Car dealerships. They are awful on purpose. In many places car manufacturers are not legally allowed to sell their cars directly to customers, in order to create what is essentially legally mandated car dealerships, which all suck.
My younger coworker was just super stoaked that he only paid $3000 over MSRP for his new car. They gave him a year of oil changes and undercoat for free though!
Everything I’ve read said it had very little to do with concern for the consumer. As I understand it, car dealerships lobbied for these laws because, according to them, the manufacturers were being anti-competative and squeezing car dealers out of business. So the laws were passed to protect “small” dealers from big car manufacturers, not to protect the consumers.
But now they use that ubiquity to get higher prices through shady tactics. It needs changed again, this time in favor of the consumer.
A lot of these laws were created very recently. It was a response to Tesla’s business model. That was the main argument used this time as well, and it’s not wrong.
It is entirely about taxes. By making the sale in your state/town the government gets a cut. If it was manufacturer direct Michigan would have no income tax and have jetpacks for everyone.
Disagree. The States will find a way to tax the sale based on destination. The states can move to a different registration/property tax model to recapture the sales tax. See also online shopping sales tax changes.
It’s entirely about lobbying by autodealer trade groups.
Dealerships provide local points of contact from which the government can collect taxes and ensure local regulations are being met. They suck but they exist for a reason.
They aren’t trying to swindle anyone. You can literally ask the salesperson to explain the math to you. I have sold cars before and I promise you we aren’t getting trained to screw you that is done by the customer of their own volition. For the dealership it was always best to get you into the cheapest car that you could afford as that made for the most likely deal. People who get screwed either are not paying attention to the math which I would explain if asked.
Dealerships used to be able to screw you over easily but that was before the internet gave customers the ability to know everything about a car. That forced a lot of changes.
Car dealerships. They are awful on purpose. In many places car manufacturers are not legally allowed to sell their cars directly to customers, in order to create what is essentially legally mandated car dealerships, which all suck.
My younger coworker was just super stoaked that he only paid $3000 over MSRP for his new car. They gave him a year of oil changes and undercoat for free though!
Yeesh.
Man, I am so tired of feeling broke all the time… But I’d still rather get a used car than do that.
My mom bought out her lease because it was less than half the cost of buying that same car used. Pre-Covid you would never buy out your lease.
Cars in general are a scam
I want to hear the excuse they made for this
Back when many of these laws were created, car manufacturers were way worse than franchise dealerships for the consumer.
Everything I’ve read said it had very little to do with concern for the consumer. As I understand it, car dealerships lobbied for these laws because, according to them, the manufacturers were being anti-competative and squeezing car dealers out of business. So the laws were passed to protect “small” dealers from big car manufacturers, not to protect the consumers.
But now they use that ubiquity to get higher prices through shady tactics. It needs changed again, this time in favor of the consumer.
I forgot, nothing is ever done for the consumer.
Because monopoly is the way to solve things :)
A lot of these laws were created very recently. It was a response to Tesla’s business model. That was the main argument used this time as well, and it’s not wrong.
It is entirely about taxes. By making the sale in your state/town the government gets a cut. If it was manufacturer direct Michigan would have no income tax and have jetpacks for everyone.
Disagree. The States will find a way to tax the sale based on destination. The states can move to a different registration/property tax model to recapture the sales tax. See also online shopping sales tax changes.
It’s entirely about lobbying by autodealer trade groups.
to protect JOBS probably
Car dealership owners are a pretty big lobby, at least 20% of them are making 1.5m/y and tend to be very involved in local politics.
https://eml.berkeley.edu/~yagan/Capitalists.pdf
Dealerships provide local points of contact from which the government can collect taxes and ensure local regulations are being met. They suck but they exist for a reason.
There are ways to do that that don’t include a middleman that tries to legally swindle customers
They aren’t trying to swindle anyone. You can literally ask the salesperson to explain the math to you. I have sold cars before and I promise you we aren’t getting trained to screw you that is done by the customer of their own volition. For the dealership it was always best to get you into the cheapest car that you could afford as that made for the most likely deal. People who get screwed either are not paying attention to the math which I would explain if asked.
Dealerships used to be able to screw you over easily but that was before the internet gave customers the ability to know everything about a car. That forced a lot of changes.