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Car Dealers vs. Consumers: Make Your Voice Heard - YAA (joinyaa.com)
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Would love to see dealers go by the way of the Dodo bird. extinct!

 

Dealers will never go away because they're essential. Even Telsa has dealers err Service Centers. All we want is factory backed dealerships (like Tesla) and cut out the franchise owners like Penske, AutoNation etc..

 

Buyers will just pay more for their cars Unfortunately

 

That's an unfortunate side effect yes, losing the power of haggling. At the same time, it be nice to know that whatever car I want is the same price regardless of which store I go to. But personally I want to deal with Lexus the company for my sales and service needs, not Walton's Lexus of Concord.

 

You can buy a Lexus with no haggle, the service exists...or just pay MSRP. Problem solved.

Dealing with just Lexus the company reduces your choices as a consumer. Multiple dealers competing for your patronage makes more sense.

 

It's not uniform enough nationwide for my taste. I love the Apple Store model. As I've mentioned in another thread. Franchise dealers aren't going away anytime soon, too much vested in them for Legacy Automakers. If Ford or any automaker wanted to have factory stores they would have years of legal battles and settlements regarding the franchisee. Roger Penske certainly would oppose my views.

 

Why is that? what makes it better buying from an Apple store compared to Best Buy?

 

Because I'm not dealing with a 3rd party. The folks who work at Apple stores are Apple Employees. If something goes wrong I'm going to deal straight with Apple. I would prefer to buy my Lexus's from Lexus and my Ford's from Ford. You don't have to agree with my opinion, but you can respect it.

 

Several years ago, Lexus rolled out a fixed price-no haggle model in some dealerships (I don't recall what it was called). Did that concept ever expand? I think initially it was around 10 dealerships. You don't hear anything about it these days.

 

I do respect your viewpoint, that’s why I’m asking the questions . Hear me out….the return policy is longer at Costco than at Apple Stores…by 45 days also some money is given back to the buyer when membership renewal come up….Best Buy price matches the same apple product. All Apple products are warranted at Apple Stores….the consumer wins with all these choice options…. It’s fine to want to deal with Lexus directly, I get that….but let’s say person one pays MSRP at Lexus.com and person B pays MSRP at Lexus of San Jose dealer …. The dealer throws in Sharks tickets for the NHL home opener or a free car washes for the warranty period. The consumer wins with more competition.

 

That's part of what made Saturn such an enormous success in its first decade. It failed in the second decade, not because of that policy, but because of gross mismanagement on GM's part, and because of diverting away from the plastic-bodied vehicles that were also part of that success.

 

I don't understand why this is the assumption.

If a dealer pays the manufacture X for a vehicle, and MSRP is X+Y, and the dealer charges the customer (during non-chip shortage times) X+Z (where Z is less than Y), why would you assume that if you buy direct from the manufacturer, that a customer will be charged X+Y in a direct purchase, rather than X+Z.

Stated differently, why do you assume that Teslas would cost more if there were independent dealers?

If everyone charged a fair, no-haggle price, the market should adjust to the "fair market price" for the product.

I know that Saturn was dead and buried, but I had one. There was a no-haggle price that was competitive (better) than the negotiated prices for Civics and Sentras at the time (the models I was comparison shopping). I realize Saturn was not direct purchase, but Saturn had to set a fair price so that individual dealers could make money to pay dealership operating costs.

If -- BIG IF -- the market moved in the direction of direct manufacturer purchase, I fail to see why consumers would automatically pay more?

 

This is just a gimmick. Just like dealers that give away a flat screen TV with the purchase. Nosebleed hockey tix that cost the dealer $150? Please - take the price off the car instead.

 

Claiming an intermediary, which takes a slice of the pie, decreases prices defies the most basic economics.