If dealerships are pissed, I can almost guarantee that this will be good for the consumer.
Any good car dealership saw the writing on the wall a decade ago. The last time I was looking at buying a car the best ones wanted to work with me even if they didn’t have it in inventory. They would get me whatever I wanted (within manufacturer trims and specs) and were upfront about wait times and transfer/shipping prices. Basically they were already transitioning to being a buying agent.
The worst ones were trying to shout/quick sell me on the most expensive thing they had, that they thought I could afford.
The last time I bought from a dealership was 12 years ago. The experience was so off-putting that I’ve exclusively gone to small used car dealers since then where the salespeople have been surprisingly more honest and less obnoxious. I felt like the dealership would’ve literally pickpocketed me if I had let my guard down.
I had a new car place tell me I had to sign a sheet saying I would say yes to any “reasonable deal” in order to do a test drive. I walked out laughing after the test drive because they refused to even consider selling me a different car.
Another place tried to sell me a new car while I was getting maintenance done on the old one. That guy was super surprised when I walked out mid sales pitch. He thought if he could just talk fast enough he’d have me in a new car with none of my requirements before the old one was even done getting worked on. That was also a fully loaded something or other.
A third place tried to shark attack me. Literally had 3 guys doing the passive aggressive loud tone telling me I couldn’t buy a hybrid anywhere in the US. Well that hasn’t worked since I was 17 at basic training.
A fourth place put an Internet ad up for a no frills car at MSRP. I emailed and had conversations where they said it was available. I showed up and oops, all they had was the fully loaded version.
What really makes me sad is they wouldn’t do this stuff if it didn’t work. People have got to learn to stand up for themselves.
I can’t complain about the dealership I bought my car from at all. They were straight with me when I purchased it and have been awesome when going to them for service. Yeah, they overcharge for some simple things I can do myself anyway but for the major stuff I had them do they were comparable to what other shops in my area were quoting me.
Yarp, that’s why the dealers in Florida wrote a bill for Florida to ban direct to consumer sales on most vehicles. (An exception was left for certain cars like Tesla’s… Which Desantis owns)
Good. We need to end the dealership model of car sales being required in most states.
There are countless unnecessary restrictions on goods, and I’d argue that about 90% of the laws and regulations surrounding them should be rewritten or scrapped entirely. Take Florida’s alcohol laws, for example: liquor must pass through at least three different hands before it can be sold to a consumer—Manufacturer > Distributor > Retailer > Customer. I once worked for a retailer in Florida, and I couldn’t understand the logic, especially since my company also produced its own products. Even though they were both the Manufacturer and Retailer, they still had to use a distributor just to sell their own goods due to this outdated system.
Sure, they justify it by claiming it’s a leftover from Prohibition, but that’s a weak excuse. Yes, there was a black market for alcohol back then, but Prohibition ended 91 years ago. How have we not figured out a better way to handle alcohol sales in nearly a century? The answer is simple: it’s part of the system by design.
Car dealerships operate in much the same way. There’s no reason cars can’t be sold directly to consumers, as long as manufacturers have the necessary distribution infrastructure. Regulations should be enforced at the point of manufacture or import, and sales tax should be collected by the seller and then remitted to the federal government. For foreign manufacturers, if they want to sell in the U.S., they should be required to register in whatever state they choose, regardless of sales volume.
And here’s the kicker: What’s to stop the company I worked for from setting up a shell distribution company, acting as their own intermediary, and inflating the price to sell it to themselves as the retailer? They could then mark up the price again before selling it to you, essentially bypassing any real value or competition while still skirting around the system.
Dealerships can get fucked. They are a cancer on American society, and nobody wants them.
Fuck the stealerships.
All Carsalesmen Are Bastards. Defund the dealerships.
I have a friend who is related to a guy who owns ~12 car dealerships and that guy is FILTHY rich. As in: 3rd home in Telluride CO is a 5,000sf “cabin.” Owns two small yachts.
But also, imagine a job market suddenly flooded by car salespeople… shudders
I mean, there shouldn’t be less sales people, just they’ll work for the manufacturer interested in getting more of their inventory sold rather than a slimeball third party interested in predatory lending, needless add-ons/ accessories, and inflating the prices of already expensive vehicles so they can parasitize a few dollars more.
I was desperate for a job years ago and took a car sales job. Firstly, I felt slimy as fuck doing it and didn’t sell many cars because of it.
That said, the guy that owned the auto group owned 4 dealerships out of the 6 in town that weren’t used only car lots. Hyundai/Genesis, Honda, Nissan and Toyota/Scion. They constantly ran “sales” that only saturated the market since the town was like 200 miles from another city. Then he goes and buys the Ford/Lincoln dealership, leaving only the GM (Chevy, GMC, Buick and Cadillac) and Dodge/Chrysler ones not owned by him.
Dude was stupid rich, had literally the largest house in the city and bought a brand new C8 Corvette (when it was first released), burned through 4 sets of tires, got 3 speeding tickets then totalled it all within 2 weeks. To him it was a tax write-off. Not to mention all the other toys this guy bought and abused.
I met him once, he was a complete dick to even his store managers. Fuck that guy.
