Discounting dead: Is this the end for negotiating on a new car?
The car industry continues bending you over and telling you (with a straight face) how fixed pricing is a real benefit for you, the consumer.
The car industry’s grubby little lobby group in the turdmine known colloquially as Canberra - continues its production of weapons-grade bullshit, unthrottled by COVID-19 (or vestigial respect for the facts).
See, a proposal being considered by a Senate committee next week would see prices for new cars fixed, eliminating haggling and negotiated discounts.
Tony Weber from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.
Almost speaking the Queen’s English. One of my all-time favourite industry dudes. I find Mr Weber endlessly entertaining. A master. And you don’t see that very often.
It’s like watching Tiger Woods in action, dodging that frying pan. Poetry. He’s quoted there by Channel Nine, telling you (allegedly) how the car industry’s cunning plan to eliminate your capacity to negotiate a better deal on a new car is actually a real plus for you.
He does this routinely with a straight face. I don’t know how. That’s a real communications skill. The convoluted logic is, apparently: ‘we’ll take away your terror (of being ripped off by a professional rabid negotiator) by making sure everyone pays top-dollar and therefore gets ripped-off equally.
We’ll eliminate all of the discounts. Problem solved. Like, what next? Nuclear proliferation, cancer or world peace? Currently, you can go to a dealer and negotiate a better price, or get ripped off by paying the full freight. Under this proposal, ‘full freight’ is the only option.
USEFUL CAR BUYING RESOURCES
Sometimes I can’t save you thousands on a new car >>
How to cut depreciation in half (dead easy) >>
Warranty, servicing & ‘free’ roadside assistance: The Fine Print >>
Best mainstream new cars: Market update >>
So, here’s the thing: Buying a new car is just like buying a fridge, or a TV. Or a camera. Retailers (called ‘car dealers’ in this instance) buy the cars from the carmaker. Selling them to you becomes the dealer’s problem at this point. Dealers can discount the prices as they see fit, because prices generally cannot be fixed under Australian law.
The only difference is: when you buy a TV or a camera, you see all the different brands of TVs and cameras up on the wall in some shop, and you can compare them directly. And this is really good - Sony has this, Panasonic has that, Canon does it like this.
With cars, dealers sell only one brand under the one roof, and you therefore must traipse all over town to view the direct competitors on your short list. That’s generally a bit of a bastard.
If refrigerators and TVs and bicycles and tools and cameras and hardware and caravans and boats and holidays and - everything else - can all be sold by independent retailers without price-fixing, why is it such a good idea to fix the price of cars? Riddle me that.
What is so special about cars? Why are cars so commercially unique and demanding of special regulatory consideration in this bilaterally grubby under-the-table up-touching ballet which seems to routinely to play out between politicians and lobbyists?
This is really happening because car companies are at war with car dealers, and they want to see them eliminated. Or, at the very least, grossly disempowered. Essentially carmakers want you to buy direct, from them, online, with no negotiation.
If dealers remain, long-term, they’ll be merely service agents, and they’ll get a commission selling you the car and the spare parts to keep it from shitting itself.
Or not, in the case of Jeep, Land Rover, Jaguar, Volvo, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Nissan, etc. All the ‘fun’ brands >>.
Mercedes-Benz is currently in the process of shuffling its Australian dealers off to the ankle-grabbing room in exactly this way, and Honda has already done it. I don’t feel any sympathy for the dealers - but I do expect that if this trend continues, the end of the pineapple will get somewhat rougher for consumers.
My AutoExpert AFFORDABLE ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE PACKAGE
If you’re sick of paying through the neck for roadside assistance I’ve teamed up with 24/7 to offer AutoExpert readers nationwide roadside assistance from just $69 annually, plus there’s NO JOINING FEE
Full details here >>
However this plays, it will not be a better deal for you.
Deputy Prime Minister, leader of The Nationals and full-time empty suit, Michael McCormack, there (below, left); re-confirming his long-term commitment on everything, which would be, essentially, to demonstrate leadership and support for the proud people of Australia, whom he tirelessly represents by doing nothing, again, still, in the most self-aggrandising way possible. (I do love politicians.)
Politicians - keeping pimps, human traffickers and drug-runners off the bottom of the societal barrel.
Personal opinion: Have those entertaining chaps (and chapettes) at the FCAI forgotten that flexible pricing is the key to the operation of a free-market? To Tony Weber I would suggest - if I were advising him (which I’m clearly not) - but I would suggest it is supremely disingenuous to continue to ‘sell’ patently anti-consumer propositions to the public, via the media, cloaked in the dubious language of this grubby industry initiative and that being a benefit to all of us. Jesus.
These propositions are all spin and no substance. The only tangible beneficiary of this grubby initiative is the car industry. Ripping every consumer off equally by fixing prices and removing the ability to negotiate might pass the sniff test - but only within the turd mine we call Parliament House.
These kinds of statements (personal opinion) presume all consumers - in other words, all of us in the public - are functional idiots lacking the ability to think for ourselves. Radio and TV spent decades doing exactly that - and look what happened to them.
Pro tip: What are you doing right now? Watching me, on YouTube, delivering commentary, which you would never hear on radio or TV - and not because the comment doesn’t deserve a run.)
The industry’s fixed-price, agency modelling for the automotive retail landscape of the future is weapons-grade, anti-consumer bullshit, I’d suggest. The three-pronged suppository is moving to the agency model now simply because Australia legislation allows it - they’re not doing it in other jurisdictions because stronger, pro-consumer legislation forbids it.
Before I let you go, some dipshit in the comments is going to say to me: ‘You’re just shitting yourself that your business will collapse if this gets up.” Allow me pre-emptively to retort: Au contraire, dude. If this gets up, I’ll just sell enquiry direct to carmakers in exchange for some consumer incentive, and I’ll earn a commission for each sale that comes off. ‘Enter the code ‘AEJC’ at the website for free fuel for a year, plus $1000 of free accessories on checkout’ or something like that.
The car industry will still be gagging for customers - and they must hate it when I say ‘buy the BMW over that piece of shit Benz’ one-on-one to actual customers with cash in their pockets. It’s the most galling thing in the carmaker universe. Every carmaker gags for enquiry and is prepared to pay handsomely for it. That’s not going to change.
But if the industry wants consumers to have real choice, as the grubby lobbyists often allege publicly, let’s see car dealers operate like Bunnings, or Bing Lee, or JB HiFi - let’s have new car dealerships selling Corollas alongside Mazda3s, Hyundai i30s, Subaru Imprezas and Kia Ceratos. In the next aisle we could have medium SUVs, and then, further inside, seven seaters, and then utes - like that. Out the front, fire-sale shitboxes - Wranglers, Nissan Leafs, Range Rovers, every Ford that’s not a Ranger or an Everest. Cars like that, which nobody in their right mind should consider.
Dealers could stock any brand they wanted, and none of the shitbox brands that routinely betray consumers and make them cranky. Hands up if you’d like to see that, because I sure as shit would.
Pajero Sport is an excellent value off-roader if you need a 4WD with a reliable diesel engine, good fuel economy and enough towing power. This tough 7-seater is a wise choice for adventurous families.