Just certain people at a dealership and corporate car makers?
The internet (age of information) has made 'invoice' a meaningless number, already inflated with a profit margin. Hard to find what those margins are online. You can hope to derive them by looking at invoice versus MSRP margin % on vehicles from the 90s and work back from MSRP now to a guess of the dealer cost.
Take a Toyota 4Runner. MSRP versus Invoice 1993 15.5%. Today, its 8.5%.
So take a $40k 4Runner today (invoice at 37k).
40 MSRP * (1-15.5%) = 33.8
Less holdback 40*.02=.8 = 33.0
So you could guess a dealer cost of 33k before dealer or customer incentives or bonuses.
I'm not talking about haggling, its pretty easy to get a great price on a new car with a little leg work and calls to numerous sales managers. But it did dawn on me in my latest research for a new car that I don't really know the dealer cost. 20 years ago, you still relied on invoice and holdback and (at least) thought you could back into it.
The internet (age of information) has made 'invoice' a meaningless number, already inflated with a profit margin. Hard to find what those margins are online. You can hope to derive them by looking at invoice versus MSRP margin % on vehicles from the 90s and work back from MSRP now to a guess of the dealer cost.
Take a Toyota 4Runner. MSRP versus Invoice 1993 15.5%. Today, its 8.5%.
So take a $40k 4Runner today (invoice at 37k).
40 MSRP * (1-15.5%) = 33.8
Less holdback 40*.02=.8 = 33.0
So you could guess a dealer cost of 33k before dealer or customer incentives or bonuses.
I'm not talking about haggling, its pretty easy to get a great price on a new car with a little leg work and calls to numerous sales managers. But it did dawn on me in my latest research for a new car that I don't really know the dealer cost. 20 years ago, you still relied on invoice and holdback and (at least) thought you could back into it.
