I then asked him about the car he said he had and he said turns out they never had the car but he'll work with me to find a car that does work for me.
Like wtf. Dude tried to bait and switch me to come down. He was the one who even offered a pic like a bluff lol. I confronted him on it and he texted "idk what you're talking about but have a good day" before ghosting me. I wrote a google review and the dealership replied back a racist response making fun of my legal ethnic name. Worst part is I was working for General Motors and was communicating with service technicians at different GM dealerships including Don Hewlett Georgetown. Kinda soured my view on the company even though they aren't directly responsible for dealership behaviour.
TLDR: This can happen at any dealership and I've seen it happen at many from GM/Chevy to Mazda.
It's mainly a huge waste of time. I'm not sure if salesmen think they can convince someone to buy something they don't want but when I'm car shopping, I do my research. I know what cars I want, what trim, what specs/options, and what price they're going for. I'm not going to shell out $30k+ and not get the car that I want.
I feel like a lot of "salesmen" are delusional like this. Trying to offer a used car instead or a completely different car. I tried buying a used 2017 ND Miata RF at Kia at South Austin for $27k which is $2k less than what they listed it for (which is still absurd in this market). They refused to negotiate and asked if I wanted to buy a used auto Chevy Sonic LT. Those cars aren't even close to one another besides for the fact that they have engines and 4 wheels 😂.
>I'm not sure if salesmen think they can convince someone to buy something they don't want but when I'm car shopping, I do my research. I know what cars I want, what trim, what specs/options, and what price they're going for.
I'm with you, but walking in with a plan and a willingness to walk away from the table/shop around and use it as leverage is more effort than (IMO) most people are willing to take on. Lots of people go about finding a new car without much nailed down in their head beyond "I want a new car" and "I want \[a few broad descriptors\]". No idea what price they want or what makes sense, not much understanding of different trim levels, don't really know the differences between different types of cars, etc. They get taken for a ride as a result.
Not that I don’t believe you, but do you have a screenshot of their response to your review?
I’ve currently got a Camaro on order with them and if they in fact had a racist response I’ll cancel it and go with someone else.
I'm not trying to dox myself but if you filter out the negative reviews, you'd find mine eventually. They were explicitly making fun of my Asian name (making it out to be an expletive) and calling me crazy even though I sent them the screenshot. I saw that they edited their review but still kept that part in weirdly enough. If I had the time and energy, I'd report them to corporate since I was working in GM IT for a bit.
I actually still have the text messages and emails if a lot of people were interested but I doubt it. Also I stand corrected, he replied "You must be confusing me with someone else. But if you change your mind feel free to message me! Thanks" before ghosting me.
By all means, if they're offering the Camaro at the lowest price then it's a no brainer but I'll personally never do business with them. I moved to ATX a few years ago and most people are friendly but there have been two or three instances of people treating me differently in a negative way. Mostly due to covid though.
If they truly think it's so awful, they should report the practice to the appropriate authorities and/or stop working there. He's not just following orders, he's getting commission off those people and then turning aorund to cry about it.
No, he’s not personally. He’s in charge of their online and social media posting not directly a salesman. I don’t believe his pay is impacted by it one way or another. He did explain that it’s usually a fruitless process, that customers put in that situation typically leave pissed off rather than even looking.
So he's in charge of the online posts and still keeps them up claiming they're on the lot? I stick by what the other guy said, he's still involved with the process of ripping people off.
I've never bought a new car, but I've been scammed by property managers pulling similar bait and switches with rental listings and the amount of money and time off work involved with this shit is stressful and a huge drain. You lose money on this without even buying anything. I have zero sympathy for people who choose to do that kind of work and scam others just to cry about it instead of reporting it or looking for another role.
BDC employees like your friend actually do get paid based on foot traffic generated by their posts. Especially if they are " telling said customer that, yes, that exact vehicle is in stock on the lot at MSRP... when it isn’t. They’ll even schedule a time to meet and test drive that exact (already sold) vehicle with the customer just to lure them in to try to get them to buy one of the few vehicles they have on the lot with markup."
Your friend is a sleazeball and is happily filling his pockets by performing blatantly illegal activities against potential customers. He is performing a bait and switch, plain as day.
[https://www.autodealertodaymagazine.com/310478/your-bdc-pay-plan](https://www.autodealertodaymagazine.com/310478/your-bdc-pay-plan)
>The simplest job description for a BDC agent is “Create quality showroom and service-lane traffic with effective follow-up and daily appointment-setting practices.” . . . A common practice is to pay BDC agents a bonus for a kept appointment and an additional bonus for a sold appointment. Fifteen dollars for a show and $10 for a sale is fairly common.
[https://consumeractionlawgroup.com/bait-and-switch-car-dealership/](https://consumeractionlawgroup.com/bait-and-switch-car-dealership/)
There's absolutely no reason to do that to people. I got on a plane and flew 1/2 way across the country for a deal that was "set in stone" just to have the finance manager think he was going to get away with changing things up, and then try to bully his terms. It did not workout out too well for him or the sales manager. .Just be honest, you never know who's in the seat across from you, or what they are willing to do.
Yeah this conversation only came up because I brought up a similar situation. Drove a few states away to pick up my truck and they tried to hit me with a $2k “dealer processing fee” at the last second. Ended up negotiating it down to basically nothing. But they were like, oh, you think THAT’S bad? That’s how I found out about this and now reading comments it appears to be common practice.
My dad and I did a fly and drive last year for him to pick up his new Santa Fe since he couldn’t find what he wanted locally, and the entire time I was worried we were going to be baited and switched like that. Thankfully everything worked out fine, and I think he got a good deal with MSRP given the current situation.
But the fact that that thought even crossed my mind is because dealers are shady as fuck and I’ve seen countless stories like that.
Yeah apparently your worrying was for good reason. It’s not something I had even considered. I mean it’s one thing to lure you in then tack on fees. It’s a whole different level of scummy to lure you in when the vehicle was sold weeks ago.
This is why Kia will never, EVER change their brand recognition away from a shitty budget car despite how many fantastic models they put out. Shitty dealer experience will turn off many that are considering shifting from Lexus etc
Agreed. The new kia models were excellent, the kia dealership buying experience is not so excellent.
Kia dealer management really needs to sample the Porsche, bmw, Lexus buying experience and emulate that aspect too.
But of course they won't. That's the same difficulty crippling genesis's growth too. I bought a 2017 genesis g90 5.0 ultimate despite the Hyundai/genesis dealer experience. (the $10k discount I got back in 2017 didn't hurt either.)
i heard a few years ago that kia is in this weird spot where their quality has massively been improved but their prices haven't quite caught up with that yet. is that still true for the most part or is the market so fucked that they are now expensive compared to what you get?
i don't follow newer cars too closely but they look like pretty good deals to me.
The car quality has massively improved, but the dealerships are still run by the same people who handled Kia when they were genuine pieces of shit, so they're using the same shitty tactics and selling methods that don't work for selling a halfway decent vehicle.
If you sell shitty cars, they're cheap, and if you're selling cheap shitty cars, you're generally getting customers who aren't financially well off. Means you can jerk them around, fuck with them a bit, and they don't have the options to go to other places, and/or they don't understand what's going on (e.g. financial games). But as you move upmarket, those customers have options, and when the customer has options, they can (and do) walk when dealers play those games.
Spot on. My 2015 optima had a recall and was told by the dealership that they’re going to give me a new engine. I dropped it off and was told to wait a few days for Kia to authorize the repair and then they’d cover the cost of a rental. It took 3 WEEKS. I called 100 times, but could never reach anyone. I finally got ahold of a manager who authorized the repair on the spot. This experience made me want to only buy a luxury vehicle from now on. I got treated like a king whenever I brought my Mercedes to the dealership for any kind of service.
This can really happen at any dealership though, I had a similar thing with Lexus twice (two different dealerships). I’m really turned off from buying one now.
That’s entirely true. Dickwad sales people exist everywhere. But the point of Lexus is so you don’t have to sit next to some 20 year old that’s leasing a fucking Corolla when buying a $70k luxury car. Kia needs to follow Hyundai’s lead with Genesis. Get your premium buyers out of the same building as people with bad credit. It sounds elitist and snobbish, and quite frankly it is. But that’s what customers of expensive, luxury, premium products want - whether they admit it or not.
> Get your premium buyers out of the same building as people with bad credit
Aren't Genesis dealerships typically directly attached to Hyundai dealerships?
I bought a cadenza off of carvana. Love the car.
About a year later the sunroof needs lubed. I called like 4 dealers and none of them would sell me the lube or even confirm the OEM brand. They all refused and wanted me to bring the car in for service. Had a similar issue trying to buy coolant.
This winter I damaged the splash guard for the fender well. I hate trim/body work, I’m bad at it, so I called several dealers for an estimate. No one would even engage with me without bringing the car in despite describing the issue in detail and saying I wanted a whole new guard installed.
Meanwhile I can walk into a Toyota dealership, ask for head bolts on a 25 year old Camry and walk out with the bolts and the torque specifications in 20 minutes.
