Stopped by the dealer today

[dstairs]

Originally Posted by Hylton

Well if selling Camaros is so money losing, your dealership should pass on them and start loading up the yard with used Cobalts. I'm sure GM will have no problem getting rid of your allocation.

First off to clarify something. We are selling to our customers at MSRP. Which is by the way the SUGGESTED SELLING PRICE given by GM, thus the term MSRP. Second of all, I gave real life examples of what a dealer makes on a car deal, when selling at MSRP and also at GMS or Supplier, I personally have no problem waiting until the market value of the Camaro drops below MSRP so I can purchase at GM Dealership pricing, I do not think that selling one at GMS or Supplier is a sound business choice when they are in huge demand unless you have a lot of allocations, which we do not have. I will not purchase one now that will leave one less for the dealer to sell and make money on. We are a small dealership, with an Owner that stated he is not laying off a single employee even if he loses money. 40 years in a community with employees that are loyal and in some cases worked here for over 30 years makes me feel that my owner deserves to be profitable, it is not a dirty word.

And I will repeat myself, not a single person in this forum could afford to take a job that equals or has more expenses than they earn in salary or wages, so why would anyone expect a dealer to just break even on the Hottest Selling car in the market?

[dstairs]

Originally Posted by hb-rocks

Thought we had dealers advertising here on the site they sell for MSRP or below and you can purchase through them and have the car drop-shipped to your local dealer for about $250?

$250 dollars would assist the dealer that delivers the car to the customer, to have the car PDI'ed (Pre Delivery Inspection), detailed and of course have a sales rep do a quality delivery of about 45 minutes going over all the features and benefits of the car(ONstar activation, setting up personal settings, going over the manuals and other materials, etc. That would be a fair compensation. I deliverd a a loaded up Corvette for a man who was moving to Texas from Michigan, he purchased his car in MI and had it dropped shipped in Texas, I thought it was a great plan on his part, more to do with logistics than pricing, but his dealer paid us to inspect, make ready and deliver to their customer. I am sure they would return the favor to us as well.

[Treadstone]

You don't even have to pay for the Camaro advertisement. Order the car, hold it on your lot, and people will flock (and hopefully buy another car instead).

[Scott@Bjorn3D]

Yeah I saw the dealer invoice for my car and the V-6 car they got and they only make like 900.00 total on the car if they sell it at MSRP.

[Hylton]

Originally Posted by Scott@Bjorn3D

Yeah I saw the dealer invoice for my car and the V-6 car they got and they only make like 900.00 total on the car if they sell it at MSRP.

There's more to the dealers back pocket than just the invoice. PDI, financing charges and interest credits get them additional coin. If they hook you up with financing, they are grabbing 2 points for themselves.

[RottNCrzy]

Originally Posted by Mr. T

The dealers are only making $850.00 and that inludes dealer hold back. GM is realy screwing the dealers.

Are you crazy they make more than that or they would'nt sell them .....

[PAUL SS]

So if $34,000 msrp Camaros were NOT selling would dealers be placing ads in the newspapers showing multiple discounts with a discounted price of $28,500?

I see ads all the time for Impalas and Malibus that are seriously discounted. If they were making only a little profit at msrp, how are they making money on discounted cars.

How does this work? If Camaros aren't selling next year, do they jack up the msrp so they can then offer a discount? How does this work?

[Bungo]

Originally Posted by RottNCrzy

Are you crazy they make more than that or they would'nt sell them .....

actually he's not that crazy. Most dealerships make more money on service, parts, and used cars than on new cars. Especially brand new cars that are high in demand. With those cars there is not alot of hold back (money if they actually sell the car at invoice) or incentive money (spiffs for selling a certain model in a certain month or quarter) With MANY new cars the mark up can be less than 2K or even less than 1K. Dealers have the ability to add on dealer installed options ($$$ in hand pretty much) or they can work with the financing dept for a little more money on the back end (still not much)

They make more in used cars due to the fact that they can pay 7-8K for a Cobalt or a Civic and then charge KBB for it and make some good money off of them.

