phila12180

I agree with you totally. I worked in a management role at dealership for over 30 years. People have no idea what it costs to run a dealership. Whilst Porsche dealers might be more profitable than your average dealer, on the whole car dealers work on extremely slim profit margins.


Originally Posted by gcurnew View Post
This has been discussed to death. Without trunk money or other manufacturer incentives, there’s about 10 percent margin for a dealer on a new car. Cost of ED is about $3500, which needs (in normal circumstances) to be taken off the table when negotiating a discount off MSRP.

Irks me to no end the people here constantly looking to grind dealers on a few points. My guess us the majority of grinders are NOT small business owners but (well paid) wage slaves who have no real understanding of what it takes to run a business. If you give up your margins on the sales side, then you gotta make it up on service. Which is the other ongoing complaint here: high costs of service at the dealer.

No doubt about it in my mind: 911 buyers are some of the cheapest bast***s in the car buying universe.

ianmSC

I’ve gotten 9% off cars without much hassle or grinding. There was a big discussion about there being 10% off plus factory bonuses and bank kickbacks. It’s not just 10%, it can be 15%+ on new cars, and sometimes more on used cars. They don’t make all of that on every sale, sometimes they’ll lose money, but sometimes they add on additional dealer markups.

It’s also just not accurate to pretend customers are the bad guys for trying to get the best deal for themselves. Dealers do this all the time, sometimes in ways that are very frustrating. I just leased a new 2020 Macan S for my wife and the dealer tried to mark up the MF from the actual rate of 0.00200 to 0.00240. That’s 2% extra in interest, or close to $2,000 over the 39 month lease. If someone walked up to you and offered you $2,000, you’d take it. Because I’d done my research, I knew what the MF is supposed to be. Most people don’t, and they admitted that to my wife, and said I was “savvier” than the average car buyer. It was a frustrating experience because I had to convince the dealer that I shouldn’t have to pay a premium in interest rate. Especially when other dealers had agreed to do a lease at the actual rate that my credit should get.

If one bank offered to loan you money for your house at 3% and the other at 5%, you would not take the 5% loan. Knowing that you should not be charged 5% is not being a “grinder”, it’s being informed.

tcirillo

amen

Anthony992

TESLA. Manufacturers and dealers have made a choice to build negotiations into the process. I think it was Saturn that First tried to make it where everyone paid the same price and it failed, though it could have just been the cars. Now you have Tesla doing it with a unique offering in the market place. What’s interesting in this thread is that the real debate is over the perceived value of a car. Tesla says if you want this, this is what you are going to pay, take it or leave it. Everyone that buys one walks away satisfied that they paid the same deal as everyone else. Porsche on the other hand has flexible pricing, which leaves the door open to dissatisfaction for everyone on price. I actually would prefer the Tesla model to not have to deal with the whole negotiating end of buying a car.

rk-d

So if you were buying a home in a depressed market during a recession - you would buy the house at asking price. No negotiation? If times are tough on the dealer, times are tough on the consumer. Market value is what it is and it's not the consumer's responsibility to run the dealership. If a dealer is losing money selling Porsches, then they are in the wrong trade.

I think the extent of the consumer's obligation to fairness is to act in good faith. Don't waste a dealer's time. Don't take a test drive if you aren't at least somewhat serious. Don't extend negotiations as a tactic to squeeze another dealer into a deal. Don't lie. I try to be straight up when I do this thing - tell the dealer exactly where I stand and what I'm looking for. The dealer can take it or leave it. They don't have to sell me a car if it doesn't work for them and I'm not wasting their time.

I'll take the discount.

Anthony992

I'll take the discount.[/QUOTE]

I think you may be missing my point. The discount is only part of the process because it has been built in. I am in the camp that in today's Porsche market you are crazy if you don't try to get the best discount possible because it is built in to the pricing structure. I am also into fine watches just like I would assume many others on this forum are. It used to be you could get a discount when purchasing a stainless steel Rolex sport watch (I have been buying them for more than 30 years, really wish I had kept the first one I ever bought - a Pepsi for my high school graduation but that's a story for a different forum). Rolex changed their distribution strategy eliminating a lot of dealers which combined with developing market demand made getting watches almost impossible and no one discounts. Rolex did not start overcharging customers because of the increased demand (their stainless steel sport watches are a great value for what you are getting), in fact many sport models are worth more on the secondary market so you could turn a profit if you immediately sold the watch you just bought. However, I also like Panerai and Omega and the discounts on those watches are substantial but the residual value after purchase is also less.

If Porsche were to lower their prices by 5% or 6% (which seems to be the typical discount) and say that going forward there will be no discounts except for model year end clearance events that will also have a locked in pricing structure so no negotiating. Buyer decisions would be solely made dependent on dealer, location, and availability. It would incentive dealers to really focus on customer service. Of course I would guess there are a significant amount of high worth individuals buying Porsches that don't even ask for a discount helping to fund the discounts the rest of us are getting.

ajag

Is there a 2021 order guide yet? My dealer was unaware of any new colors and had not heard of Shark Blue.

HouTexCarreraS

Actually, adding 40 basis points to the manufacturer's MF buy rate is only an additional 0.96%. More often than not, without disclosure, a dealer will not offer their buy rate, but rather will mark it up a little because their leasing operation is a separate profit center. I would not begrudge a dealer making an extra $1,000 to lease me a car--all businesses need to make a profit to stay in business. The fact that your dealer backed off of this when you brought it to their attention does not mean they were trying to pull one over on you--this is standard business practice.

Anthony992

The Porsche Configurator is updated for 2021. Shark Blue does not appear to be available yet.

markchristenson

IIRC, the dealer notes say "Shark Blue will join the color range later in 2020 or early 2021 with timing still to be finalized".
.

SROUR007

can you PM the Chicago dealer you know that is doing 7-9% and if u have any contact info? Thanks I live in Chicago

ianmSC

That’s correct, my mistake. I didn’t mean to imply they were trying to pull one over on me, just that if I hadn’t known what the correct, lowest possible interest rate could be, I would have accepted a significantly worse offer.

My issue is that multiple other dealerships had offered me 9% off and buy rate, 0.00200, and they were offering 7% and 0.002400, which in effect is 6% . I told them I was willing to buy at a lower discount because I wanted that specific car, but 3% lower, because of an interest rate markup wasn’t acceptable.

I don’t think accepting a lower discount but at buy rate makes me a grinder, so much as it makes me informed.

phila12180

It is unfortunate that there are still dealers out there that do some shady things. They are the ones that give the industry an overall bad name. This is just my opinion but I don't mind a dealer making a fair profit what I don't like is being charged more than the next guy. A fixed price for everyone would be a fair system. For some reason people feel it is ok to negotiate when it comes to cars. When someone needs brain surgery or heart surgery do they haggle with their surgeon. If someone needs legal services do they haggle with their lawyer. It just seems strange that we do not value car dealers. Dealers should always be on the up and up with their customers too.

HouTexCarreraS

Obviously, there are a lot of moving parts to a deal. I was only commenting on your discussion about interest rate and the fact that the difference was only 0.96%, which should not be a deal killer. You had not mentioned anything about discount differences between dealers.

Jkb545

When you need brain surgery, your insurance carrier has already haggled with the hospital system.