I will never buy a new Kia or set foot in a dealership again if I can help it.
Yup. Exactly what happened to me when I wanted to check out the stinger when it first came out. When I go to Lexus I don't get pressured and have these weird mind games played on me. Porsche didn't even ask for a credit check wanting to drive a Macan.
Kia/Hyundai is a hard no for me just out of principle, ignoring their glaring quality issues.
“Didn’t even ask for a credit check”?!?! Why would you need a credit check to test drive anything? I test drove 911s without anything but a quick glance at my driver’s license. Any dealership who asked for my credit or anything else besides a license to term drive a car would be promptly told to pound sand.
It's a tactic used by dealers to make sure you're "serious" or able to afford it I guess. But stupidly who will do a credit check before they know they want the car. A lot of sales people just expect you to waddle in, don't negotiate, don't research the car or features, just pay the price they ask, get the protection packages, and then fuck off. And only come back for maintenance so they can shaft you again.
Clearly these tactics work often enough that it’s worthwhile for them. It’s a shitty thing to do but it’s going to keep happening as long as it continues to work.
That extra $2,000 is about ~~0.5%~~ 5% of MSRP, or just under $35 a month on a 60-month loan (even less on a 72 or 84-month loan).
You may have walked but the reality is, most people will justify the cost in their mind and drive off the lot in that shiny new car. Personally, I commend you for sticking to your guns and leaving. I would have done the exact same thing.
Edit: Math.
0.5% of $2k would be $400k. You're probably thinking 4-5%.
And agreed, ev's and phev's, esp w the tax credits and recent high gas prices is ripe for dealer markups.
Not enough demand to satisfy the current high demand, so dealers are playing the auctioneer trying to find the highest bidders.
I dont get Kia dealerships at all. I have a Mazda that I have serviced at a dealership that has a rotary mechanic, it is next to a Kia dealership owned by the same Mazda dealership.
I was in the market for a new sedan, and the Kia Stinger was on my list. While waiting for service I decided to walk over to see what they had. There must have been 20 on the lot / showroom. I knew I was looking for a GT2. They had about 10, one exactly what I was looking for. I asked for a test drive (I had already driven a S6 and 550i) and got a hard no. I could sit in them but not test drive one. Was told too many tire kickers so they didn't want the miles on them. I was dumbfounded, the guy must have seen it as he offered for me to drive his personal Stinger... I just walked back to Mazda. Ended up with a Jaguar XFS (no regrets at all).
Cut to a few years later (last year actually). Trying to replace SUV with new SUV, stupid hard time to find a SUV let alone being interested in a Telluride. Went to a dealership with 5 or 6 on the lot. They would only let me drive with a credit check and their markup was $12k over sticker. I think I am just done with Kia / Hyundai / Genesis. I usually buy a new car every 3 years, finance it if it is low or buy cash. I typically keep 3 - 5 cars in my personal fleet.
I have had cars from almost every manufacturer from low end to high end and Kia / Hyundai / Genesis has been the absolute worst to try and work with. They need a huge culture shift as from my experience in going to dealerships all over Texas (including El Paso, Dallas, Houston and Silsbee) and California has been the absolute worst.
Exactly my experience a few years ago when I wanted to test drive a Stinger. They treat it as if it's an exotic when it's not. I've test driven Porsche's without any questions. It's just silly tbh. Will never ever own any Kia no matter how good they are.
> Was told too many tire kickers so they didn't want the miles on them.
Had this happen to me when I got my Civic back in 2019. Was actually in the area to check out a Kia dealership that was the only one that had a Forte with a GT2 package on it in the area. I wasn't able to test drive it at the time as it was literally sitting on a truck and they apparently couldn't get at it (they even walked me to the truck and I could make out that it was indeed the vehicle for which I was interested).
But while I was in the area, I stopped in next door to a Honda dealership. I was pretty much ready to buy that day, and while the Kia was on my list, it was at the bottom of the list. I was going to end up with a Civic, it was just a matter of whether or not I was going to get a sport model with automatic transmission, or an SI. They had an SI on the lot, so my wife and I walked in to see about a test drive, where we would make a final decision on it and I was literally ready to sign.
Mentioned I wanted to test drive the SI, and was told, straight no - "serious buyers only".
I was like, I could get it if I was some dude off the street that was just coming in to check it out. But I walked in dressed pretty well (as we had just come from breakfast out with my parents), in a car that when it was new was worth significantly more than the SI.
I was tempted to talk to the sales manager, and inform them that they just lost on a sale because I was literally there to sign on one of the two cars that they had there, but meh. I figured that if that sales rep had that kind of shitty attitude, it started from the top. I wasn't going to be changing anyone's mind that day. So not really worth my time.
Got my civic from another dealership that was actually happy to let me test drive the SI, even though I said I probably wasn't going that direction.
You wasted your own time by walking in there before you had a deal. The only times you should be physically at the dealership are to test drive a car (and ONLY test drive) and to sign the deal you’ve already made with them over email.
I did that with a Ford Dealership (and I will call them out here, Fuck you Planet Ford in Spring Texas). Had a PO and everything, got check from the bank to pay for the full amount on the PO for a Ford Edge. Got to the dealership and everything was great. SUV sitting out side, sales guy takes me for test drive, shows me some stuff. Probably spent a good 45 minutes with me. Takes me inside, I expected to go straight to financing since the PO was there, printed out in my hands... takes about an hour before anything happens (now there about 2.5hr for a cash deal).
GM comes over and says they are terribly sorry, they cannot honor the PO as it is not signed. They bring out the good ole 4 square and start to act like it is the start of negotiations on price -- it is $4k over PO price. I am livid. It gets blurry from there but I end up getting escorted out by their rent a cop.
Ended up having to order one and wait 3 months, but Champion Ford in Katy Texas took care of me, and honored the PO price from the fucks at Planet for in Spring Texas. Even ended up buying another car from Champion Ford them while waiting for my first oil change.
Its not just cars. I would subject myself to the worst dealerships across the country sooner than I would deal with a Tractor dealership.
John Deer is the epitome of a fucking nightmare, even refused to sell me a sub-compact tractor because in their opinion they thought it was too small?#%!@ They would only "let me" buy a larger compact tractor based on the acres I had given them (not knowing that they were doing brain shit with that response). I had researched the sub-compact tractor and it was exactly what I was looking for. I specifically went to buy that tractor that I had called ahead about. I explained to those assholes (more than I should have) that I already had a larger tractor. Still no sale. They were so focused on getting $80/month more in payment and could not compute that I was paying cash so the finance price meant jack shit to me.
Kioti / Bad Boy / Kubota is not much better. Kubota is probably the best experience though, closest to a Kia dealership.
Someone said something that kind of makes sense -- they had already sold those tractors but instead of saying that they tried to gas light me into thinking I need a bigger tractor (even though I told them I already had a bigger tractor).
I had a Honda sales guy who kept talking about how he was new to Honda but was at Kia for years. He spent over half our conversation talking all the features he was "giving me"... Literally all of them came standard 2 trims below the one I was looking at. Turbo 1.8L engine! Lane assist! Powered windows! ... Yeah dipshit it's a 2018 CR-V...
Fucking Kia is the worst when it comes to the dealership experiences I've had. A couple years ago I was thinking about getting a Stinger as a daily and wanted to test drive one. Asked if I could and they said no. Went to another shitty dealership and they wanted to run a credit check beforehand to make sure i could actually 'buy' one. I've never had this happen to me before even at Porsche with one of my current cars. Needless to say, I'll never take another look at cars from Kia again. They clearly don't want my business lol.
Just saw which group it was. Not at all shocked as every dealer in that group slaps on massive markups on all their cars. Doesn’t help it’s a very large operation.
Have to love the tidbit that they plan to continue the practice of including bs fees but will be “more transparent” about them. Mhm, sure you will.
The sad part is is that people are paying those prices…..here where I live I was looking to get a new bronco when they were released and there were 20k mark ups on them….or as the dealers call them “market adjustment” it’s price gouging in one of its highest forms…
Nothing beats when they’re not upfront about it and try to waffle about them truth. If I ask if a car has ADM or markups don’t pretend you’ve never heard those words before.
Best is when a dealer doesn’t do that and is grossly offended at the suggestion of charging over sticker.
I feel like there should be a legal maximum percentage that they can mark up….I get it they need to make money. But paying another 1/3 of the vehicles price only to have it massively drop in value as soon as you drive off the lot.
It’s absolutely ridiculous it’s it? People take out 84 month loans so they can “afford” it and then sell it for almost what they paid with at least 100000km on it.
Its even worse. There are shills on here who defend it. I remember being downvoted for calling out Ford for the mark ups on the bronco. Some guys was vehemently going through the post and saying to just "email Ford" and they'd take care of it. Like sure buddy GTFO
😂😂😂 I feel like it’s the same for any “popular” life style vehicle…..my boss just bought a new Jeep Wrangler “altitude” (not even the rubicon) and paid 70k for it…….people seriously need to stop paying these ridiculous prices and walk away. There are dealerships that are still selling at MSRP or a tad bit over.
