How do car dealers get new cars?

In your case we would do a dealer trade.

We would call our other dealerships and competition to find a unit that fits your specifics.

Perhaps you noticed that the dealer did not cross his arms, nod and blink to make your car suddenly appear. This is because we have to do some legwork, starting on the phone and then, once the car is found negotiate the trade if it is coming from a competing house.

Then the car has to be delivered or picked up by a porter or the Inventory Manager. I’ve often made the journey myself to make sure the job gets done as soon as possible. Someone will likely be driving a hundred miles or more.

Believe it or not we deal with this issue in the pre-owned department. Since the Used Car Factory never picks up the phone we try hard to find what you’re looking for from our other used car departments as well.

The dealer should have told you that he or she was going to comb over all the inventory in the area. You probably should have been easier to talk to as well.

Your post is full of ugly assumptions. Fine. What can be done? I met with the same XXXX while working in the restaurant industry. When I deal with professionals I always assume they know something that might have not occurred to me. A good agent then educates the customer.

You loathe cars. They smelled that on you the moment you walked in.

In variations of ships, trains and finally, trucks

This is the point where you present them with an ultimatum.
Demand a discount, or you want your money back.

Earn our respect: Be a good negotiator. Not just another wanting a “discount.”

@SecondHandStoke: “In your case we would do a dealer trade.

We would call our other dealerships and competition to find one that fits your specifics.”

[I’ll edit out the rest of the comment. It lacks quality.]

Thanks. This helps

But in the case of the 2015 Honda Fit, I’m under the impression that all dealers are having a difficult time keeping these on the lot. Why would these other dealers give up the car? And would they sell it to my dealer at cost? I’m confused (hence the question). How does this business work?

Lacks quality. Yep, the rest of the comment contains no useful information, presented directly or otherwise.

Another dealer may have put out a call for another model, who knows.

The fact that the Fit/Jazz is in short supply should tell you something. There’s a demand for the product for a reason.

We do not buy the car from a competing dealer. That would be far too complex. We make a trade. It’s as easy as filling out a form.

@SecondHandStoke: “Another dealer may have put out a call for another model, who knows.”

So dealers have relationships with each other, and they will readily provide a car to another dealer with the expectation that the favor will be returned? This makes sense.

When dealers get their supply of cars from Mexico (I think that’s where the Fit is made now), do they get cars on a schedule or do they find out a few days before when and what they will be receiving?

We get a report telling us what will be arriving in the next shipment.

Good Sales Associates want a copy of this list as soon as possible. We want to call would be customers to let them know a unit that fits their needs will be on our lot soon.

I should clarify that we do indeed buy cars from other dealers but this is almost always done for the pre-owned department.

So we take in some turd as a customer trade that still has value: To recondition the car to make it legal and desirable for retail resale costs money. It makes much more sense to wholesale that GM product to a Chevrolet dealer that is willing to pay for reconditioning in order to have that car as a cheaper alternative for a Chevy buyer who concludes that a new one isn’t a good option.

When I worked for Porsche we wanted preowned Porsches. The same was true when I worked for Acura, BMW and Toyota.

A smart Preowned Manager finds trends. Certain cars sell here, others don’t. They are sought out from wholesalers and other preowned lots.

From a not-dealer: I have, since 1981, in three states, including the car purchase of one of my children, dealt with Honda for the purchase of four cars. I have never had cause to mistrust them. You are not an idiot to put a deposit down. The Fit bought by my daughter was brought in from another state because no dealer in the immediate area had the model/color she wanted. These are very popular cars. It may take a bit of time to find exactly what you want. Don’t despair, don’t feel like you’ve been duped, it’s coming.

My daughter’s Fit is 6 years old and still going strong. You’ll like this car.

What generation and trim level is your old Accord?

Jesus drove an Accord but didn’t talk about it.

2002 LX, standard, 160k miles

That isn’t many miles. What’s wrong with it?

It needs a clutch, I have to put a quart of oil in it about every 5 days, the exhaust system is gone (have to keep the windows down), the air conditioning occasionally works, and a few other things (like a grinding metal sound when I drive, it is rusting pretty bad).

@hominid My ‘86 Corolla is in better shape, and I barely maintain it! What did you do to that poor thing? You obviously do loathe cars; you abuse them to hell!

@hominid: Your link brings up some shady-looking guy shaking his bowling ball in a cloth sack. Was that deliberate?

@gailcalled: It was very deliberate. Not a fan of the greatest movie ever made? That gif is of my favorite Jesus.

@jerv – You should see the thing. It used to be green. The paint has almost completely come off. I’ve had all kinds of work in the past 5 months. The last was about a month ago. Had to replace an axle. I promised myself that it was the last $ I would put into it. I must know that I hate it. :)

Awww… RIP formerly green Accord. Will you be changing the color of your avatar to your new car’s color?

