[Christien]

I would do the same thing I wanted to do with our retail lot, but my partner disagreed with. The window sticker would have my cost in the vehicle, reconditioning costs (repairs and cleaning - not applicable with brand new cars), lot pack (dealership overhead, including building, staff, maintenance, rent and advertising), sales staff commission and dealer profit. I would offer to back all these numbers up with paperwork (i.e. invoice for vehicle from manufacturer, or trade-in paperwork) and then the only thing left to negotiate is dealer profit. Dealer profit would be standardized as a percentage. I have a feeling that when people see what exactly goes into the car they're buying in terms of cost, and how little of it is actually negotiable, reasonable markups like 5% they'd be much less likely to try to hammer the dealer profit down to virtually nil. Most people understand that everyone has to make a living.