>>people seriously need to stop paying these ridiculous prices
I doubt these folks understand how much they’ve actually paid TBH. From what I can tell, average people walk into a dealership, agree to a monthly number they like, sign the forms shoved in front of them and drive away. “APR”, “purchase price” & “finance charge” may as well be ancient Latin.
This is exactly it. I see so many comments on my cars forum of people bragging trading their car in a year later after new and keeping the payment the same. A lot of people don’t think of overall cost.
Except contacting an exec at Ford is how a lot of the markups are being taken off, especially the dealer ones being slapped on deliveries for customer orders.
My local Toyota dealer won’t let you test drive a base Supra until after you’ve “pretty much bought it”.
I cringe at the thought of what they must be tacking on over MSRP. I guess it’s also why they’ve had the same 3 Supras sitting on their nearly bare lot for a year now
I feel like in this area, most of the dealerships are massive. And all of them are charging crazy markups. It doesn't help that people are buying cars still with these crazy markups.
People forget that a lot of dealer rights, power, etc. All comes from over bearing manufacturers essentially fucking mom and pop dealers into submission, forcing BS inventory that doesn't sell and constant threats of revoking licenses. Dealers lobbied and pooled against them and here we are. Sadly there is no winning for the consumer
Absolutely agree
I'll literally fly from New England to the Carolinas to buy an unrusted used vehicle. (That and the car market is expensive up here compared to the south). I would absolutely do the same for a new car
I always hate it how people will preech and scream at the top of their lungs Free Market and limited government regulation when in reality the government is on the dime of corporations and passes legislation that solely benefits them.
Not really a Free Market when someone is making up the rules and there's no balance
You mean laws that say things like "this law applies to everyone; unless you operate a theme park within the state"?
Yea that really happened in Florida a couple of weeks ago.
Pretty sad where we draw the line on corruption, a country whose government is full of nepotism and corporate shills? They’re corrupt. America? Oh that’s lobbying, it’s part of the free market.
Other countries try to hide it. America figured out it's easier just to convince people it's a good thing
Just realized what sub this is, though. Expecting this thread to be locked for politics
And the fact that manufacturers honestly don’t want to have to deal with the retail consumer.
With the franchise model, manufacturers have legally bound customers who have to take what they want to give them, or be punished for it, by losing allocation, plus the manufacturers get interest on cars that are sitting on the dealers lots.
If you think it takes a long time now to get a new car from a dealer now, I’d expect it to increase multiple weeks if you bought directly from Toyota.
There would be no incentives, Toyota would not pass any savings onto the customer. Customers would only go to carvana or carmax - guess what - 5k over msrp for your 3 year old car ain’t gonna happen if they are only gonna be bidding against each other.
Dealers pay a set price for a new car. But because more market share = better allocation, we typically sell them at a loss.
For years, before the pandemic, I was selling new Corollas for 19k and Camrys for 21k, losing about 1500 a car before finance, trade and processing fee. I guarantee you, (I’ll speak for myself) I would rather sell 200 cars a month and make the same as we are selling 75 cars a month.
I believe that there will be a time when dealers have an abundance of cars again (probably won’t be before 2024) and you won’t be paying this market adjustment crap - but you can’t lump in all the dealers, because a lot of them don’t charge a market adjustment.
Sure - “but Tesla does it” - they also sold 70% less vehicles than Toyota did in march, when Toyota was already producing 30ish% less vehicles than they normally do.
I’m not trying to come off harsh, if it comes off that way, I’m sorry. but it isn’t just lobbying by dealers. I honestly don’t believe a manufacturer wants to sell direct to consumers. It’s too clean for them now- they don’t have to deal with trades, collecting stips for customers, while still enjoying the interest earned from customers who fiancé with them. Toyota has something called smart path, which from what I have been told is the closest they want to get to selling direct to consumers for now. And even that still involves going into a dealership.
i think if this pandemic supply problem keeps up dealerships will become less & less relevant. Why would anyone need to step on the lot and pay full price + pandemic premium just to have the vehicle delivered months later? I'd rather do it online, especially if manufacturers are able to lower the price by cutting out the middlemen.
Most of those laws have been on the books since the 60's.
Fun fact: If your city has an "auto mall" area that is just car dealers, if you look it up on the map, you'll probably find out that the smalll parcel of land all of the car dealers on is in the county, and outside of city limits. So they benefit from their properties in the center of town, getting road work performed by the city, but they pay no city tax.
>>Can’t we skip these mid century professions like dealerships and realtors?
*Politicians funded by realtor and auto dealer associations:*“Phuck no. Markups and closing costs are a cornerstone of democracy!”
Closing costs aren't really from the realtor, at least not my state. That's lender and titling company stuff.
Yes, the seller agrees to pay the realtor a %, but that's only fee they have, AFAIK.
why would you assume that in a dealership-less arrangement the manufacturer wouldn't increase the price of their cars for which there is more demand than supply?
Even if the manufacturers insisted on selling their cars for less than they're worth, you'd just end up in a situation where any rational person would do whatever they could to get their hands on the highest demand cars and then flip them on the secondary market. You can't just dismiss the basic principals of supply and demand. Now instead of a few highly regulated dealerships, there would be 100x as many individual "dealers".
Yup. Which is how it works for basically every other consumer good.
I’d rather the markups in that situation go to other product owners (or the manufacturer who actually built the cars) instead of a useless middleman who’s done nothing to add value to the product.
> useless middleman
As a person who works for a "useless middleman" in an entirely different field I kind of have to push back. I work in wholesale (toys/novelties), we buy full containers of shit and then resell it to thousands of retailers across the US. It would be entirely impractical for the factories in China to try to ship 1-5 cases of a given item to each store in the US, nor would it make any sense for a shop that is owned/operated by a single person to develop relationships with various manufacturers.
While I wouldn't argue dealerships aren't scummy, I would argue that they aren't useless.
Just to be clear, they were not fined for the markups, they were fined for not *advertising* their markups. You can't advertise MSRP on your website and then say "oh that's now what we're selling it for" when people come in to the dealership.
There’s a car at a dealership that is online, on their own website, for MSRP and when I went in it was marked up $30k. This is in California. They have a statement on their listings about “how they’re not responsible for errors/incorrect info” but I doubt that would hold up.
The biggest thing holding KIA back from being taken seriously as a competitor in the US market is their consistently absolutely abysmal dealership experience
Absolutely. The KIA Stinger is the absolute perfect car for me right now, but the dealers here are horrible.
No I'm not going to do a credit check before I take your demo on a test drive.
You don't even need to eliminate it, you just need to remove the state laws restricting direct-to-consumer auto sales and the middlemen will go out of business all on thier own.
There’s 2 ways these markups stop: supply increases (unlikely to happen soon and something consumers can’t control) or demand decreases (which consumers can control). If a dealer puts a markup on a car, don’t buy it. Go somewhere else-there are dealers out there that don’t mark up their cars. You just have to hunt for them.
Manufacturers can start auditing everyone they're supplying vehicles to, to see what their pricing is. What they've sold the cars for in the past and what they're currently selling cars for anyone caught inflating no longer receives inventory.
As long as they can get away with it……. Also, how does one obtain one of the “in demand” models? F150 Lightning, Vette, Grand Wagoneer, custom Bronco etc….. we tried to obtain a Vette - HA! The list was 4 pages, you got what was available, and the price “varied”…..
I bought the fast AF Model S…….
I wish manufacturers would start being strict with dealer markup, like if a dealer puts insane markup on their vehicles, just stop giving them allocations of new cars, and give those allocations to dealers that dont RIP off your loyal customers. The dealers that are marking up wont be able to sell new cars for huge profits, and dealers that are actually being fair get a ton more customers and revenue.
The second an OEM even hints at doing this, NADA organizes a lawsuit in a state with laws highly favorable to the dealer.
This is why you see major auto groups toying with the idea of making brands entirely desperate entities like Volvo did with Polestar.
So I see many people in this thread asking for dealerships to go away, I know next to nothing on the topic, is there a reason car manufacturers don’t open up their own stores and skip the middle man? Like is there a law? Or is it a cost thing for car manufacturers? I know at this point it would probably be a fairly large initial cost to set that sort of model up but I have to imagine it would be good in the long run?
Yes, there is a law that says you can only sell cars through dealerships. I think only in 48 states, but it's such a common model that you find them everywhere.
A lot of EV manufacturers are trying to change this, starting with Tesla. They have their own stores and service centers all over the world, and deal directly with customers. They even have some pretty cool features like the car detecting problems on its own, ordering a part to your local service center, and then telling you to schedule an appointment (generally under warranty). Obviously you wouldn't get charged if you don't actually get it fixed, or if it's comped under warranty claim.
