[Nathans_Dad]

Kaisen, I appreciate your viewpoint here, it sounds like you are at least in some way connected to the car industry.

I understand your point about ethics and trying to change the paradigm.

Here is my question, was it unethical for the dealership to quote me $27700 over the phone and then not be able to deliver that price when I arrived? Let me be clear, they absolutely could not deliver that price no matter which package of incentives I took. Their lowest "cash price" was $28000. So, I would say it was unethical to throw a price out there that was $300 less than their lowest possible deal just to "get me in the dealership". By the way, the sales manager said those words, verbatim. Then he tried to defend it by saying that is just "how the car dealer business works".

I guess the "ethical" thing for me to do would have been to walk out of the dealership right then and there. However, would I have had any greater chance of dealing with an ethical dealership down the road? I would say no. This was my second dealership to go to, the first tried to sell me a base model car with aftermarket leather (to try and meet my needs and sell the car they had on their lot) for $3000 OVER what the sticker price on the factory installed leather car was. On top of that they offered me $10,000 in trade for my 2006 BMW that KBB says is worth $16300. I did walk out of that dealership after the sales manager tried to tell me my car wasn't worth more than $10k and his car was worth $36k all day long. I took it to CarMax 30 minutes later and was offered $16k on the spot for my BMW.

Dealer A (the bait and switch dealer) offered me $14500 for my car (better than the idiots I dealt with the day before) but still no where near what I could get simply by walking into CarMax. I even told them I had a $16k offer from CarMax and it didn't matter. The sales manager at Bait and Switch Mazda then proceeded to tell me this was a "zero profit" deal for him already at $28500. BS. Does he think I'm stupid? I know about holdback. I know there are factory to dealer incentives to sell cars. I know that Mazda has a $1000 factory to dealer incentive on 2011 CX-9s RIGHT NOW according to multiple sources on the internet. That doesn't even take into account any incentives that aren't published.

So, Bait and Switch Mazda was likely standing to make something around Invoice is $28700, I paid $28500. They get AT LEAST $1500 from Mazda in incentives plus the 1% holdback which is based on MSRP ($310 holdback). So their "no profit" deal was likely going to profit them about $1600.

Basically, Bait and Switch Mazda dealt with me with lies from the start and lies at the end. So, why again should I be the one to step up and be "ethical" with them over a verbal agreement which was not signed and they had taken no action on? People keep saying the dollar amount doesn't matter. I say it does. I was willing to eat $100 or $200 difference. I would absolutely think it would be silly to break a verbal agreement with a dealer over $50. This was $400 PLUS another $500 on my trade in. So for nearly $1000?? I think most people on this board would have broken that deal for $1000.

I'm sorry, I'm not buying it. If you want to change the way transactions occur at car dealerships, start by telling the dealers to quit trying to rake their customers over the coals.