jerry gollnick

I am looking at purchasing a 2018 Grand sport and not looking forward to the price mystery haggling. Does anyone know what the actual cost after kickbacks and incentives and whatever else is to a dealer before adding in a proffit? 5 years ago a friend who was a dealer told me it was around 21% below MSRP. Seems high, but.

NNNInvestment

To be honest. My research found no one is giving anything more then 11%. If there is any holdback they will give to you from what I was told.

WelderGuy

/\ /\ /\ Did you actually read that before you posted it?

Foosh

If every customer was able to purchase a vehicle at exactly what it costs the dealer after bonuses and sale incentives, every dealership would be shuttered. There is significant overhead in running a dealership. No profit, no dealership.

NASTYC7

Dealers can't make money? DO you really need to know what their bare bottom price is and make that the magic number?

Does the company you work for do everything for cost? I'm not saying pay MSRP, but damn work out a deal that you are willing to pay for the car and not look for "How much are they making".

Resonator

The authentic answer is nobody really knows, and nobody is really saying. The actual cost of any car varies by dealer. Because some buy in bigger volume, they get better prices. Don't forget most dealers finance their inventory and can pay different finance rates. If they belong to a block of dealers who advertise together, then they have those advertising costs, along with whatever any dealer decides to spend themselves. Even if a dealer was your best pal and threw open his books, it would be quite difficult to figure out exactly how much each car actually cost the dealer to buy and sell.

21% does not strike me as a realistic figure. When GM used to offer a substantial employee discount, it averaged around 13.5% which is probably pretty close to typical dealer cost. Of course factors like time of year and options can affect this somewhat, as options typically have a slightly higher margin than the base price. GM will also offer different incentives at different times depending on what they want to move. Most of these are disclosed to the public and some are not.

Here is the real deal, don't worry about it. Knowing exactly what the dealer's cost is won't help you to be a better negotiator. You can get a feel from these forums for what is currently a good deal. Sure, we all want the best price, but I figure out what a current good price is and try to get that. Then at some point, I either get that price, or get so close, that it is no longer worth haggling. $400 on an $80,000 car is half a percent, which to me isn't worth arguing over. At that point you just need to finally decide if you really want the car or not. You can't take it with you, and when I think of all the stupid stuff I have spent money on over the years (and I'm a conservative spender) then squeezing every last dollar out of buying a car just doesn't seem so critical. Do you want the car? Is the price reasonable? Then stop stressing, buy it and enjoy it. (What is your sanity worth? Therapy ain't cheep!)

Nobody's final words were "I should have paid less for that Corvette."

fsvoboda

Checking the dealer inventory forum here will let you track current good deal prices. Also look at dealer web sites for these large dealers. There is dealer to dealer competition on this forum, which is going to tend to keep listed prices at a reasonable level here. In late spring I got almost $10,000 off a 2017 1LT plus 0% financing for five years by checking the site and then talking to the salesman on the phone. (Dennis Tap at Les Stanford Chevy in Dearborn, MI, a very easy guy to deal with and located near me. Other salesmen you hear about here also have good reputations.)

The deals change monthly, and if you track them for a while--ideally a year or so--you will get a good sense for them and when they are likely to be lower. Once you've got a car, don't look back or second guess yourself. If you see a lower price a few months later it doesn't mean you got a bad deal, just that the market is always changing. You probably know all this anyway.

Frosty

Just ordered a to be built 2018 from MacMulkin and it was 11% off MSRP. If someone will beat that price (today) it will be by an insignificant amount and if it is not by one of the large forum dealers, you will be risking not getting a satisfying purchase. These forum dealers know what they are doing because they sell so many corvettes and have built a great reputation. That is why they sell more vettes than anyone else in the country.

From what I can tell, if you buy something out of a forum dealer inventory that is a 2017, you can probably get 14% off MSRP at this time. If you want to buy a 2018 that is on their Lot, it will be just a few percent off. So the deals are for 2017s and that is to be expected as they want to sell those before they hang around too long. The discounts on the 2017s may improve to as high as 20% over the next few months, but then you won't have much in the way of choices.

VetteLex

I can get the GM Discount and by all accounts right now I am looking at about 11-12% off MSRP on an '18 using it.

What I am waiting on is a good financing deal by GM. I can get a low rate now but 0% APR would be killer. Would rather put my cash in an investment and not buying a car with it. However, not sure that is happening anytime soon while the factory is closed.

So, I have a decision to make soon. Will wait and see if there are any Sept incentives and go from there. I don't need the car right now so I can wait a little while.

Frosty

I went through exactly the same decision process. It is virtually impossible to judge what will happen over the next few months based on any pattern from years past.

So I had to decide based on gut. My gut instinct reasoning for pulling the trigger right now is based on my belief of supply and demand is going to drive prices. In this regard, the plant is producing 25% (3 months) less Corvettes and the plan is to go from 18 cars per hour down to 12 cars per hour. The only way they can produce more is to add shifts, which they may decide to do (after all it is all about selling cars). So if there are less cars available during this Fall time period, where is the incentive to offer large MSRP discounts? Now add to that, the tantalizing effect of having a car produced in an upgraded plant where the focus is stated as to improve quality, as that would tend to increase the demand side of the equation. Thus more demand and less supply.

