Rant: U.S. Car Market D.O.A.?

Not being a dealer, but just a salesman, when it comes to new cars, it is almost irrelevant to me what the selling price of the car is. There is so little markup in the MSRP that it doesn't take much discounting (if any) to get me down to my minimum commission of $100. At that point my manager could sell the car for $1, it doesn't affect me. I do get bonuses direct from the manufacturer put on a debit card - which can end up being more per car than my commission. I want the dealership to make enough money to keep paying me, but $100 minis don't go too far, so I need volume. My manager hates when I start negotiating some of the dealer cash away, but I've told him that since I don't get paid on that, what do I care if we keep it? Given the limited customer interest, dealers will keep closing by the hundreds. All the better for me in the long run. In the last 2 weeks, we lost Saturn, Buick-Pontiac-GMC, Cadillac and Jaguar for competition on our street. Last fall we lost a Ford, a Lincoln-Mercury, and a Dodge dealership in the next town over. They are dropping like flies.

Morning All, Regards from Switzerland. Thanks for sharing your experiences so far. "Believe it or not, the customers that pay the most are the happiest and refer more of their friends than those that grind to the last penny." Never a truer word has been spoken, and not just for the car business...

I don't know about that... I was pretty happy in 1999 when the final dealer we worked with accepted an offer $2500 lower than the first dealer's lowest price and when the deal was done in less than half-an-hour. All it took was a first time car buyer's education requiring visits to 5-6 dealers where every dirty trick in the book was tried on us. We got alot smarter as the adventure went along. At the last dealer I walked in told him I didn't have time to wait, he had 30 mins to get the deal made and my price was... His price $200 more and we signed the papers. If I had large sums of cash to throw around and could walk into a dealer and not bother haggling - I too would be a happier customer. I wouldn't care if I was being lied to as long as the product was a good one. All that said I think my '99 will be our last new car. New cars expensive though I think my car is a better one at 170K miles b/c I've owned it since new and took care of it. The dealer experiences we have had generally have been less than happy so I avoid them choosing to buy from private sellers whenever possible. Sick and tired of being lied to and manipulated. Maybe for a certain portion of the population sticking it to the customer is S.O.P. but can this go on generation after generation without folks looking for an alternative? Am I saying ALL car salesman are bad? No but I feel like I've met my share of less than stellar examples of the breed. I think all it would take is a fair no haggle price from a super-center style car lot that sold all brands and serviced them as well. This type of dealer could blow the traditional dealer right out of the water if managed correctly. I maintain that Saturn's no-haggle pricing was the best (and most obvious) answer yet. Unfortunately until recently they did not sell anything I felt was compelling enough to plop ~$20K of my money on the table for though my friends and family have had good luck with them and I am warming up to some of the late 90s cars now. Now I'm interested in the Astra and a half dozen other Opels we won't likely see on our shores here in the USA. IF I was to go new car shopping Saturn would be about the first place I'd start looking.