Car dealerships are price gouging customers: survey

how does one define gouging? is it a legal principle?

 

i call it supply and demand. unethical? we're talking about car dealers, aren't we?

 

m Suggested rp,, i noticed some dealers here started using SRP when charging more than msrp

 

We tried & tried & tried & tried to get a RAV4 Prime - fully optioned. but . . . . . . .
it ended w/ a big fight between the better ½ & i ... as she thought it was possible get these creep sales skumbags to drop the $5,000 above MSRP - after they told us they're selling at msrp. we drove an HOUR to get there there. it took over 4 decades before buying another chevy after the Vega debacle that burned us. Toyota has lost similar good will.
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We might be in our last car. Thank God…

 

I tried for several months to break my 30-year long Toyota boycott, but the SE Toyota group saved the day.
Pay $5k over MSRP or buy domestic and pay below MSRP.

Seemed pretty obvious to me.

According to the wikis, 'price gouging' is:
"...the practice of increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair. Usually, this event occurs after a demand or supply shock."
Seems to be a pretty fair definition to me, but then the obvious next question is....what do we do now?
Demand price controls?
In the US, our domestic manufacturers just got hit in the teeth with a fairly hefty labour increase, and we are either entering a period of high inflation or departing from a generation of low inflation - depending on who you ask.

I voted with my wallet.
My latest purchase replaces a 2009 GMC - so I guess I will see in another 15 years or so if I will ever get another Toyota.

 

The last Toyota I bought, a 2017 Prius Prime, I flew to Rhode Island to buy and drive it 1,200 mi home. My first Prius, a 2003, I flew to Ft. Worth to buy and drive 800 mi home. Hummm, my second Prius, a new 2010, I got from going to the Detroit Auto Show.

My late wife and I bought only two of five from the local SE Toyota dealer, a 1991 Camry and 2001 Echo. Even so, it took three visits before the sales manager found what we wanted and had it shipped from Florida. Then there are the unwanted port 'options'. <GERRRRR>

Bob Wilson

 

I have a similar experience with the Southeast Toyota Group as the two previous post describe.

Really wanted a Prius Prime in May of 2019. I have driven Toyotas for over 40 years.

I live in an area that has only Toyota Southeast Dealers.

Southeast Toyota says we don't sell Prius Primes.

I asked if they would order one for me, Southeast Toyota said -no.

Ended up buying a PHEV that is a competitor to Toyota's Prius Prime.

I do hope Southeast Toyota Division has finally got its head out of the sand regarding Plug in Hybrids and EV's and is currently putting their customers and their customers desires first.

Previously I have had great experiences buying Toyota vehicles - the problems for me came when I wanted a PHEV from a Southeast Division Toyota Dealership.

 

but there IS a working solution that doesn't require intervention per se from the feds ... and it has worked.
the manufacturers have tried - with some success - to run 'em outa town when its method gets implemented.
Maybe folks have heard of them? they're primarily run by some guy called Elon iirc


Not everyone in sales is a scumbag but a reputation comes when too many are. CNN documented a great example

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i spent all summer researching vehicles. finally wound up with new hycam and bolt, both at msrp.

do i miss the days of cars sitting on the lots and dealers willing to negotiate? sure, doesn't everyone want a good deal? but like everything else in life, it is what it is, and it's not illegal.

i don't see anyone calling the crazy run up of home prices price gouging, but maybe i missed it?

as for a certain person named elon, he doesn't sell above msrp, or below msrp. he does adjust pricing to market though, the same thing really, and he does employ misleading advertising/marketing

 

I think you would be described as an educated buyer who did his homework and was in control of the process of buying a vehicle rather than being controlled by the process.

 

People who are uneducated buyers and/or those not in control of the car buying process have no business complaining about getting shanked by the dealers.

MSRP is an abbreviation for "manufacturer's suggested retail price."
Just like chicken nuggets, fingernail polish, houses, and everything else in life.
It's essentially the "zillow' price of a car.
The solution would be....not mess with it.
The market is pretty good at sorting these things out.
One of the reasons that I just bought my 6th GMC in a row, knowing that I will almost certainly get 150,000+ miles on it without having to repair anything on it is because about 20-30 years ago union made, domestics were festering piles of crap.

Whenever I get drug into one of those goofy "climate change" arguments, I don't have to do baseball statistical arguments about this study, or that finding, or argue about the anthropogenic component, or GDP versus carbon throughput 'fairness.'
Nope.
All I have to do is pretend to accept the fiction that the climate has never changed until humans came along, then ask my interlocutor if getting the government involved in the 'solution' would make things better.....or worse?

I even have a real-world 'don't let this happen to YOU' example!

Covid!

mic drop.

 

No one who finished high school believes or says seriously the climate has never changed. People believe human activity affects the rate of climate change. Seems pretty obvious it would. So the government is the main body that uses money for the greater good. Stopped ww2 etc.

 

STOPPING a war IS money well spent.
So is money spent for high school history teachers that actually spend most of their time teaching history instead of coaching basketball or football.

We didn't actually STOP Dubbaya Dubbaya Deuce.
THAT would have been much cheaper than having to actually fight it
Instead one of the more racist and misogynistic of our US Presidents (and, admittedly one of the smartest!) actually wiped his backside with the US Constitution and flouted numerous laws to TRY to stop it, and he probably saved us a lot of pain and suffering along the way.
Interesting that, 85 years after Kristallnacht and almost exactly 105 years after the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month we still fail to see that it's cheaper to stop wars earlier rather than later, if not easier.

 

Interesting you mentioned ‘history’ as both high school and college courses effectively ended with WW-1.

Bob Wilson

 

Doubly so since America's last 'existential' threat occurred over 50 years earlier during the Civil Wah.

Happy Veteran's Day.

 

It depends on the use of the word stopped. Stopped can be anytime. I think what happened initially in ww2 was England and the US needed to build up weapons and forces. I think Chamberlain gets a bad rap. Maybe in the evening I’ll read about it again instead of watching something dumb on tv. Not adverse to learning a different view. Whats going on now internally is worse imo. I think we will go with keeping the US intact. Hope so, it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to the US in it’s history, imo.

 

yes he git a bad rap & rightly so. The naive/virtuous think people want to be as peaceful as they are if given the chance. chamberlin's peace at all cost simply let facists better prepare for their next attack. on the subject of history - it's now repeating itself .... as Solomon wants wrote there's nothing new under the sun. the naive/virtue signaling will not grasp that the Islam-o fascists will better prepare - if they can negotiate a cease fire/pause.
Apologies for responding to the OT
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