car dealers never lose :-)

Post #210,135 by boxley 6/6/05 9:18:17 PM Reply	car dealers never lose :-) but they depend on you thinking that they do. A new car on the lot is leased by the dealer until sold. He only has a couple of hundred into each machine. Now you cut mightily into his profits but he still turns a car and you are another satisfied customer. thanx, bill All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett [link\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/] Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #210,142 by ben_tilly 6/6/05 9:48:01 PM Reply	He lost according to Toyota's figures I explained the game briefly above. Here's a longer explanation. The dealer doesn't control the mix of cars they get. So they deliberately take a loss on some lines to move them and justify getting more profitable lines in stock. Looked at another way, since the dealer doesn't control what is in a shipment, they juggle their internal notion of the prices to be able to sell the whole shipment faster. According to what Toyota says the price to the dealer was, the dealer lost money. According to the internal shell game, the dealer made money. As long as their internal prices add up to the cost of the shipment, and they clear the whole shipment at about the same time, they can afford to play by these internal figures. If they have lines where they can charge absurd prices and sell them as fast as they come in, the internal figures are going to be much more profitable than Toyota's figures. It sucks to look for a Prius at that dealer. It is great to look for a Corolla or Camry. Even with complete access to the dealer's books, you'll never know where you can begin bargaining. (From the dealer's point of view, yet another reason to use their figures rather than Toyota's.) Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #210,154 by dws 6/6/05 10:46:31 PM Reply	Re: He lost according to Toyota's figures Congratulations. I saw a lot of the dealer's side of that shell game when I was growing up. Ford shipped most of their dealers the same mix of cars, whether or not, for one example, convertables where selling in Midwest in December when there was a foot of snow on the ground. Dealers trade among themselves, but it's expensive to ship cars. Better for the dealer to take a loss on a few of the slow sellers. The standard advice^* my Dad, the ex Ford and Toyota dealer, hands out is to keep up with oil changes (even if you do 'em yourself), and to watch your tire pressure. Low tire pressure can throw off the alignment, which leads to more expensive problems. --- ^* His other advise, FWIW, is that almost all car problems can be resolved by removing the gas cap. Then, with the cap removed, drive a new car in under the cap, and put the cap back on the new car.

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