It's an interesting topic I look forward to checking out some of these thanks for posting. My uncle and a good friend of mine sell cars for dealerships on the smaller side I'd say. And my friend has said there's certainly been a tide shifting.
Those guys make so much $ it's unreal. My buddy says they bake in a 4k profit on every car BEFORE getting to negotiating. Which he says they really don't do much of. It's pretty much take it or leave it. I look forward to seeing my uncle for Turkey day and learning how his yr has been.
Let me know what he tell you. Are they sticking with certain auto makers or do they deal in a variety of brands? Obviously for the average family the top makers are going to be Japanese brands. Usually Toyota is your biggest seller, especially when it comes to Hybrids. I see where Mazda and Toyota worked together on the Mazda 5O's recently, but Mazda has decided to manufacture their own CX-50 engines.
I've also noticed over the last two years that Mazda's competitors have updated the interior of the automobiles to keep up with what Mazda has done to make the interiors more luxurious and more like European cars.
The Toyota's are world renown for their dependability along with Honda, however one criticism of Toyota was the basic plastic interior. In the past I have chosen Honda's over Toyota because of their cheap interiors. Even simple things like the glove compartment doors. I chose a 2015 CRV over a 2015 RAV-5 just because the glove compartment door in the RAV-4 that year looked like a cheap plastic kids toy. Toyota has finally put better quality into their interiors, but they are still lagging behind the Mazda's in that regard.
I recently have been looking at 2025 pickup trucks. One day I revisited a Toyota dealership to take a second look at their Tundra's. A salesmen came out to greet me and we discussed the Tundra's they had on their lot. He said the best deal he could give me was two thousand off the sticker price. I told him that, that's odd your sales manager offer to take off $4000 of the exact same truck two weeks ago. "Oh I didn't know that. " Well, I am sure that same manager want to move those trucks that have been sitting their getting lot rot all year, and surely he will take off more than the $4000 he already offered me on that $65,000 pickup. I have two great vehicle's in my garage so I have the advantage and can just walk away from any dealership.
Right now the advantage is to the buyer. people just need to say no to them and start walking off the show floor. Some are half way descent business people and others will rob you blind if you let them.
I owned a 2015 CRV we bought new, fully loaded, leather seats, no damage, low mileage less than 40k miles and always garaged. We don't smoke and the CRV was like new. I went into the Honda dealership to see what they would give me for the car on an new 2022 CRV. They offered me $9000 on a trade in for their new 2022 CRV models. I just got up and left.
I then drove immediately over to the Mazda dealership and they offered me $18,000 on a trade in for their 2022 Mazda CX-5 that was fully loaded and an all wheel drive to boot. SOLD!!!! Interestingly enough my 2015 Honda CRV sold the next morning. If I had to guess I would say they probably sold our CRV for well over $20,000.
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