California Dealership Adding $5,000 ‘Market Adjustment’ To 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV MSRP
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It’s not uncommon to see dealerships jacking up prices on hot, in-demand vehicles. And, believe it or not, the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV is in very high demand on the west coast currently.
According to a report from Inside EVs, one California-based dealership is attaching a $5,000 “market adjustment” to the MSRP of its new 2017 Bolt EVs. In laymen’s terms, that’s price gouging the consumer.
This particular 2017 Bolt EV stickers at $38,245, but the added cost by the dealer brings the total price up to a much less affordable $44,824. And that’s for a base, LT trim. The Bolt EV is also eligible for a $7,500 tax credit.
The original report states to shop carefully, though, as it has spotted another California dealer selling its Bolt EVs at $1,500 below MSRP.
Name the dealership so that Bolt buyers can avoid them. If I wanted a Bolt (and I’d order one and negotiate the price beforehand), I’d drive to another state if necessary to avoid the $5K markup. This dealership is just tuna fishing. Yes, this sort of thing has been going on for decades and with other makes, but it doesn’t mean a consumer should pay it. Of course if you just have to be the first one on your block to have one, maybe you deserve to be gouged.
I hope General Motors and Chevrolet pull his Bolt inventory !!!
This dealer sounds as bad as Bill Heard used to be. What moron would ever pay over MSRP for the Bolt? The lease would be atrocious
It costs a Chevrolet dealer thousands and thousands of dollars in tools and training plus parts to be certified by Chevrolet to even sell them. Small volume and small mark up from invoice so it takes some sort of market adjustment to make selling them profitable for a dealer. There are plenty of vehicles that a dealer sells every day that they do not make a dime on, when they have the opportunity to make money on a model you cannot blame them for doing so. That’s how retailing works, at Walmart, the corner store, or your friendly Chevrolet dealer.
Then we should get rid of dealers. That way, tooling and training costs for repairs can be worked into the fixed price of the car, and becomes a manageable cost for the company. The benefit of this means that the posted price is the absolute price in the car; no gouging anywhere you go.
These are commodities, after all. You’re not getting a custom tailor suit, so there’s no reason to for any markup to exist.
i don’t disagree that special tools the manufacturer requires a dealer to buy should instead be included in the price of the car. But getting rid of dealers and competition would not lower the price of cars.
And “Posted price”= MSRP= “Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price”
When was the last time you rolled into a dealer and paid MSRP? do that on every car and maybe you could buy the hot ones at MSRP.
“When was the last time you rolled into a dealer and paid MSRP?”
Saturn did it. So did Toyota. Tesla and MB do in this country, so it’s certainly not impossible.
Besides, I said nothing about lowering the price of cars, as I what I’m proposing would likely increase the price. It’s the price that needs to be fixed universally so that markups like the $5,000 one above never occur in the first place.
Ultimately, it’s fairness and honesty in a single price figure. No bull no matter where you go because the price what it is. By decentralizing the distribution network through dealers, it all goes to hell when rip-offs like this make the news, which in turn makes GM look terrible.
… IF, IF, IF, … you feel price is UNFAIR, … then WALK AWAY. It is YOUR CHOICE. CAPITALISM. It happens at EVERY YARD SALE in America, for goodness sake. If that DEALER is being a PIG, he/she will EVENTUALLY ‘starve to death’ …. I am a long, long, long time GM buyer and I have bought local, and driven far to get “my best deal”, for THAT situation. ….. WAKE UP AMERICA-!!! …. THANKS, e.e.
Graw…. , …. did you ever, take a risk, invest your money, depend on the current workforce, and try to feed your family-????? Ever go to a yard sale-????? Yes, you are correct, it looks like “price gouging”, … IF, IF, you do not look deep. That is the problem, most folks do not evaluate the WHOLE ‘PICTURE’-!!! …. CAPITALISM. FREEDOM. INDIVIDUALITY. CHOICE. ……… go somewhere else, that “dealer” made a choice, you now make a choice-SIMPLE. ……. THANKS, e.e.
Yes, the Bolt is a niche, low volume vehicle, but the dealers are hauling in tons of profit on trucks, SUVs, and vans that have huge markups and are sold to those “Tuna” that walk into the dealership and “want the blue one”. As we saw with the first generation Cruze, most dealerships don’t/won’t spend the time and money to train for the new model, even if some of the training and support is free except for time. I also understand that service turnover is rather high, so the dealers are less likely to train someone who might leave before they get the training investment back.
BOB, ….. yes sir, it is called CAPITALISM. …….. The consumer has a choice. The seller has the risk. All good. It built America. THANKS, e.e.
I had a similar issue with the Cadillac CT6 when I inquired about 4 months before they were going to deliver. I wrote a letter to Mary Barra (probably handled by an assistant) who sent it on to the regional marketing head; they do NOT want to see this happening. That being said, dealers are “independent” to some degree and GM (as well as Ford and all car companies, except Tesla) can only do so much. In this case I am not sure what happened to the greedy dealer, but I was not only sent to a different dealer, but was given a VERY attractive price.
“And, believe it or not, the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV is in very high demand on the west coast currently.”
Why wouldn’t a person believe this? The car has no peer and they’re in short supply. Where’s the surprise part?
“In laymen’s terms, that’s price gouging the consumer”
Umm no that’s supply and demand pricing. No one’s life depends upon owning this vehicle. When you go to any hospital and get a simple but critical procedure which is billed as $33,000 — THAT’S price gauging.
Yep, a “suggested retail price” is just that. A suggested price. A business owner can sell a product for whatever price they want. Gas stations typically don’t make much money on the gas itself, so they often mark up prices on snacks and other items inside the store. The same goes for movie theaters. Or you might find a bottle of water in a vending machine for couple dollars, due in part to the costs of keeping a refrigerated machine running. Depending on the circumstances of a particular business, selling a product above its suggested price might be perfectly fine.
The dealership in question might need to mark up the price of some cars to avoid losing money on them. Or maybe they’re just located in a high-income area, and a large portion of their customers are perfectly fine with paying a bit extra for their vehicles. If a customer is really concerned about the price of a product, they can always shop somewhere else. If the business finds no one is willing to buy their product at that cost, they’ll lower the price to something more people will be willing to pay.
And yes, prices in the medical industry have spiraled out of control in recent decades, largely due to insurance coverage becoming so common. Some would have you believe that forcing everyone to have insurance is a reasonable solution, but it should be obvious that doing so will just exacerbate the problem, and drive insurance costs up further. Really, they need to put some controls on the prices of medical procedures and materials, so that people shouldn’t need wide-ranging insurance coverage just to handle the cost of basic treatments.
I bet the Bolts will be getting a 5K discount before the end of the year. The price is just wrong
GMAuthority has articles about the increase or decrease in the number of specific models sold. When will we see data for how many Bolts have been sold?
Good Car Bad Car has monthly sales figures from the manufacturers the first couple days into the new month.
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/
Same thing happened when Volt first came out. My dealer wanted a deposit for the car – site unseen – before it even got to the dealership, and the price was well above MSRP. So, I waited a few years and got a great deal on a great Volt. I was going to move into a Bolt when my lease was up, but opted for a Volt again and will wait a few years until the hoopla dies down and the Bolt is a better deal.