Another Day, Another Insane Dealer Markup

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

Would you pay $100K for a new Honda Civic Type R?


Probably not, right? I mean, that's more than double the listed MSRP. And Civic Type Rs aren't the rarest car in the world.

And yet, one dealer is trying to see if some sucker will bite anyway.

A post made its way from Reddit to our parent company's forums, and while the dealer is unnamed (as far as I can tell), pictures of the Boost Blue Civic Type R are accompanied by shots of the Monroney label. The dealer adds a few fees to the car's $44K price, then finishes that off with a flourish by adding a $50K markup. The total price: $104,023.95.

This is getting a bit out of hand, folks.

[Image: Honda]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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4 of 26 comments
  • Mike1041 Mike1041 on Dec 17, 2022

    Proof that the dealership method of selling cars is ridiculous. By the time the ice era ends perhaps direct selling will become the norm. It’s worked for Tesla and should for all other companies. Service dealerships with used car lots could be the norm.

  • Robert Robert on Dec 17, 2022

    A fool and his money

  • Krhodes1 Krhodes1 on Dec 18, 2022

    Having always gotten a steep discount when buying new cars, I have no problem with the concept that if demand permits, asking over MSRP for the car. *I* would never pay even MSRP for a new car - I have never needed or wanted one that badly.


    I think complaining about markups but cheerfully taking discounts is more than a tad hypocritical. If you don't like the asking price, and it is non-negotiable, buy something else, or just don't buy anything at all.

  • El scotto El scotto on Dec 18, 2022

    Lemme see; your marketing dept told the purchasing dept that no one would be buying cars during covid. Except that those who were working got at least one covid check and went out and bought, err stuff. Like houses, paid off debt, and oh noes! a new vehicle. Demand for luxury goods exploded too.


    So then the marketing people told the people with hard science degrees, apologies in advance to marketing majors, that nope, no one is buying vehicles and the new models? None of them will be a success.


    So now deep in the C suite of a very large motor vehicle company the people who have to crunch numbers to understand sales demands and the actual engineers who you know, actually have to manufacture the vehicles are thinking a couple of hundred pitchforks and the skilled UAW members can cross train to make a couple of hundred torches. We should march down to the marketing floor with pitchforks and torches in hand and make them tell us how horribly bad their predictions were; far less their moral characters.


    Oh, the marketing people will try and tapdance their gross incompetence away. Why they'll even have numbers flying on their PowerPoint slides! Look! Look! they'll say; the dealers are buying whatever we send their way!


    Except in retail land, the dealers have gone crazy. 10K over invoice on everything on the lot they'll proclaim. People who have to have a new car; either out of pride or necessity, we'll gouge them and feel no shame!


    Except there are some people who know that hogs get fat on corn and whey. They'll wait to buy another day.

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