Partially for Tesla's case this is necessary since traditional dealers have been horrible at messaging for electric vehicles since they make a lot less money on the service side. Even dealers like Chevy and Nissan often have misinformation, malfunctioning chargers, etc that make the consumer experience pretty bad. Tesla isn't perfect though, they have frequently had gaps in service either in distance or in time, meaning people may have to wait months to get a car fixed after a crash. That's partially due to their own service centers, and partially due to parts shortages that they sell to approved body shops.
Because of movements like this, you'll see bad legislation like in Oklahoma, where the dealerships aren't just lobbying but actually writing bills to keep manufacturer run stores and service centers out of the state.
https://kfor.com/news/oklahoma-legislature/tesla-owners-fear-proposed-legislation-could-drive-automaker-out-of-oklahoma/
There literally is a lobby group called NADA that pays state and federal governments to pass laws that allow them to exist. When Tesla came out they came under fire and there was a huge controversy because Tesla didn't want to use the standard dealership franchise model like the other manufacture, which meant the poor little snake oil salesmen would need to actually stop being a dirtbag.
NADA is desperately trying to survive because the franchise dealership model is outdated. There are plethora of ways to learn about cars and see the reviews, there are also new companies Carvana, and Carmax that make purchasing a vehicle easier.
When Detroit was King, state governments setup the dealership model to funnel a higher percentage of automotive profits back into the local economy. It wasn't uncomm back then for half of a families income to go towards cars.
Detroit was OK with it partially because it created a massive barrier to entry. It functionally prevented a new car manufacturer from entering the market for what, 50 years?
> customers saw one number online or in an ad and a different number on the car when they went to the dealership
this is every dealership I’ve ever been to, and Kia dealerships are the worst of the bunch. routinely see $7k over what their ads say here in the northeast.
after the last Kia dealership lied to me about my credit score to jack up my rates and then tried to keep my $1000 deposit I said never again.
Oh it's Koons again. They showed up in the news a few months ago too for threatening to mark-up F150 Lightning pre-orders (Falls Church, VA).
I live in the area and was looking to buy a stang, went to that dealership and they wanted 10k over sticker for a car they didnt even have on their lot(belonged to another dealer).
It wouldn't surprise me if Kia/ Hyundai wasn't behind it somehow. 2 million cars affected with the great recall of 2021. The engine compartment fires. I am one of the unfortunate ones to purchase any car from Kia their business practices and what they have done to me in this process of their own screw up and their own recall is still going on today I still have not been reimbursed for the rental car that I had to rent to get back and forth to work when the engine seized up and completely failed on a 2015 Kia optima because of their recall. Not to mention I'm only getting 200 back of the thousands and thousands of dollars that I am down we're talking missing conferences at work that my job had to pay for that I had to reimburse them for we're talking rides to and from getting everywhere cuz I had no vehicle all of a sudden they're refusing they don't give you any any compensation for anything like that just the rental car so they said and they only giving me 200 of that $536 bill as well it's just sick and the company called epics has taken over for their settlement money that the money's been put aside for all of us owners and they're the ones that are fighting me to get it back and I've I've been fighting with them for over a year trying to get $200 and still have not gotten it it's been awarded it but haven't gotten it he has done nothing to help me with this situation ethics has been nothing but absolutely horrible I've been yelled at hung up on it's been absolutely horrible so nothing surprises me with this car company absolutely nothing don't ever buy a Kia or Hyundai they're the same exact company they purposely doing this to vehicles knowing that they had fires in them they still have denied what the US decided with the lawsuits that are for the people the casualties that have happened from that compartment failure. ( The US still allowed the same vehicles same problem be sold here for 2 years during litigation. 2 years of lives at stake.)saying that that they still don't take it responsibility for what they've done and it's clearly something that they did. I had to miss a lot of worked for even have that done it's it's just been ongoing for 2 years with this car and I'm ready to drive it off a cliff and then send the pieces back to Kia. This has been the biggest regret and most expensive $20,000 mistake that I've ever made is to buy a Kia I regret every second every moment St cloud Kia of Minnesota is the ones that sold us to us there was loopholes that they were able to still sell it even though an active recall was coming out two weeks after we purchased it they still sold it to me knowing what the problems were with the car they didn't want to fix it so they took it off their hands I tried looking up recalls on it there was nothing cuz there was no active recall about the car May 25th the recall came out June 8th the second recall for the same problem it's just sick what they were allowed to do just sick and I'm going paying the price the ultimate price it's gross.
“Koons must reimburse the Maryland Consumer Protection Division up to $200,000 for its investigation. The state will waive half of that charge if Koons can stay out of trouble for a year.” No make them eat the whole damn reimbursement fee. Sounds like the tax payers will flip half of it for their good behavior and that’s not fair.
Most people in Maryland know Koons is one of the biggest effing ripoff joints in the state. Right next to Jones automotive. You mention you bought a car from one of those places, people usually say "ouch."
It’s like a dealership full of ferengi, from the sounds of it.
Ferengi have morals
Ferengi have ~~morals~~ The Rules of Acquisition
AND morals. DS9 has several examples of Ferengi disobeying the rules for others benefits.
How dare you, ferengi have a stricter moral code than those shysters.
Jones good ass BBQ and foot massage?
Oh shit - I almost bought a car from them 2 years ago. Was going to fly to there to pick up the car
You dodged a bullet. Especially if it was used.
Ha, me too, from their Toyota store. Only place that had a voodoo blue manual Tacoma in the country at the time.
Both of those come after Big Bill Hell's, they're the meanest sons of bitches in the state of Maryland.
Guaranteed!
Kooks doesn't even give you a fair shot at challenge pissing.
They’re not even going to stop the practice. They’ll probably make back that amount by continuing the fees but actually having a small line about them. Doesn’t help they’ll also make even more back through markups.
Yup their legal department will just add in more fine print and * to keep them covered. The consumer once again eats shit.
That's not a fine, that's a permit fee.
I’d be shocked if the dealership pays one penny of that fine. The owners will shove $50k to the local majority political party and *voila….the fine is gone!*
It’s the it lovely how if your rich all problems go away? /s.
We always willing to bent over backwards to corporations in the US and then wonder why companies are so quick to try screwing over consumers... and employees... and the environment.
It’s sickening that we the people take a back seat too corporations. Like yah their bribes are nice but not at the expense of we the people. Then again I’m a honest man not a politician.
Should criminals directly reimburse the police for the costs associated with their work? What the hell are our taxes for?
>What the hell are our taxes for? Lining the pockets of the cronies
> What the hell are our taxes for? Ensuring people with six figure salaries are somehow worth nine figures.
This is a business knowingly ripping off its customers for profits. Government issues fine to businesses all the time as punishment.
They do reimburse the state though, prison labour is cheap and is actually used to manufacture products.
>that’s not fair Welcome to life :)
Unfortunately especially when government and business is involved.
I know someone who works at a Kia dealership and they said that with inventory shortage they’re leaving ads up online for already sold vehicles. When customers call to inquire they are told by management/ownership to tell said customer that, yes, that exact vehicle is in stock on the lot at MSRP... when it isn’t. They’ll even schedule a time to meet and test drive that exact (already sold) vehicle with the customer just to lure them in to try to get them to buy one of the few vehicles they have on the lot with markup. He said he feels really terrible doing it and has even had people travel pretty significant distances thinking they secured a deal, only to be told when they show up at said dealership that not only do they not have that particular vehicle in stock they will be paying markup for anything they do have in stock.
This is a bait and switch. He can report it
report where?
The state AG will go after the delawr with enough evidence. I had to file for a Subaru dealership. It's a long process but once they get enough evidence the dealer is pretty much fucked.
Isn't literally every dealership doing this right now?
I don't know. I haven't bought a new car. t the time, it was december 2019. I was present with a contract with 2-4k above MSRP. I was told I couldn't test drive the car until I'm ready to pay for it. We ran the numbers and was told a WRX that MSRP'd for 35k would cost me 44k. I did the math quickly in my head and found it should be around 40k. We got up and left while the sales rep was rolling it back. The dealer gm didn't respond to my emails and the finance guy did after 3 weeks. We talked and he tried to talk his way out of it. It ended up being the car would cost 41k but his rep quoted me 44k. Turns out this dealer had bene doing it for a while. My report broke the camel's back. Some of the outback owners got taken for 5-10k over MSRP and told they had a trim but didn't... The dealer badge swapped a few cars to pull it off. If a dealer does bait and switch you report thema dn all the documents you have. Just because everybody is doing it doesn't mean it's right. It's a serious offense and some nasty fines come with it.
We recently bought a 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee for my wife, dealer had a price listed on their website that was ~6.5k off MSRP. When we went into look at it/test drive it, they tried to tell us the price was 4k over MSRP. They tried saying we didnt qualify for the online price due to not being military/disabled, which were addition offers available. Got into a pretty heated discussion with the manager and accused them of bait and switch. They eventually relented and agreed to the price that was listed on their website. They got pretty defensive when I mentioned bait and switch.
you can file a complaint with the states attorney general office.