I used to work for Volkswagen and Mercedes dealers, and they swap cars to get the one a particular customer wants. I even had the dealer my ex was working for do a swap so I could get my 1995 Golf in Dusty Mauve (I loved that car: first clutch replacement at 190K miles, she made it over 225K when I broke up with the bf that I had given it to).

For popular models, especially if you’re being particular about color and trim features, there usually isn’t much negotiation on price, so consider yourself fortunate that you were able to negotiate what you feel is a reasonable price. Back in the ‘80s, it was a real pain to try to track down who had what inventory, but the internet has made that easier. Still, realize that your dealer will have to incur the cost of sending someone to make the swap – sometimes they drive a hundred miles or more, if that’s where the nearest car that meets your specifications can be found, so they’re making even less on this deal. My son works for an Audi dealer, and when he was a driver, they sent him on some trips that were more than 140 miles away.

When I bought my 2008 Mini Cooper S (RIP; I really loved that car) there was no negotiating on price because there were very few dealers at the time, but the demand for the car was picking up. Plus, they built my car to order in England, so I had to wait for it to be manufactured and shipped. What we negotiated on were the little extras, like mud flaps and such. At that time, Mini was doing nowhere near the volume they’re doing today, which is still far less that what Honda produces, so the larger makes don’t build to order like that.

We had a similar experience with our 2011 VW Jetta TDI – they were in very high demand because they had redesigned the diesel engines to new specification. We went to the dealer just to test drive and check it out, but we decided not to be picky about color and bought the last one they had on the lot. They were in very high demand at the time, and people were on waiting lists for some colors, but no one seemed to want white.

As others have noted, you will get your car. You have not been duped out of your deposit. New car dealers are especially well-regulated and organized, since they have to live up to the standards set by the manufacturers in order to uphold that reputation.

Well, after some research, it appears that this car is in higher demand than I – or even the dealers – had anticipated. And the incoming inventory has apparently slowed to a trickle.

I did speak with my dealer, and he did confirm that he called those local dealers that appear to have these cars in stock from their website, but they don’t actually have the cars.

Less than 2 weeks ago when I started focusing on this car, there were some on lots and the local dealers had many listed in inventory. Now…“poof”...they’re all gone. Looks like I’ll be waiting a lot longer.

You can order one through the dealer, I did with my pickup they had nothing on the lots so I told them exactly what I wanted they put an order into the factory and 3 months later I got my truck.

^ Bear in mind that with common marques custom ordering is increasingly rare. Expect possible long wait times.

In the US Acura has moved to outfitting all models with nearly every feature. Often SatNav is the only major option. As a former salesperson I can attest that this has been a good strategy in general.

I only wish that models such as the Integra Type R had been made more available in the US market: It featured a hand assembled and internally balanced engine, a limited slip differential and body stiffening members. Performance robbing additions such as gas tank baffles, sunroofs (at first), sound deadening panels, the standard heavier windshield, the standard heavier ALB unit, even air conditioning and much more were deleted. The result was the best handling front drive production car ever produced.

@SecondHandStoke You assume that Americans want anything other than luxury and comfort. Hell, they don’t even want acceleration; if they did, they would prefer electrics and diesels due to a little thing called “torque”. Road feel? If you feel the road, the car was designed poorly! You should be isolated from reality, with nothing to interfere with the sound of your 8-speaker sound system. And if you spill your drink when you hit a curb,m the suspension is too stiff!

/rant

The non driving oriented clueless motorist hordes:

I should be terrified to venture on to the highways.

Well, in my own way I am.

Honda found a way to remove FIFTEEN FREAKING POUNDS from the anti lock brake unit.

The people should be awestruck.

@SecondHandStoke Being a truck driver you can only imagine the horrors I have seen by clueless drivers, and it’s every freaking day not just once in awhile .

@SecondHandStoke
Over what? That they designed it 7.5kg too heavy in the first place?

@ragingloli Maybe if you lost 50 (fifty) kilos (assuming you’re of average size), you’d understand the problem. Especially from a company not known for over-engineering the way Ford and GM tend to. But those who don’t understand the engineering or know the players involved won’t see the same problems as those of us who do.

Loli understands the problem. He is just deriding something that I praised.

As an insider I know that Honda overengineers to a factor of 40%

Update: The dealer where I had put the deposit down was telling me that they really had no idea when they would find this car. Nobody in the area had these. I had spoken with other dealers and they had waiting lists on cars, and they had no idea when these cars would arrive.

I happen to luck out and check a local dealer which just had received the model/color I wanted. I purchased it immediately, and the other dealer had no problem returning my deposit.