Quote:
Originally Posted by Higgs Boson
A customer can already purchase a car with no haggling. Just pay MSRP and stop asking for discounts.
You can already buy a car online/over the phone without going into a dealership. I bought the last 3 of the 6 cars currently in my garage this way. R8 came from PA, X5M from CA, and X5 M50i from LA. All handled by wire. All showed up at my house, never left home.
It's really all just an awareness advertisement for what already exists.
What is "true online sales?" When you order most things online they come from a "dealer" not from the manufacturer, most of whom have no provisions to complete a retail transaction. Amazon is a dealer.
Many people seem to forget that "you ain't buyin a loaf of bread." Buying a car is much more like buying a house than any other item. Maybe you could compare a gun in that they are registered to your name, typically require hard signatures and identification verification, etc etc. Each state has unique vehicle inspection requirements, and so on. Maybe some individuals can be trusted to pay in full and register their car properly and pay the taxes, etc on their own but 99% of the population can't or won't. Even Tesla has brick and mortar stores and of course service centers.
Let them make things more convenient and weed out the plaid jackets but "getting rid of the dealer" as a generality is as stupid sounding as "defunding the police."
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I completely disagree. Maybe for you folks in different tax brackets paying cash for vehicles this is true, but that is NOT my experience. I was trying to buy my wife a Mazda CX5, had my 2 local dealers refuse to sell me one at MSRP b/c they wanted to tack on their stupid addendums, told me to my face they wouldn't sell at MSRP. Their exact words were "For every 1 customer like you who wants it at sticker, we have 10 who will pay with the tint and stuff installed." Same thing with an SRT Durango I had, local dealer refused to sell at MSRP. In both of those instances I had to drive 2+ hours to a different dealer to get one for sticker.
Dealerships are a scam and absolutely should not exist. Leave the service departments obviously, but LIKE ANY OTHER GOOD I should be able to pay the list price. I would MUCH PREFER to buy a car online and not have to talk to some 16 year old jackass who memorized half the spec sheet.