Pelican Parts Forums - What is the typical mark up on a used car at a dealership?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by kaisen (Post 8263262)

Lots of good answers here. As much as they can get is accurate -- they are in business to make money. How much do they mark up the "asking" prices? They can make up whatever number they want. How much will they actually make? Typically a little less than a couple grand, give or take. And that's after any required reconditioning. Just what they actually sold it for, less what they actually have in it. It's very hard to average more than $2K per vehicle for a traditional, non-specialty dealership.

In the end, it doesn't matter -- at all -- what a dealer paid for the car they are selling. It only matters what it is *worth* in the current marketplace. If you can buy a similar car for less, you will. If it represents a decent value relative to other cars you've seen, you'll likely buy it. Whether the dealer made $4000 or lost $1000 should have nothing to do with what you pay.

Agree with this. I was shopping a particular late model used car online recently, it was pretty easy to see what they are going for by just looking on eBay. One local dealer here in Los Angeles had probably a dozen of them listed just in 2013 models and it's a "no haggle" dealer so that is probably the selling price. They were not all the exact same price, (different miles and equipment), and there were a couple private party listings as well as other dealers in other states.

I would have bought one of their certified used cars and not given one turd what they paid for it. I don't care if they got them all for free from the manufacturer. I would care only about my price OTD.

Shopped motorcycles with a buddy this weekend, same thing. Who cares what the dealer paid, we only care about out the door price. I understand that people are curious because they think that gives them negotiating ammo but it doesn't. Only the market value determines what they'll take.

Does anyone feel sorry for the dealer when they mess-up and lose money on a car? (It happens). Me neither. Free market rules. :cool:

I am sure what ever the market will bare.
This "car dealer" dwn the street I was doing some horse trading with ( Too long a story) Said he could buy used caymans all day long for 20G.
I never questioned years or models at the time as I was not interested. But i do notice that most used Caymans sell for 30G and a lot more.

Free markets do rule the day. When I was on the exchange floor the only thing that mattered was the bid and offer at that moment. When a floor broker walked into the pit and asked for a market in an options series it didn’t matter what my net position looked like all that mattered was how quickly I could spit out the bid and offer for that series at that time. Whether I was long or short in my net position and from what price was irrelevant.

The market does not care whether a dealer is long inventory from the right price, it only cares what price that inventory is worth right now.

If two different dealers were selling two very similar used cars and dealer A owned the car for $9k and was selling it for $12k, while dealer B owned the car for $14k and was selling it for $12k would you only consider the car from dealer B since he wasn’t making anything on the car?. Not only is dealer B going to lose $2k he probably has to hit the salesman with something for selling it too.