The parts department! dont get me started there. You can have a full day of just body orders if you have enough customers in local collision repair shops. Hell I've had 6-10K dollar days (sales) roughly once a week for a few months to my best collision shop customers.

So quite a bit of dealership money does not come from the showroom. Honestly the best people to ask about the new cars sometimes aren't even in the showroom, they're at the parts counters or doing the services on the cars. Those people usually attend more training on the new cars anyway.

[themossman]

Originally Posted by dstairs

That is really stretching it saying the Dealer makes 3k on a loaded up 2SS. You would have to not pay your advertising, and include the holdback. Oh and not pay the sales Manager or the Salesperson, or the Tech or the service manager, or detail person, the office staff that does the title work and so on and so on. Hold back pays for the lights and salary of non commissioned sales people. The gross of slightly more than 1200 on a fully loaded SS2 pays the commisions of the sales team, you can make more profit on a $10k Used Cobalt than on a $40K SS2 Camaro. Dealers are not making huge profits selling at MSRP, I am sorry that is just so silly to make such a statement.

Hylton didn't say 3k PROFIT...he said it could make them 3K...so it wasn't a silly statement.

[Sterling]

Originally Posted by Paul SS

So if $34,000 msrp Camaros were NOT selling would dealers be placing ads in the newspapers showing multiple discounts with a discounted price of $28,500?

I see ads all the time for Impalas and Malibus that are seriously discounted. If they were making only a little profit at msrp, how are they making money on discounted cars.

How does this work? If Camaros aren't selling next year, do they jack up the msrp so they can then offer a discount? How does this work?

Those cars have maunfacturer's rebates available, which aren't available on the Camaro right now. It's from GM not the dealership. Also if you check the ad closely, a lot of times they include your downpayment in the discounted price in the fine print, making it look like a better deal. You might start seeing those rebates on the Camaro when they start producing the 2011 model.

[Shadowmind]

Originally Posted by Mr. T

The dealers are only making $850.00 and that inludes dealer hold back. GM is realy screwing the dealers.

I call serious BS on this one....

[Shadowmind]

Originally Posted by dstairs

And I will repeat myself, not a single person in this forum could afford to take a job that equals or has more expenses than they earn in salary or wages, so why would anyone expect a dealer to just break even on the Hottest Selling car in the market?

Again... I call BS.

First off, lets talk about economics here....

Exactly how many vehicles does your dealership sell per month? You said you were small, so let me take a guess... 30 per month (Im thinking thats high). By what you're saying, your owner only gets 800ish per car sale. So your dealer is making ~ 24,000 per month in sales. Again, your dealership is small, so you wouldn't staff it heavy. Lets say... 1 owner salary, 1 GMS, 2 Sales, 1 cashier, 1 secretary, 2 mechanics (we'll be generous and state that finance pays their own salary). Lets avg those salaries to $2500 per month + labor overhead of 20% = 3k per labor unit. That's 24k per month in labor. Already your upside down. But now throw in lot lease @ 5k per month (very generous), and overhead bills of ~2k (lights, etc).

Im generalizing all of this, but its pretty obvious that @ ~ $800-$1200 per vehicle, your dealer is loosing their shorts on a monthly basis. WHY... would anyone ever consider starting a business with those kinds of numbers?

How exactly are many of the dealers in even the smallest towns, family ran for multiple generations, where those families tend to be filthy rich, if the mark up for a car sale is that low....

Sirs... I again, call major BS...

The holdback alone for a 40k 2SS is $1200

[Shadowmind]

To the OP...

Your supplier discount would have only been ~ $1k-$1.2k. If the original dealer was going to let it go for 1K under the MSRP, you should have jumped on it, johnny-on-the-spot and had him build it, pay for it, and get a sale contract. Walking out gave him a cooldown period which is what screwed you.

IMO, and I hate to say this, but sounds like a case of the buyer being a little greedy.

[dstairs]

Originally Posted by themossman

Hylton didn't say 3k PROFIT...he said it could make them 3K...so it wasn't a silly statement.

If the dealer sold the car at $39,999 his take would be $39,999 using your logic, LOL I think he was referring to profit when he says they make 3k