Lots of interesting discussion here. After some back and forth from the opposite perspectives, this comment did strike me:
I think this guy has a fair point. In a way the independent or franchised dealership is an anachronism but in another sense, you can use them as a tool. If the dealership as we know them was out of the picture, what would the price of cars be? MSRP? Invoice? Something else? The purchase of new cars is one of the last things that the consumer actually has real negotiating power over. One could argue that it is not right that a savvy consumer gets a better deal than a non-savvy consumer...ok, if I work harder and have more education, is it "right" that I get a better deal (on life) than someone who doesn't work as hard and has less education? Or is that perhaps the entire point of our economic system?This is ridiculous. I’ve worked in the industry for 5 years, and the fact that prices are negotiable puts the advantage in the customer’s hands far more often than not.
People will gladly walk into Best Buy and pay 50%+ markup on a $3,000 TV, but treat dealerships like criminals for trying to hold onto $1,000 profit on a $55,000 truck, then they demand free accessories with a threat of taking their business to one of your many competitors.
Also, you seem to not know anything about how factory rebates work, and the distinction between the manufacturer and the dealership. “End of month pricing” can absolutely be a real thing. People who roll their eyes when told about this on the last day of the month crack me up, because they often cost themselves a lot of money. There are also *absolutely* rebates that don’t work on demo vehicles.
People like you come into a dealership with your emotional boxing gloves on, sneering at our efforts to make your experience simple and comfortable, thinking you’re justified…we all just laugh.
With new car buying, if you get screwed, you really do have only yourself to blame. The information is WIDELY available and knowing basic math (remember that education thing) would prevent you from signing something that you don't understand. On the other hand, it is morally wrong for a salesman to intentionally deceive someone on the hopes that they do not catch the tricks. This point alone could be its own discussion - where is the line? Again, in Best Buy, everyone gets the same price (basically) - and everyone is paying a large markup. Is that on the net better for society? Or is it better if some folks get a better deal (if they work for it) and some don't? I think the discussion would turn to whether you think capitalism, as a theory, is morally wrong (and then you can discuss whether implementations of it are, or not). My short answers to those are, no, I do not think capitalism as a theory is morally wrong. And I also think the current US implementation of it could always use improvement.
I guess Best Buy is actually like the car dealership except you can't really negotiate (actually you can but will have a low success rate). So you buy from Amazon instead. Except where is the Amazon brick and mortar store to let you view the TV first?
Another part of the discussion is on how much is service worth. I think Rockauto.com is a much better place to buy car parts than both brick and mortar (if I don't need the part today) AND Amazon. So I really don't care if I can save a couple bucks on Amazon - and the counter monkey at the parts store may not be doing much for me anyway. Results may vary by individual circumstance.
Back to the dealer - if the OEM owned dealerships, but everyone was on flat rate, no commission, would that be a better system? Saturn had a pretty successful sales model so something tells me this would be very consumer friendly. On the other hand, as bad as dealership service departments are, I think a full OEM owned dealership service department would be a dangerous slippery slope because it would potentially incentivize the OEM to be even more calculating about warranty length vs service life of components (instead of just minimizing their in warranty costs, they could also try to maximize out of warranty revenue). At least now the OEM doesn't really get direct a cut of high profit dealer service. They really just pay for warranty work.