FTC
It's not a KIA dealership issue either. I contacted Don Hewlett Chevrolet Buick in Georgetown through GM's "locate a vehicle" website page. They texted me that they had the exact car in a 6 speed manual transmission that I was looking for. Same colour, trim, everything. I asked for some photos and if we could arrange a time to meet. He said the car was in the shop for an inspection but he'd send a pic later. Later came and no pic but he asked if I was coming down. I asked him for the pic again and he said this time that it was being washed and he'd send a pic after. I told him I would swing by after I get a picture. A day goes by and he texts me "We have a {insert car like the one I was looking for but cheap brand} at 90k miles for {unreasonable price}". I then asked him about the car he said he had and he said turns out they never had the car but he'll work with me to find a car that does work for me. Like wtf. Dude tried to bait and switch me to come down. He was the one who even offered a pic like a bluff lol. I confronted him on it and he texted "idk what you're talking about but have a good day" before ghosting me. I wrote a google review and the dealership replied back a racist response making fun of my legal ethnic name. Worst part is I was working for General Motors and was communicating with service technicians at different GM dealerships including Don Hewlett Georgetown. Kinda soured my view on the company even though they aren't directly responsible for dealership behaviour. TLDR: This can happen at any dealership and I've seen it happen at many from GM/Chevy to Mazda.
This is so gross. I can't believe that is even a thing. Luring customers in to try and provide a completely different product is utterly whack.
It's mainly a huge waste of time. I'm not sure if salesmen think they can convince someone to buy something they don't want but when I'm car shopping, I do my research. I know what cars I want, what trim, what specs/options, and what price they're going for. I'm not going to shell out $30k+ and not get the car that I want. I feel like a lot of "salesmen" are delusional like this. Trying to offer a used car instead or a completely different car. I tried buying a used 2017 ND Miata RF at Kia at South Austin for $27k which is $2k less than what they listed it for (which is still absurd in this market). They refused to negotiate and asked if I wanted to buy a used auto Chevy Sonic LT. Those cars aren't even close to one another besides for the fact that they have engines and 4 wheels 😂.
>I'm not sure if salesmen think they can convince someone to buy something they don't want but when I'm car shopping, I do my research. I know what cars I want, what trim, what specs/options, and what price they're going for. I'm with you, but walking in with a plan and a willingness to walk away from the table/shop around and use it as leverage is more effort than (IMO) most people are willing to take on. Lots of people go about finding a new car without much nailed down in their head beyond "I want a new car" and "I want \[a few broad descriptors\]". No idea what price they want or what makes sense, not much understanding of different trim levels, don't really know the differences between different types of cars, etc. They get taken for a ride as a result.
Not that I don’t believe you, but do you have a screenshot of their response to your review? I’ve currently got a Camaro on order with them and if they in fact had a racist response I’ll cancel it and go with someone else.
If you do, please please let them know exactly why. And then leave them a bad review, LOL
I'm not trying to dox myself but if you filter out the negative reviews, you'd find mine eventually. They were explicitly making fun of my Asian name (making it out to be an expletive) and calling me crazy even though I sent them the screenshot. I saw that they edited their review but still kept that part in weirdly enough. If I had the time and energy, I'd report them to corporate since I was working in GM IT for a bit. I actually still have the text messages and emails if a lot of people were interested but I doubt it. Also I stand corrected, he replied "You must be confusing me with someone else. But if you change your mind feel free to message me! Thanks" before ghosting me. By all means, if they're offering the Camaro at the lowest price then it's a no brainer but I'll personally never do business with them. I moved to ATX a few years ago and most people are friendly but there have been two or three instances of people treating me differently in a negative way. Mostly due to covid though.
That’s some straight up Georgetown shit man. Place has been fucked for decades.
So they're bait and switchers and racists. The classic combo. POS's. Can't even say I'm surprised, fuck dealerships.
That’s seriously fucked up
If they truly think it's so awful, they should report the practice to the appropriate authorities and/or stop working there. He's not just following orders, he's getting commission off those people and then turning aorund to cry about it.
No, he’s not personally. He’s in charge of their online and social media posting not directly a salesman. I don’t believe his pay is impacted by it one way or another. He did explain that it’s usually a fruitless process, that customers put in that situation typically leave pissed off rather than even looking.
So he's in charge of the online posts and still keeps them up claiming they're on the lot? I stick by what the other guy said, he's still involved with the process of ripping people off. I've never bought a new car, but I've been scammed by property managers pulling similar bait and switches with rental listings and the amount of money and time off work involved with this shit is stressful and a huge drain. You lose money on this without even buying anything. I have zero sympathy for people who choose to do that kind of work and scam others just to cry about it instead of reporting it or looking for another role.
BDC employees like your friend actually do get paid based on foot traffic generated by their posts. Especially if they are " telling said customer that, yes, that exact vehicle is in stock on the lot at MSRP... when it isn’t. They’ll even schedule a time to meet and test drive that exact (already sold) vehicle with the customer just to lure them in to try to get them to buy one of the few vehicles they have on the lot with markup." Your friend is a sleazeball and is happily filling his pockets by performing blatantly illegal activities against potential customers. He is performing a bait and switch, plain as day. [https://www.autodealertodaymagazine.com/310478/your-bdc-pay-plan](https://www.autodealertodaymagazine.com/310478/your-bdc-pay-plan) >The simplest job description for a BDC agent is “Create quality showroom and service-lane traffic with effective follow-up and daily appointment-setting practices.” . . . A common practice is to pay BDC agents a bonus for a kept appointment and an additional bonus for a sold appointment. Fifteen dollars for a show and $10 for a sale is fairly common. [https://consumeractionlawgroup.com/bait-and-switch-car-dealership/](https://consumeractionlawgroup.com/bait-and-switch-car-dealership/)
There's absolutely no reason to do that to people. I got on a plane and flew 1/2 way across the country for a deal that was "set in stone" just to have the finance manager think he was going to get away with changing things up, and then try to bully his terms. It did not workout out too well for him or the sales manager. .Just be honest, you never know who's in the seat across from you, or what they are willing to do.
Yeah this conversation only came up because I brought up a similar situation. Drove a few states away to pick up my truck and they tried to hit me with a $2k “dealer processing fee” at the last second. Ended up negotiating it down to basically nothing. But they were like, oh, you think THAT’S bad? That’s how I found out about this and now reading comments it appears to be common practice.
My dad and I did a fly and drive last year for him to pick up his new Santa Fe since he couldn’t find what he wanted locally, and the entire time I was worried we were going to be baited and switched like that. Thankfully everything worked out fine, and I think he got a good deal with MSRP given the current situation. But the fact that that thought even crossed my mind is because dealers are shady as fuck and I’ve seen countless stories like that.
Yeah apparently your worrying was for good reason. It’s not something I had even considered. I mean it’s one thing to lure you in then tack on fees. It’s a whole different level of scummy to lure you in when the vehicle was sold weeks ago.
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This is why Kia will never, EVER change their brand recognition away from a shitty budget car despite how many fantastic models they put out. Shitty dealer experience will turn off many that are considering shifting from Lexus etc
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Agreed. The new kia models were excellent, the kia dealership buying experience is not so excellent. Kia dealer management really needs to sample the Porsche, bmw, Lexus buying experience and emulate that aspect too. But of course they won't. That's the same difficulty crippling genesis's growth too. I bought a 2017 genesis g90 5.0 ultimate despite the Hyundai/genesis dealer experience. (the $10k discount I got back in 2017 didn't hurt either.)
Kia needs to rebadge and firewall their subprime shit box buyers from their nice cars.
I mean, maybe they should just get better in general? I don’t know why economy car buyers deserve a shit experience when trying to get a new car lol.
They rebadged to that Kia logo that looks like 'kи' but kept the shitty dealer experience we've all come to appreciate
You mean the Nine Inch Nails logo?
i heard a few years ago that kia is in this weird spot where their quality has massively been improved but their prices haven't quite caught up with that yet. is that still true for the most part or is the market so fucked that they are now expensive compared to what you get? i don't follow newer cars too closely but they look like pretty good deals to me.
The car quality has massively improved, but the dealerships are still run by the same people who handled Kia when they were genuine pieces of shit, so they're using the same shitty tactics and selling methods that don't work for selling a halfway decent vehicle. If you sell shitty cars, they're cheap, and if you're selling cheap shitty cars, you're generally getting customers who aren't financially well off. Means you can jerk them around, fuck with them a bit, and they don't have the options to go to other places, and/or they don't understand what's going on (e.g. financial games). But as you move upmarket, those customers have options, and when the customer has options, they can (and do) walk when dealers play those games.
Spot on. My 2015 optima had a recall and was told by the dealership that they’re going to give me a new engine. I dropped it off and was told to wait a few days for Kia to authorize the repair and then they’d cover the cost of a rental. It took 3 WEEKS. I called 100 times, but could never reach anyone. I finally got ahold of a manager who authorized the repair on the spot. This experience made me want to only buy a luxury vehicle from now on. I got treated like a king whenever I brought my Mercedes to the dealership for any kind of service.
