What Happens When You Walk On A Jeep Dealer's Lot With $25k?
Published: March 2nd, 2009
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The surprising answer, via Consumerist, is nothing. Well, sales-wise. Richard of tryingtostimulate.wordpress.com (the economy, you perv) built out a Jeep Wrangler online, and was quoted a price of $24k. Thinking that giving an American automaker some business would be as easy as showing up, writing a check and driving away, he visited not one, but two Jeep dealers. Both tried desperately to get him to finance (so much for shoring up cashflow) and neither would sell him the vehicle he “built” online. In short, the man wanted a Jeep and had cash, but Chrysler’s crack (smoking) dealers couldn’t make it happen. Maybe they need a few more bailouts before they’ll start accepting cash for their products.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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Another example of why I like to buy slightly used vehicles from private parties. At least you get an honest price haggle from someone who wants to sell a car. Shit like this is why Generation Y will simply put the new car dealer as we know it out of business. Anyone under the age of 30 probably does a significant amount of shopping online, (research at a minumum) especially for major purchases. If a manufacturer's website quotes a price, the dealer damn well sell that product at that price (or less) or the consumer will go elsewhere. Simple as that. I've been through some bad tasting dealer experiences prior to mainsteam internet, but these days the only thing I need a dealer for is a sample test drive. The complicated and confusing purchase process through a dealer simply will not be put up with by younger generations that walk onto a lot armed with much more research in their back pocket than my father's generation ever did.
@dwford "So basically the dealer haters want OEM owned, fixed price shops." - I'm not a fan of dealers and that's not what I'm saying. I will say that for the guy who went looking for a Jeep with $25k in his pocket, there wasn't much good that dealers added to the buying process. (Except for maybe keeping him out of a GM vehicle where his warranty may not be honored soon and the parts suppliers may not be around much longer to provide parts for maintenance/warranty work.)
This definitely had more to do with him wanting a car that wasn't in stock vs cash/finance.