When I spoke with MacMulkin, they indicated that one needs to get your order in very soon if you want a Fall delivery. Waiting will mean a Spring delivery which for me is a long time to wait. This implies that they are getting plenty of orders these days and their allocations are being used up.

I am eligible for a military discount which is similar to GMS pricing. MacMulkin will give you the best discount you are eligible for. For me the military discount wasn't as good as 11% off.

JALLEN4

As a retired 40 year dealer, let me tell you the bottom line. If you really want to know the "real cost" pay the 5-10 million dollar entry price in todays market and buy a dealership! Otherwise, it isn't anyone's business. As someone already mentioned, even if you knew the number, it would not help you. With the internet today, it is so easy to shop anywhere and everywhere. The lowest price you can buy the product for from a dealer you trust is the only thing that counts!

fourmat

The difference between list price and invoice is only about 7% and additional 3% holdback calculated from list excluding destination. Additional dealer incentives vary by location and total sold.
Then there are consumer rebates again that can vary by geography.
Most dealers make way less of a percentage mark up than Jewelry, Furniture, or Clothing and those retailers do not have to maintain and operate service departments with techs, uniforms, insurance, and special tools as well as parts inventory.

JerryU

Found this atricle, you can Google, "GM Tightens Dealer Margins on 2016 Chevrolet Corvette." Shows margins are 7 to 8% whatever that means! There are hold-backs, volume incentives, special GM incentives when dealer purchases are low, incentives for the dealer to move cars they have in stock so they buy more etc.

But those 21% margins went away years ago.

I stopped using published "distributor cost" some years ago. Usually just go to Kerbeck, who sponsor this forum page. They are the largest Corvette dealer in the country for a reason. Usually have well over 100 in stock. They sell ~25/week, ~1200/year. Even if you don't want to buy from them, look at their prices. (Four months ago bought my 2017 Grand Sport from them, great to do business with. As I have for all 5 Vettes I ordered exactly what I wanted and got the same discounts they offered for cars in stock at the time. Found a local dealer to do courtesy delivery for $250. Did not have to fly to NJ and drive it home when it arrived in NJ (it never did) as I have done before! Worked out great. No pricing hassle and wondering "if you got the best deal possible" just know what you want and order if necessary, always is for me.)

All that said you're tying to buy at a bad time! GM stopped production to integrate new equipment into their production line. Dealers may be out of Vettes before in reopens, possibly in November! Kerbeck reduced their discounts significantly-why not if you might be out of something to sell!

If you can find a local dealer who has a 2018 in stock and a bank asking for payment on their floor plan loan, you may be able to do better! Where I live even the large Chevy, BMW, Mercedes dealer (the only Chevy dealer in town) sells few Vettes. They sit in the showroom for a long time. Outside of having one as a customer draw, they do discount, if you like the loaded Z06 they have in the showroom!

Blue666's

As one other reply already stated, don't stress out over $400-500 on an $80K purchase, it's one-half of one percent! Not worth the stress. I ordered from MacMulkin, as they were offering 11% off on new orders, and they do not charge any dealer fees, which can range from $300-700 depending on markets. I checked around at the other mega-dealers on here, and the closest I got to MacMulkin's price was 8% off and they had a $300 dealer doc fee.



So for me, I'm satisfied that I got a good deal, with a dealer that will have plenty of allocation, so that I get my car sooner rather than later. I dealt with Jessy and he was great, as was Nicole too. There was initially some misunderstanding about the NCM Delivery option, but we got it all ironed out and I'm a happy camper. To me, it's not worth waiting forever and missing out on experiences with the Corvette just to save that last $500. Call MacMulkin and pull that trigger.

Frosty

agree completely

OntarioOrangeC3

I'm more interested in knowing what GM makes on each Corvette sold.

4thC4at60

yeller z06

My question to the OP is: Let's say you found out EXACTLY what the cost is to the dealer, considering all factors. What would you do then?

In other words, how much do you think they should make, in profit, on your deal?

I'm just curious. No judgement.

Snowwolfe

It's simply none of your business what the dealer paid.

DAFFYDRUNK

I was guesstimating break even was 14-15% off MSRP when I got my car in 15, but I think the margins are a little different starting in MY 2016. I'd guess dealers like Macmulkin makes $2000 or so when they sell a stripper C7 these days for 11% off, and a little more on the more expensive stuff. During the last model year of a generation, they might even go for break even to small loss to pump allocation for the 1st year of the next gen cars. They might make $10k a car for awhile when the new gens come out to make up for that.

Who really knows what the profit is except the bean counters at the dealer, and they're not gonna tell you because then you'd expect to buy at cost. You probably won't do better than the forum dealers unless you have a trade, which might change things up a bit.