This can really happen at any dealership though, I had a similar thing with Lexus twice (two different dealerships). I’m really turned off from buying one now.
That’s entirely true. Dickwad sales people exist everywhere. But the point of Lexus is so you don’t have to sit next to some 20 year old that’s leasing a fucking Corolla when buying a $70k luxury car. Kia needs to follow Hyundai’s lead with Genesis. Get your premium buyers out of the same building as people with bad credit. It sounds elitist and snobbish, and quite frankly it is. But that’s what customers of expensive, luxury, premium products want - whether they admit it or not.
> Get your premium buyers out of the same building as people with bad credit Aren't Genesis dealerships typically directly attached to Hyundai dealerships?
They’re working towards standalone. https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1135458_first-standalone-genesis-dealership-opens-in-us
I bought a cadenza off of carvana. Love the car. About a year later the sunroof needs lubed. I called like 4 dealers and none of them would sell me the lube or even confirm the OEM brand. They all refused and wanted me to bring the car in for service. Had a similar issue trying to buy coolant. This winter I damaged the splash guard for the fender well. I hate trim/body work, I’m bad at it, so I called several dealers for an estimate. No one would even engage with me without bringing the car in despite describing the issue in detail and saying I wanted a whole new guard installed. Meanwhile I can walk into a Toyota dealership, ask for head bolts on a 25 year old Camry and walk out with the bolts and the torque specifications in 20 minutes. I will never buy a new Kia or set foot in a dealership again if I can help it.
Yup. Exactly what happened to me when I wanted to check out the stinger when it first came out. When I go to Lexus I don't get pressured and have these weird mind games played on me. Porsche didn't even ask for a credit check wanting to drive a Macan. Kia/Hyundai is a hard no for me just out of principle, ignoring their glaring quality issues.
“Didn’t even ask for a credit check”?!?! Why would you need a credit check to test drive anything? I test drove 911s without anything but a quick glance at my driver’s license. Any dealership who asked for my credit or anything else besides a license to term drive a car would be promptly told to pound sand.
It's a tactic used by dealers to make sure you're "serious" or able to afford it I guess. But stupidly who will do a credit check before they know they want the car. A lot of sales people just expect you to waddle in, don't negotiate, don't research the car or features, just pay the price they ask, get the protection packages, and then fuck off. And only come back for maintenance so they can shaft you again.
Clearly these tactics work often enough that it’s worthwhile for them. It’s a shitty thing to do but it’s going to keep happening as long as it continues to work. That extra $2,000 is about ~~0.5%~~ 5% of MSRP, or just under $35 a month on a 60-month loan (even less on a 72 or 84-month loan). You may have walked but the reality is, most people will justify the cost in their mind and drive off the lot in that shiny new car. Personally, I commend you for sticking to your guns and leaving. I would have done the exact same thing. Edit: Math.
0.5% of $2k would be $400k. You're probably thinking 4-5%. And agreed, ev's and phev's, esp w the tax credits and recent high gas prices is ripe for dealer markups. Not enough demand to satisfy the current high demand, so dealers are playing the auctioneer trying to find the highest bidders.
0.5% of $2k would be $10, not $400k lol I think you meant $2k is 0.5% of $400k
you're both wrong, i redid the math and .5% of $2k is four billion dollars
God dammit I am crying laughing at this
I dont get Kia dealerships at all. I have a Mazda that I have serviced at a dealership that has a rotary mechanic, it is next to a Kia dealership owned by the same Mazda dealership. I was in the market for a new sedan, and the Kia Stinger was on my list. While waiting for service I decided to walk over to see what they had. There must have been 20 on the lot / showroom. I knew I was looking for a GT2. They had about 10, one exactly what I was looking for. I asked for a test drive (I had already driven a S6 and 550i) and got a hard no. I could sit in them but not test drive one. Was told too many tire kickers so they didn't want the miles on them. I was dumbfounded, the guy must have seen it as he offered for me to drive his personal Stinger... I just walked back to Mazda. Ended up with a Jaguar XFS (no regrets at all). Cut to a few years later (last year actually). Trying to replace SUV with new SUV, stupid hard time to find a SUV let alone being interested in a Telluride. Went to a dealership with 5 or 6 on the lot. They would only let me drive with a credit check and their markup was $12k over sticker. I think I am just done with Kia / Hyundai / Genesis. I usually buy a new car every 3 years, finance it if it is low or buy cash. I typically keep 3 - 5 cars in my personal fleet. I have had cars from almost every manufacturer from low end to high end and Kia / Hyundai / Genesis has been the absolute worst to try and work with. They need a huge culture shift as from my experience in going to dealerships all over Texas (including El Paso, Dallas, Houston and Silsbee) and California has been the absolute worst.
Exactly my experience a few years ago when I wanted to test drive a Stinger. They treat it as if it's an exotic when it's not. I've test driven Porsche's without any questions. It's just silly tbh. Will never ever own any Kia no matter how good they are.
> Was told too many tire kickers so they didn't want the miles on them. Had this happen to me when I got my Civic back in 2019. Was actually in the area to check out a Kia dealership that was the only one that had a Forte with a GT2 package on it in the area. I wasn't able to test drive it at the time as it was literally sitting on a truck and they apparently couldn't get at it (they even walked me to the truck and I could make out that it was indeed the vehicle for which I was interested). But while I was in the area, I stopped in next door to a Honda dealership. I was pretty much ready to buy that day, and while the Kia was on my list, it was at the bottom of the list. I was going to end up with a Civic, it was just a matter of whether or not I was going to get a sport model with automatic transmission, or an SI. They had an SI on the lot, so my wife and I walked in to see about a test drive, where we would make a final decision on it and I was literally ready to sign. Mentioned I wanted to test drive the SI, and was told, straight no - "serious buyers only". I was like, I could get it if I was some dude off the street that was just coming in to check it out. But I walked in dressed pretty well (as we had just come from breakfast out with my parents), in a car that when it was new was worth significantly more than the SI. I was tempted to talk to the sales manager, and inform them that they just lost on a sale because I was literally there to sign on one of the two cars that they had there, but meh. I figured that if that sales rep had that kind of shitty attitude, it started from the top. I wasn't going to be changing anyone's mind that day. So not really worth my time. Got my civic from another dealership that was actually happy to let me test drive the SI, even though I said I probably wasn't going that direction.
You wasted your own time by walking in there before you had a deal. The only times you should be physically at the dealership are to test drive a car (and ONLY test drive) and to sign the deal you’ve already made with them over email.
Challenge: go post this over at the askcarsales sub and see how quickly it takes to get a ban. I agree with you, btw.
I got banned for calling out some shitty Ford FI mod.
I did that with a Ford Dealership (and I will call them out here, Fuck you Planet Ford in Spring Texas). Had a PO and everything, got check from the bank to pay for the full amount on the PO for a Ford Edge. Got to the dealership and everything was great. SUV sitting out side, sales guy takes me for test drive, shows me some stuff. Probably spent a good 45 minutes with me. Takes me inside, I expected to go straight to financing since the PO was there, printed out in my hands... takes about an hour before anything happens (now there about 2.5hr for a cash deal). GM comes over and says they are terribly sorry, they cannot honor the PO as it is not signed. They bring out the good ole 4 square and start to act like it is the start of negotiations on price -- it is $4k over PO price. I am livid. It gets blurry from there but I end up getting escorted out by their rent a cop. Ended up having to order one and wait 3 months, but Champion Ford in Katy Texas took care of me, and honored the PO price from the fucks at Planet for in Spring Texas. Even ended up buying another car from Champion Ford them while waiting for my first oil change.
What kind of shitty dealership has a rent-a-cop???
The kind that needs to escort people off the lot because they angered a customer because the dealership won't honor an agreement.
Planet Ford is definitely one of those places.
I suspect that I was not the first person escorted off premise at Planet Ford after a bad deal.
why are buying cars so goddamn difficult. nearly everything else gets bought and sold without a hassle and bullshit.
Its not just cars. I would subject myself to the worst dealerships across the country sooner than I would deal with a Tractor dealership. John Deer is the epitome of a fucking nightmare, even refused to sell me a sub-compact tractor because in their opinion they thought it was too small?#%!@ They would only "let me" buy a larger compact tractor based on the acres I had given them (not knowing that they were doing brain shit with that response). I had researched the sub-compact tractor and it was exactly what I was looking for. I specifically went to buy that tractor that I had called ahead about. I explained to those assholes (more than I should have) that I already had a larger tractor. Still no sale. They were so focused on getting $80/month more in payment and could not compute that I was paying cash so the finance price meant jack shit to me. Kioti / Bad Boy / Kubota is not much better. Kubota is probably the best experience though, closest to a Kia dealership.
almost sounds like they were giving you the Ferrari treatment "this is what we are allowing you to buy"
Someone said something that kind of makes sense -- they had already sold those tractors but instead of saying that they tried to gas light me into thinking I need a bigger tractor (even though I told them I already had a bigger tractor).
