You seriously believe a car dealer is losing money?
A car loan is principal and interest. You got a 0% “deal”, you overpaid on the principal.
Comment on $1,000 car loan payments are on the rise, stressing household budgets
baines@piefed.social 9 hours ago0 percent interest auto loans are a thing
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
baines@piefed.social 2 hours ago
they’re definitely making less margin
booly@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
Every once in a while there are multiple parties structuring a deal where someone is left with a bad deal when it’s all said and done. As a consumer, you just have to make sure it’s not you.
But take, for example, the early days of Moviepass. You pay a cheap subscription to a service, and they buy you unlimited mobile tickets at the theater. Too good to be true in the long term, but in the short term it was a good way to spend some money that venture capitalists were giving away basically for free.
Businesses aren’t always smart. Sometimes they make financial mistakes and it’s your duty as a responsible consumer to punish those businesses for those mistakes.
In the case of dealer/manufacturer/financing incentives and the individual salesman commission, sometimes the kickback/fee scheme leaves someone else holding the bag. If you can negotiate a lower sticker price because it comes with some predatory terms on financing, but there’s no penalty for prepayment, it might make the most sense to take the low sticker price (made possible by the lender paying the dealer a kickback for the loans), finance at high rates, and then pay the whole thing off as soon as you can, so that you get the “discount” without having to pay high interest/fees, then you walk away with a good deal in exchange for just a little bit more hassle and paperwork. Sometimes the incentives swing the other way, too, where the lender is affiliated with the manufacturer and needs to juice sales volume by offering below-market rates on financing. As long as you can actually see how everything works and you can find the pain point, it may be possible to get a good deal and dump the bad deal on some faceless corporation for them to worry about.
baines@piefed.social 1 hour ago
it can be as simple as selling at cost / relatively small loss keeping you in an ecosystem for future knock on profits
not as common in cars but plenty of examples in retail
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Yeah, now don’t get me wrong, you can get some deals on cars when dealers see the lot space as increasingly valuable compared to the car on it, but they’re salespeople, they’ll swear up and down that that’s the case no matter what the situation is.
You want to know how you can tell you got a good deal? You compare it to what similar vehicles are being sold for at other places, you have an independent mechanic check it out (an honest dealer will be perfectly happy with you doing that), and you ask a trusted financial institution (ideally a credit union) what they would loan you for it. In general you trust that everything a
carsalesperson is doing that sounds good is to keep your eyes on the hand that isn’t in your pocket.baines@piefed.social 1 hour ago
if you’re having to get another mechanic to look at it, i’d probably not come back
already said fuck you to honda ever again for this kinda behavior
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 53 minutes ago
When buying used you shouldn’t trust any dealer at their word. When buying new yeah you should be able to trust the oem. Unless you buy American, then caveat emptor, don’t know why you thought Ford suddenly started using quality control.
D@piefed.social 9 hours ago
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
baines@piefed.social 2 hours ago
who said the car was free?
you’re just not paying interest
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 hours ago
No they aren’t, maybe technically but no one is lending money for free, aside from Klarna whose business model is preying on those that can’t pay back
bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
During covid my coworker for a 0% interest loan on a 2016 4rinner TRD pro. It was for 80k.
Dudes chilling, taking his time to pay it off, saving for a house.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Every dollar of interest subsidies manufacturers give is a dollar they cut from discounts and other incentives.
baines@piefed.social 1 hour ago
where is this world of perfect information you have about car prices?
far as i know i paid under regional prices on the average before even the no interest
but if you have a source i’ll take it
WoodScientist@lemmy.world 18 minutes ago
It’s called critical thinking and common sense. Don’t be a sea lion.