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.
The constant lying was the last straw for me. Every time I’ve dealt with a dealership, they’ve promised some deal or price that somehow disappeared off the table when the official paperwork came out. My wife and I walked out in the middle of the signing process once because there was so much bait-and-switch going on. Fuck these guys.
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)
Because of course DeSantis owns a Tesla
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 'em.
Maybe dealerships served a purpose at one point, but today they are totally unnecessary. They are needless middlemen who exist only to jack up the price of vehicles.
Edit: this is the bullshit that needs to be undone. Dealerships should not be protected by unnecessary laws that force consumers and producers to use them.
Autoblog reports that the California New Car Dealers Association claims the direct sales strategy violates a 2023 amendment to California’s State Vehicle Code which prevents automakers and their affiliates from bypassing their franchise dealerships.
the american system with car dealers, and how they fuck people, is intrinsically connected to how the financing for them works.
I cant tell you what the numbers are because Im a non-american car dealer person, but the system in the US is built around the fact that the dealers can ruthlessly mark up the price. depending on the manufacture company too.
(for context Im a Canadian Toyota dealer that is strictly MSRP and no haggle , although I admittedly work for a very good dealership. 95% of the time the only complaint or drama we ever get is people just complaining that its taking too long for their order to arrive or get fulfilled
I dont think I’d stay in the industry if I had to work at another one though. The bar is very very low for the field. constantly being pulled down by people exactly like you describe, in my town there is I think 8 car dealerships (new ones at least), and 4 of them are owned by one man. and he’s a total sleazebag. he tried to poach me once, fuck that
The original purpose was so the dealership wouldn’t put all the money into their business only to have the OEM pull the rug out from under them. And that seems like a totally legit reason.
A lot of the laws because of this are, if you enter into a dealership agreement, you can’t exit.
So Tesla and Rivian are in the clear in a lot of places. Where things get bat shit fucked is where the dealerships then step in to get the laws changed to say all OEMs must use a dealership. Now it’s not about protecting their investment it’s just mafia type shit.
That being said, I think VW spinning off a new company scout to bypass the rules they signed up for as VW is breaking the spirit of the agreement and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a legal violation as well. Otherwise the dealerships could have put all this money in, then they spin up VW2.0 and transfer all assets to the new Corp and the dealerships get fucked.
Solid points, but we want the dealerships to get fucked. Slimy parasitic middlemen.
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 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.
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.
These connections, the association contends, make Scout an affiliate of Volkswagen rather than an independent startup like Tesla. A crucial difference may be that Tesla is grandfathered in the 2023 amendment to the California law whereas Scout Motors is not. In addition, Tesla had no existing vehicle manufacturing operation when it began selling electric cars.
Ah, that’s why there’s an issue.
In the age of the internet, where a manufacturer could sell direct to consumer, it seems it would make little sense to have resellers and that was the idea in the 90s when the Internet was in it’s infancy. But the hard truth is that selling is hard. You can bring a great product to market and yet it can still flop.
This is precisely why Alibaba is such a successful platform. It gives manufacturers, who specialize in making things, a marketplace and a sales process at a fraction of the cost of building out a whole sales team.
But, as anyone who has tried to sell their used items on Facebook likely has seen, consumers are fickle and the sales process can take an inordinate amount of time. For many, the time invested simply isn’t worth the effort.
And so, in the age where anyone can make a purchase instantly with the click of a button, we’re back to having middlemen. But if we’re going to have them, then we need to incentivize them. And just like for anyone else, the rules should be stable and fair enough to foster a healthy and innovative market.
Found the car salesman.
All Carsalesmen Are Bastards.
Im not a salesperson, but I do work at one.
This has been a very “First they came for the Insurance Then they came for journalists then they came for salespeople” kind of feel
Technology doesn’t make more better jobs for people. It just eliminates jobs, and people move on to usually worse jobs. or none at all
The moment someone ponies up and decides to pay my bills, I’ll quit my job and join the rah rah crowd. but until then, I speak for both the innocent office workers, the technicians, service advisors, and the sleazy salespeople, they all gotta fucken eat.
…I speak for both the innocent office workers,
I get that
the technicians,
Needed to fix issues. Makes sense.
service advisors,
Starting to lose me
and the sleazy salespeople
They can get fucked. And not just sleazy car salesmen but all sleazy salespeople.
The moment someone ponies up and decides to pay my bills….
Why does the responsibility fall on someone else for you not to be a (self proclaimed) sleazy salesperson?
If someone wants to tell another person they shouldn’t have the job that they do, then unless they’re either going to pay the living expenses or arrange for them to move somewhere else without taking a huge loss on the home they currentley own, Their complaints are just noise.
There’s things I’d rather do, but I never got the opportunities to realize them without taking massive risk to myself or family. And the job I have, fell into my lap during a time when it was and still is hard to find decent paying work around here close to my home. So at the end of the day, its the lower and middle income people telling other lower and middle income people their jobs shouldnt exist, who can get fucked.