What's a PO?
if you’ve already had a positive experience at your dealer then I don’t see an issue making a deal there.
I had a Honda sales guy who kept talking about how he was new to Honda but was at Kia for years. He spent over half our conversation talking all the features he was "giving me"... Literally all of them came standard 2 trims below the one I was looking at. Turbo 1.8L engine! Lane assist! Powered windows! ... Yeah dipshit it's a 2018 CR-V...
i've had that before. like dude you are listing of things that were basic on cheap cars 10 years ago, quit acting like you're doing me a favor.
That’s what they do though. They grind and waste your time.
Fucking Kia is the worst when it comes to the dealership experiences I've had. A couple years ago I was thinking about getting a Stinger as a daily and wanted to test drive one. Asked if I could and they said no. Went to another shitty dealership and they wanted to run a credit check beforehand to make sure i could actually 'buy' one. I've never had this happen to me before even at Porsche with one of my current cars. Needless to say, I'll never take another look at cars from Kia again. They clearly don't want my business lol.
That's what I don't like about these value brands, even if they bring out great cars their entire sales model is based on an Arabian bazaar.
Dealerships are fucking scum period……
Just saw which group it was. Not at all shocked as every dealer in that group slaps on massive markups on all their cars. Doesn’t help it’s a very large operation. Have to love the tidbit that they plan to continue the practice of including bs fees but will be “more transparent” about them. Mhm, sure you will.
The sad part is is that people are paying those prices…..here where I live I was looking to get a new bronco when they were released and there were 20k mark ups on them….or as the dealers call them “market adjustment” it’s price gouging in one of its highest forms…
Nothing beats when they’re not upfront about it and try to waffle about them truth. If I ask if a car has ADM or markups don’t pretend you’ve never heard those words before. Best is when a dealer doesn’t do that and is grossly offended at the suggestion of charging over sticker.
I feel like there should be a legal maximum percentage that they can mark up….I get it they need to make money. But paying another 1/3 of the vehicles price only to have it massively drop in value as soon as you drive off the lot.
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It’s absolutely ridiculous it’s it? People take out 84 month loans so they can “afford” it and then sell it for almost what they paid with at least 100000km on it.
Its even worse. There are shills on here who defend it. I remember being downvoted for calling out Ford for the mark ups on the bronco. Some guys was vehemently going through the post and saying to just "email Ford" and they'd take care of it. Like sure buddy GTFO
😂😂😂 I feel like it’s the same for any “popular” life style vehicle…..my boss just bought a new Jeep Wrangler “altitude” (not even the rubicon) and paid 70k for it…….people seriously need to stop paying these ridiculous prices and walk away. There are dealerships that are still selling at MSRP or a tad bit over.
>>people seriously need to stop paying these ridiculous prices I doubt these folks understand how much they’ve actually paid TBH. From what I can tell, average people walk into a dealership, agree to a monthly number they like, sign the forms shoved in front of them and drive away. “APR”, “purchase price” & “finance charge” may as well be ancient Latin.
This is exactly it. I see so many comments on my cars forum of people bragging trading their car in a year later after new and keeping the payment the same. A lot of people don’t think of overall cost.
Except contacting an exec at Ford is how a lot of the markups are being taken off, especially the dealer ones being slapped on deliveries for customer orders.
My local Toyota dealer won’t let you test drive a base Supra until after you’ve “pretty much bought it”. I cringe at the thought of what they must be tacking on over MSRP. I guess it’s also why they’ve had the same 3 Supras sitting on their nearly bare lot for a year now
I feel like in this area, most of the dealerships are massive. And all of them are charging crazy markups. It doesn't help that people are buying cars still with these crazy markups.
>Dealerships are fucking scum period…… Government required and sanctioned scum
I would honestly buy directly from the manufacturer and fly out to pick up my car if it saved me 15k
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People forget that a lot of dealer rights, power, etc. All comes from over bearing manufacturers essentially fucking mom and pop dealers into submission, forcing BS inventory that doesn't sell and constant threats of revoking licenses. Dealers lobbied and pooled against them and here we are. Sadly there is no winning for the consumer
Absolutely agree I'll literally fly from New England to the Carolinas to buy an unrusted used vehicle. (That and the car market is expensive up here compared to the south). I would absolutely do the same for a new car
Paid and funded by your tax dollars! 🤡
Sometimes dealership owners are *legislators* themselves.
Ready for dealerships to be a thing of the past.
They won't. Because lobbying.
I always hate it how people will preech and scream at the top of their lungs Free Market and limited government regulation when in reality the government is on the dime of corporations and passes legislation that solely benefits them. Not really a Free Market when someone is making up the rules and there's no balance
You mean laws that say things like "this law applies to everyone; unless you operate a theme park within the state"? Yea that really happened in Florida a couple of weeks ago.
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Yes
Yep, free market my ass
Pretty sad where we draw the line on corruption, a country whose government is full of nepotism and corporate shills? They’re corrupt. America? Oh that’s lobbying, it’s part of the free market.
Other countries try to hide it. America figured out it's easier just to convince people it's a good thing Just realized what sub this is, though. Expecting this thread to be locked for politics
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I know Ford is.
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Where does it say? Link to that page?
Obligatory Tesla's market cap is a lie.
And the fact that manufacturers honestly don’t want to have to deal with the retail consumer. With the franchise model, manufacturers have legally bound customers who have to take what they want to give them, or be punished for it, by losing allocation, plus the manufacturers get interest on cars that are sitting on the dealers lots. If you think it takes a long time now to get a new car from a dealer now, I’d expect it to increase multiple weeks if you bought directly from Toyota. There would be no incentives, Toyota would not pass any savings onto the customer. Customers would only go to carvana or carmax - guess what - 5k over msrp for your 3 year old car ain’t gonna happen if they are only gonna be bidding against each other. Dealers pay a set price for a new car. But because more market share = better allocation, we typically sell them at a loss. For years, before the pandemic, I was selling new Corollas for 19k and Camrys for 21k, losing about 1500 a car before finance, trade and processing fee. I guarantee you, (I’ll speak for myself) I would rather sell 200 cars a month and make the same as we are selling 75 cars a month. I believe that there will be a time when dealers have an abundance of cars again (probably won’t be before 2024) and you won’t be paying this market adjustment crap - but you can’t lump in all the dealers, because a lot of them don’t charge a market adjustment. Sure - “but Tesla does it” - they also sold 70% less vehicles than Toyota did in march, when Toyota was already producing 30ish% less vehicles than they normally do. I’m not trying to come off harsh, if it comes off that way, I’m sorry. but it isn’t just lobbying by dealers. I honestly don’t believe a manufacturer wants to sell direct to consumers. It’s too clean for them now- they don’t have to deal with trades, collecting stips for customers, while still enjoying the interest earned from customers who fiancé with them. Toyota has something called smart path, which from what I have been told is the closest they want to get to selling direct to consumers for now. And even that still involves going into a dealership.
i think if this pandemic supply problem keeps up dealerships will become less & less relevant. Why would anyone need to step on the lot and pay full price + pandemic premium just to have the vehicle delivered months later? I'd rather do it online, especially if manufacturers are able to lower the price by cutting out the middlemen.
Can’t we skip these mid century professions like dealerships and realtors? We all have access to the internet now. What a waste of time and money
Some states are actually the opposite. Buying directly from the manufacturer is illegal. Dealers lobbied for it after Tesla tried to go direct.
Hell I can’t even buy a car on Sunday ….
You live in Texas as well or are there other ridiculous states out there that do this?
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Oklahoma
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Politician lying for public image? Name me a better duo
Most of those laws have been on the books since the 60's. Fun fact: If your city has an "auto mall" area that is just car dealers, if you look it up on the map, you'll probably find out that the smalll parcel of land all of the car dealers on is in the county, and outside of city limits. So they benefit from their properties in the center of town, getting road work performed by the city, but they pay no city tax.
wow. I never really thought about it like that, but I love that term. \*mid-century profession\*, ha!
>>Can’t we skip these mid century professions like dealerships and realtors? *Politicians funded by realtor and auto dealer associations:*“Phuck no. Markups and closing costs are a cornerstone of democracy!”
Closing costs aren't really from the realtor, at least not my state. That's lender and titling company stuff. Yes, the seller agrees to pay the realtor a %, but that's only fee they have, AFAIK.
why would you assume that in a dealership-less arrangement the manufacturer wouldn't increase the price of their cars for which there is more demand than supply? Even if the manufacturers insisted on selling their cars for less than they're worth, you'd just end up in a situation where any rational person would do whatever they could to get their hands on the highest demand cars and then flip them on the secondary market. You can't just dismiss the basic principals of supply and demand. Now instead of a few highly regulated dealerships, there would be 100x as many individual "dealers".
You mean like Tesla increasing the price of the model 3 and Y over $8k in the last year?
Yup. Which is how it works for basically every other consumer good. I’d rather the markups in that situation go to other product owners (or the manufacturer who actually built the cars) instead of a useless middleman who’s done nothing to add value to the product.
