Back in July I sent off an email to Automobile magazine, one of the car mags I subscribe to and read fairly diligently. I kind of forgot about it until today... when I was reading the latest (Nov 2012) issue and started to read a familiar bit of writing... I suddenly realized it was my writing!
I was pretty pleased to see they had published nearly the whole thing, with very little editing... it came out to nearly half a page full of text! I am pretty stoked about that. Even more so because it seems to have inspired or at least coincided with the column that Ezra Dyer wrote for this issue -- also about the sleazy tactics that dealers employ on unsuspecting buyers.
Here is the full text of the email I sent them:
As a sports car enthusiast and fan of small, lightweight vehicles, it's been great to see widespread positive coverage of the Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ in your magazine and others as well. As you mentioned in your New Cars 2013 feature, they are meant to be a "low-cost, lightweight sports car". But as I began my pursuit of the Subaru BRZ by calling and contacting various Subaru dealerships in Northern California where I live, it seemed that the low-cost aspect of the car is being undermined by the incredibly greedy and sometimes ridiculously sleazy actions of the individual dealerships. Some of them are asking for as much as $5000 over MSRP, as "market value adjustments". And to add insult to injury, some of them add questionable options and accessories and price them at a point where you would have to be a moron or incredibly wealthy to be willing to pay their exorbitant markups. I attach a photo found on the internet, documenting one such dealership's attempt to gouge its customers: $7685 in addons and markups to drive what was originally a $27,000 car into the $35,000 range. Maybe that kind of thing is normal in the Porsche dealerships, but we're talking about a 2.0 liter Subaru here.
Now I realize that to some degree it's all about supply and demand, and dealerships are free to ask for whatever they think their customers are willing to pay. I witnessed similar markups and gouging when I bought my 2000 MR2 Spyder back when those first came out. Don't think that the Scion dealerships, with their "Pure Price" so-called no-haggling policy are any different. Several of the Scion dealerships I visited are adding ludicrously priced add-ons to pad their profits, like $700 window tint or woefully ugly $2000 chrome wheels. But surely the bigwigs at Toyota/Scion and Subaru have to realize that they are letting their dealers undermine their own marketing efforts here. You can't in good conscience be touting your new vehicle as the return of affordable, fun-to-drive sports cars, and then sit by silently as your dealerships extort their customers like this. I know from various media coverage that Subaru/Toyota plan to produce as many of these little cars as they can sell, and most likely in a year or two from now there will be tons of these cars sitting on the dealership lots, available for much less than MSRP. Thankfully there are still some dealerships I have talked to who are doing the right thing, right now, and offering the limited allocations they expect to receive at MSRP or less. In fact after searching and contacting numerous dealers throughout California, I finally decided to place my order and bring my business to a Subaru dealer in Colorado, who will let me order the car with only the options and accessories I want, and in fact are giving me a price so low that it is still more cost-effective to order from them and have the car trucked back to CA for me than to purchase it in CA.
To seasoned car guys/gals and purveyors of limited-edition or limited-production vehicles perhaps none of this is any news and I have no doubt that car dealerships have, and will continue to engage in this kind of behavior whenever a new, or rare vehicle hits the showroom floors. But I hope that letters like mine, and perhaps the occasional coverage or discussion by magazines like yours, will bring some exposure to what is almost universally agreed upon is part of the seamy underside of the automotive world -- the actual car buying experience. Perhaps you've done it in the past, but you could and should do a piece on buying a car and all the various tactics, shenanigans and practices that happen at a typical dealership -- in sales, finance, and even in the service departments. I still look forward to purchasing and driving my BRZ soon, but the whole overall purchasing experience will probably be tainted to some degree by the ordeal I and many of my fellow BRZ enthusiasts had to go through to get there. Subaru of America, are you listening?
the Editor's response at the end of my letter: "You might want to check out this month's Dyer Consequences on page 28. -- Ed."
I love Ezra Dyer's writing as well and feel pretty honored, that perhaps I inspired him to write this month's column. Or at least we are on the same brain wavelength...
Ironic that this just got published now, just as my new car is about to finally arrive. Perhaps all will be forgiven once I get behind the wheel...
in other news, I have a few other new toys, on the way and just arrived! One of the big ones is that I will be getting an iPhone 5, once Apple's backlog is caught up. I've been carrying a Blackberry for work the past few years but this will be my first personal smartphone. Finally gonna give up the old-school LG Chocolate II and move into the 21st century.
I also picked up another new firearm thanks to my gun-buddies showing me their toys -- fell in love with the SIG522 rifle and after shooting one I had to get one myself. This is my first rifle (though I've spent a fair amount of time shooting friends' rifles). The great thing is it has very low recoil and it fires the very economical .22LR ammo and will be lots of fun at the range.