The only potential downside I see to plans like this are warranty service. As long as they have s way to ensure covered break-fix and recall support, let’s do it.
You don’t need a VW branded service center. You just need a certified mechanic.
But that certified mechanic needs to go through a whole training process for a new brand of vehicle and needs access to all the OEM diagnostic tools and parts.
It’s not something a typical jobber can do. Even dealerships will have specialized crews to handle specific cars.
Audi and VW are technically under the same umbrella, but I’m not taking my Q7 to a VW shop, or vice versa with my wife’s Tiguan.
thats a shop level determination.
depending on how the shop is run, and how strict of regulations set by the manufacturer there is, your mileage may vary.
in plain english. yeah if you go to a ***** dealer they might do everything by the book, refuse to work on other brands, and basically sabotage your car to rack up a more expensive bill because of corporate level corruption.
on the other hand, the place I work at , we’re toyota, but we take Fords all the time because our head tech worked at ford for 10 years. and has no problem working on somebody’s hoopty as long as he’s getting his flat rate.
Your first part is correct. The “just” is not correct. You need logistics and reporting, esp for recalls.
Edit: posting this at the top so new readers don’t have to read through the stupidity that ensues:
There are virtually no manufacturers that allow non-dealers to perform recall and warranty work today.
Federal regulations (primarily under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act) require automakers to provide a remedy for safety defects at no cost to the consumer. Automakers fulfill that obligation by designating “authorized” service locations—almost ALWAYS their franchised dealerships or manufacturer-owned service centers—to perform the recall repairs.
From a practical standpoint dealerships are bound by their franchise agreements with the manufacturer. Those contracts typically require authorized dealers to perform warranty and recall work on behalf of the automaker. So, while the government obligates the manufacturer to fix the defect, the manufacturer in turn relies on its dealerships (as spelled out in their franchise agreements) to handle the actual repairs.
Don’t we already have that? I imagine the dealerships already use such a system.
Not for recalls. It’s easy for folks to sit on social media and assume any mechanic can do it, but that’s not the case. The whole system would have to change. With the biggest being the requirement to track compliance with federally mandated recalls. There is no responsibility of the mechanic to report completion of a repair, nor certification regarding efficacy.
Edit: I actually just re-read your question. I thought you meant brands, but you said dealerships. So… your argument for bypassing dealerships is to use dealerships?
Manufacturers should offer and be responsible for warranties - for used cars it’d probably be healthier if the certification was separate from the seller.
The point is, where are you going to get your warranty service without a dealer? They need to work this out first, whether with local shop agreements or whatever. I understand they should be responsible, but I don’t think buyers will want to drive their car back to the factory.
Oi.
Where does my insurance get a repair done?
That’s not a warranty repair, nor will the repairs be covered under manufacturer warranties (assuming you had coverage).
My point is dealers are redundant to the system.
My point is dealers are part of the system.
But the system would work fine without them.
What does this mean? Where else can you buy new cars from but the dealership? Isn’t buying from a Volkswagen dealership the same as buying directly from the manufacturer?
Nope. In the US we have a system enshrined in state laws that cemented a layer of middlemen between auto manufacturers and consumers. These middlemen are called dealerships. They typically run showrooms, sales, and service for one manufacturer and hold a stock of vehicles on site.
These guys made so much money fucking consumers over they’re universally distrusted. “Car salesman” is a dirty profession in the US. Because they don’t really add value to the process and had a ton of money, they lobbied aggressively to protect their fiefdoms to state governments and successfully made it illegal in many states for a manufacturer to sell directly to consumers.
Awful system. I hate buying a car because of it and go to extraordinary lengths to lie and cheat their system when engaging with them, as they’re doing the same by default.
It’s worth noting that they aren’t just lobbyists, in many states the legislature is largely made up of real estate agents and car dealers.
Interesting. I’m not sure how it’s different where I’m from. I’ve always just imagined that walking into a Nissan dealership is equivalent to walking into an Apple store.
Though on the other hand I only buy +10 year old cars so it’s not really something that concerns me so I haven’t put much thought into it.
I agree about the car salesmen though. They’re professional bullshitters.
equivalent to walking into an Apple store
It’s like walking into an Apple Store, but the store is run by a 3rd party that jacks up the price and it’s the only place you can legally buy a new iPhone.
Side eying the casual treatment of car dealership workers like they’re insurance people. Everyone’s gotta find work somewhere.
As someone involved in the industy I have to wonder if this is more indicative of Volkswagens greater issues than it is a focus on dealerships in general. I do administration for a Toyota dealer and Just a few weeks ago our owner was talking about how both Nissan and Volkswagen are in crisis mode. Nissan then like 2 weeks later, announced a merger with Honda.
Im not up to date on VW’s issues because they’re more of a european brand, but thats probably half the problem, they used to be fairly prominent in north america. but they just stopped making cars that people wanted to buy. I guess
An all-new spinoff by VW will almost certainly be horrifically unreliable, so dealers may be dodging a bullet here.
Their service centers could make bank though.
