gmanusmc

Yes - watching how this develops will be interesting to say the least. I just don't see how you test it in just a fraction of the dealers and get an accurate assessment. The way we buy vehicles now is a product of how car sellers chose to sell their product - I am not sure reversing course now is going to work so well.

I guess we will see.

mmarshall

If you want to find out, try getting help at Walmart's LOL.

SW17LS

Wouldn't know, I've never been in a Walmart

For me I hate the idea of no haggling, because I can always negotiate a great deal. For most consumers this is a win.

LexBob2

It will be interesting to see where these test dealerships are. I was wondering if they'd place them in various geographic areas around the country to see where consumers might warm up to the concept more than other areas etc.

Rudiculous

iTrader: (15)

Carmax much?

Rebirthing

Not gonna work.... bad move, Lexus

gmanusmc

Sold some cars to them but never bought any from them.

Not really sure you can transpose the carmax business model to make it work across all vehicle manufacturers - it seems to be in a class of its own.

S2000toIS350

I would miss haggling

The Tesla thing is a turn off. No play on the car price. I asked how they a treat trade in and I was told they are at the low end and that you may just want to go to Car Max. I guess they really aren't in the used car business at this point for brands other than Teslas.

Back to haggling. I recently got a pair of nice speakers (Wharfedale Jade 3). I was able to use a 10% sale offer to start, then asked for a second discount and got that and then said I would pick them up instead of taking the free shipping and got a third discount.

And then there is Real Estate haggling. I am working on buying another apartment building. I started $300k under ask, the guy came down $100K, I offered another $25K and he came down another $20K. Since i don't have to have the building I am just letting him stew to see what more he is willing to give up.

If car buying ends up not haggle at least I will have still have the fun from doing it with Real Estate.

semar

Looking back to the sixties in Germany there was no haggling.
The car (VW, Opel, Ford, Mercedes) with this equipment cost xxxx
An neutral mechanical engineering firm established the value of your trade in and that was it.The certificate was valid for a few days and you could use it to buy any new car
So where did customers go to? To the ones who had the best aftersale service. Top notch mechanics, excellent workmanship.
Sale is only the first step. MSR prices are that - only a suggestion. Who knows what the real value is? Incentives, rebates, quotas, muddle the field for the majority.
I would be happy to know that my Lexus with this equipment cost xxx no matter at which dealership I would buy rather than running all over the country to find a "good" deal and then let the dealership drop

starbai

iTrader: (1)

Meh... well guess I'll be jumping ship once my lease is up.

I dont like the haggling process any better than anyone else, but thats what it takes to get a good deal. Taking the haggling process out doesn't mean you get a good deal, it means ur screwed before you even begin. I can see it working for some people but this guy isn't one of em'.

AMNss

It is a way to sell at MSRB without any effort from the dealer in offering better price. They do it in my country which makes finding the car cheaper than MSRB much harder, as you have to buy it from distributors of the dealers and from dealers of the neighboring countries.

FrOHiKE

The Gunn family of dealerships in San Antonio have done this for over a decade and they've been very successful. They have a range of makes including Acura, Infiniti, Nissan, etc.

JDR76

Just because they're testing out a new pricing model in 12 dealerships?

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. As I posted in the bigger thread about this in Car Chat, I ended up quite liking it back in 2001 when I bought my Saturn, and again in 2006 when I bought my Scion. While you can't negotiate the sale price, there are still rebates and sales, and you can negotiate great trade in values. In both of those purchases, I was able to get FAR more for my trades (well over blue book) than I could get at dealerships with traditional price modeling.

tex2670

Right--price fixing is when multiple companies all get together and agree that something will be sold at a certain price. If all of the DEALERS got together, and agreed on a certain sale price, that would be price fixing. But the manufacturer setting prices for its distribution chain isn't price fixing.

I shopped for a Highlander a few years ago, and called a dealer about an hour from me who told me they had moved to a no-haggle pricing model. Their "no-haggle" price was the highest quote I had--and that was without back-and-forth; I'm talking each dealer's initial price quote (and I spoke to 10 or 12 dealers). Maybe there just weren't very many dealers near them in Easton, PA. Who knows if it worked out for them.

GS3Tek

iTrader: (8)

So if there's no haggling involved, then there's no need for the salesman/woman/person to "see what my manager will say", right???

Not every lexus dealer will be participating, so the other dealers will have a chance to beat the "no haggle" dealer.

ALL the lexus dealers have to be on board, otherwise this is a fail already (like tex2670 mentioned above).