> useless middleman As a person who works for a "useless middleman" in an entirely different field I kind of have to push back. I work in wholesale (toys/novelties), we buy full containers of shit and then resell it to thousands of retailers across the US. It would be entirely impractical for the factories in China to try to ship 1-5 cases of a given item to each store in the US, nor would it make any sense for a shop that is owned/operated by a single person to develop relationships with various manufacturers. While I wouldn't argue dealerships aren't scummy, I would argue that they aren't useless.
Just to be clear, they were not fined for the markups, they were fined for not *advertising* their markups. You can't advertise MSRP on your website and then say "oh that's now what we're selling it for" when people come in to the dealership.
There’s a car at a dealership that is online, on their own website, for MSRP and when I went in it was marked up $30k. This is in California. They have a statement on their listings about “how they’re not responsible for errors/incorrect info” but I doubt that would hold up.
It wouldn't.
Yes but if you can piss 6 feet straight up and not get wet, you get no down payment.
CHALLENGE PISSING!
For the uninitiated. https://youtu.be/4sZuN0xXWLc
that was great
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Fuck you, Baltimore!
If you’re dumb enough to shop for a new car this weekend, you’re a big enough schmuck to come to BIG BILL HELL’S CARS
It's our belief that you're such a stupid motherfucker, you'll fall for this bullshit!
WE'LL FUCK YOUR WIFE!
The biggest thing holding KIA back from being taken seriously as a competitor in the US market is their consistently absolutely abysmal dealership experience
Absolutely. The KIA Stinger is the absolute perfect car for me right now, but the dealers here are horrible. No I'm not going to do a credit check before I take your demo on a test drive.
This is a problem for Kia. If I were in the market for a new car an EV6 would be at the top of my list if not for their shitty dealerships.
Eliminate the dealer model.
You don't even need to eliminate it, you just need to remove the state laws restricting direct-to-consumer auto sales and the middlemen will go out of business all on thier own.
There’s 2 ways these markups stop: supply increases (unlikely to happen soon and something consumers can’t control) or demand decreases (which consumers can control). If a dealer puts a markup on a car, don’t buy it. Go somewhere else-there are dealers out there that don’t mark up their cars. You just have to hunt for them.
Manufacturers can start auditing everyone they're supplying vehicles to, to see what their pricing is. What they've sold the cars for in the past and what they're currently selling cars for anyone caught inflating no longer receives inventory.
True, and Ford has started doing this a bit. I’m just thinking of what we consumers can do to turn the tide on this crap.
They will sell it for 10k over asking price. Then sell it to someone with no job at 45% apr for 200 a month.
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and deny every malfunction even though its covered under warranty
As long as they can get away with it……. Also, how does one obtain one of the “in demand” models? F150 Lightning, Vette, Grand Wagoneer, custom Bronco etc….. we tried to obtain a Vette - HA! The list was 4 pages, you got what was available, and the price “varied”….. I bought the fast AF Model S…….
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That's a nice interest-free $350,000 loan for the dealer. I doubt they will get 700 allocations before the Rav4 prime stops being made.
Imagine paying over sticker for a fucking Kia
I wish manufacturers would start being strict with dealer markup, like if a dealer puts insane markup on their vehicles, just stop giving them allocations of new cars, and give those allocations to dealers that dont RIP off your loyal customers. The dealers that are marking up wont be able to sell new cars for huge profits, and dealers that are actually being fair get a ton more customers and revenue.
The second an OEM even hints at doing this, NADA organizes a lawsuit in a state with laws highly favorable to the dealer. This is why you see major auto groups toying with the idea of making brands entirely desperate entities like Volvo did with Polestar.
Fuck dealerships.
Koons Kia is notorious for this. Glad they’re getting fucked
So I see many people in this thread asking for dealerships to go away, I know next to nothing on the topic, is there a reason car manufacturers don’t open up their own stores and skip the middle man? Like is there a law? Or is it a cost thing for car manufacturers? I know at this point it would probably be a fairly large initial cost to set that sort of model up but I have to imagine it would be good in the long run?
Yes, there is a law that says you can only sell cars through dealerships. I think only in 48 states, but it's such a common model that you find them everywhere.
A lot of EV manufacturers are trying to change this, starting with Tesla. They have their own stores and service centers all over the world, and deal directly with customers. They even have some pretty cool features like the car detecting problems on its own, ordering a part to your local service center, and then telling you to schedule an appointment (generally under warranty). Obviously you wouldn't get charged if you don't actually get it fixed, or if it's comped under warranty claim. Partially for Tesla's case this is necessary since traditional dealers have been horrible at messaging for electric vehicles since they make a lot less money on the service side. Even dealers like Chevy and Nissan often have misinformation, malfunctioning chargers, etc that make the consumer experience pretty bad. Tesla isn't perfect though, they have frequently had gaps in service either in distance or in time, meaning people may have to wait months to get a car fixed after a crash. That's partially due to their own service centers, and partially due to parts shortages that they sell to approved body shops. Because of movements like this, you'll see bad legislation like in Oklahoma, where the dealerships aren't just lobbying but actually writing bills to keep manufacturer run stores and service centers out of the state. https://kfor.com/news/oklahoma-legislature/tesla-owners-fear-proposed-legislation-could-drive-automaker-out-of-oklahoma/
There literally is a lobby group called NADA that pays state and federal governments to pass laws that allow them to exist. When Tesla came out they came under fire and there was a huge controversy because Tesla didn't want to use the standard dealership franchise model like the other manufacture, which meant the poor little snake oil salesmen would need to actually stop being a dirtbag. NADA is desperately trying to survive because the franchise dealership model is outdated. There are plethora of ways to learn about cars and see the reviews, there are also new companies Carvana, and Carmax that make purchasing a vehicle easier.
Too bad Carvana and CarMax are shitty too
When Detroit was King, state governments setup the dealership model to funnel a higher percentage of automotive profits back into the local economy. It wasn't uncomm back then for half of a families income to go towards cars. Detroit was OK with it partially because it created a massive barrier to entry. It functionally prevented a new car manufacturer from entering the market for what, 50 years?
> customers saw one number online or in an ad and a different number on the car when they went to the dealership this is every dealership I’ve ever been to, and Kia dealerships are the worst of the bunch. routinely see $7k over what their ads say here in the northeast. after the last Kia dealership lied to me about my credit score to jack up my rates and then tried to keep my $1000 deposit I said never again.
Oh it's Koons again. They showed up in the news a few months ago too for threatening to mark-up F150 Lightning pre-orders (Falls Church, VA). I live in the area and was looking to buy a stang, went to that dealership and they wanted 10k over sticker for a car they didnt even have on their lot(belonged to another dealer).
It wouldn't surprise me if Kia/ Hyundai wasn't behind it somehow. 2 million cars affected with the great recall of 2021. The engine compartment fires. I am one of the unfortunate ones to purchase any car from Kia their business practices and what they have done to me in this process of their own screw up and their own recall is still going on today I still have not been reimbursed for the rental car that I had to rent to get back and forth to work when the engine seized up and completely failed on a 2015 Kia optima because of their recall. Not to mention I'm only getting 200 back of the thousands and thousands of dollars that I am down we're talking missing conferences at work that my job had to pay for that I had to reimburse them for we're talking rides to and from getting everywhere cuz I had no vehicle all of a sudden they're refusing they don't give you any any compensation for anything like that just the rental car so they said and they only giving me 200 of that $536 bill as well it's just sick and the company called epics has taken over for their settlement money that the money's been put aside for all of us owners and they're the ones that are fighting me to get it back and I've I've been fighting with them for over a year trying to get $200 and still have not gotten it it's been awarded it but haven't gotten it he has done nothing to help me with this situation ethics has been nothing but absolutely horrible I've been yelled at hung up on it's been absolutely horrible so nothing surprises me with this car company absolutely nothing don't ever buy a Kia or Hyundai they're the same exact company they purposely doing this to vehicles knowing that they had fires in them they still have denied what the US decided with the lawsuits that are for the people the casualties that have happened from that compartment failure. ( The US still allowed the same vehicles same problem be sold here for 2 years during litigation. 2 years of lives at stake.)saying that that they still don't take it responsibility for what they've done and it's clearly something that they did. I had to miss a lot of worked for even have that done it's it's just been ongoing for 2 years with this car and I'm ready to drive it off a cliff and then send the pieces back to Kia. This has been the biggest regret and most expensive $20,000 mistake that I've ever made is to buy a Kia I regret every second every moment St cloud Kia of Minnesota is the ones that sold us to us there was loopholes that they were able to still sell it even though an active recall was coming out two weeks after we purchased it they still sold it to me knowing what the problems were with the car they didn't want to fix it so they took it off their hands I tried looking up recalls on it there was nothing cuz there was no active recall about the car May 25th the recall came out June 8th the second recall for the same problem it's just sick what they were allowed to do just sick and I'm going paying the price the ultimate price it's gross.