Guack007

well written I wish I could sign it to let them know that I feel the same way. good job

Speedlimit

It is not black and white Mark. Maximum price fixing between a supplier and their customer may not be illegal in the U.S. Saturn is an example. It happens all the time in retail. Certain manufactures require contracts that restrict discounting a specific procuct line to "protect the line value". If you violate the contract, you lose the dealership. Minimum price fixing between competitors is illegal.

In any case, good old supply and demand will determine the value of the car. The dealerships with rug merchant mentalities may lose a wonderful opportunity to build a solid relationship with a customer. The succesful car salesmen (and women) I know have long lists of satisfied customers that have been developed over many years. The EVO can be an excellent way of adding to the list.

Speedlimit.....

tryandcatchme

From reading the posts on here, the sluggish economy is probably the reason why there bringing over all thease awesome cars, since the car manufacturers are hurting for business so they have to find some way of stimulating sales.

Dtech

If you read and understood my post and parts of the other thread I mentioned about manufacturers currently doing it, you would know how Saturn gets away it. It is not illegal when you are dealing with LICENSED entities of the same company and it is a company wide mandate / guideline that is applied to their ENTIRE dealer network. It would be price fixing if say a couple of dealers in the same geographical area got together and said "hey, let's charge this much for the EVO".

Again, if it was illegal there would be an aweful lot of car companies being sued by their dealers and criminal charges as well. So far I have not heard of nor seen either.

You sales guys need to stop trying to justify trying to rip people off (and yes I know about supply and demand...blah, blah, blah)! IF there is a dumb **** that will pay a rediculous markup for an EVO then count yourself lucky if you are the salesperson and you are able to sell it to them. Those are not the people targeted this car for and will NOT yield the sales or results they intended. Why the hell would anyone pay $35K for an EVO when they can get say.....a new Volvo S60R (300HP AWD and much more luxurious)for $1K more (and that's compared to MSRP for the Volvo)....and please don't tell me they are totally different cars because that's my point. Once you get to a certain price point, you're missing the target market.

Nothing wrong with capitalism and trying to make a good profit on a hot item, but give me a break. I seriously doubt selling an EVO for MSRP would yield a profit of only a few hundred dollars! Anyone willing to prove me wrong, please post an invoice for one.

Face it, Mitsubishi was late to the party after Subaru taking the risk with the WRX, and even then Subaru didn't take advantage of their customers.

The more feedback I hear from some of you guys the more I'm convinced my money is going to end up going to another vehicle just for the principle of the matter!

M3lachsilber

Look..
MarkF is a blemish on the face of the car sales population.
He and concordmitsnet should hang out and talk shop...

I'm tired of seeing his defensive posts about "price fixing" and the like..

If he had a clue about the terms of dealer agreements, and how dealers ARE restricted on what they can and can't do, he wouldn't be so outspoken on these boards. I haven't seen him post ONE intelligent comment about the EVO demand.


Let's position it this way MarkF...

Do you feel it is right to charge well over sticker for the EVO???

We await your answer...get ready for flames dude..

Mark F

Careful, the quality of your character is showing.

Mark Fitzpatrick
Awarded Diamond Sales Guild for excellence in customer satisfaction.
Happily selling Evo's at MSRP - only guy in town doing so.

Dtech

Good for you Mark! ...and I mean that sincerely if it's true.

So why the big deal about the MSRP thing then?

I'd just like to put this one out again to any sales people (we'll know soon enough from other sources):

Nothing wrong with capitalism and trying to make a good profit on a hot item, but give me a break. I seriously doubt selling an EVO for MSRP would yield a profit of only a few hundred dollars! Anyone willing to prove me wrong, please post an invoice for one.

dealers can't afford to price gouge because of all the competition and the economy, if they really want to accomplish their sales and marketing goals.

Alfriedesq

iTrader: (6)

I agree its fair to make a fair profit - but personally - I think $5,000 is an insane mark up over retail on a car that obviously took great pains to bring in under 30 k - - it shames me that we loose the active diff 6 speed and AYC in order to reduce the price to a attractive level and then these mafia like dealers jack it up to the same price as the evo VIII

You can import a genuine evo VII or euorpian evo viii for the same price as these fools are paying for the stripped down us version

Just to clarify my thrust here - - I am encouraging all those who have a deposit in at a premium over msrp to CANCEL thier orders . . . . just tell them there are other dealers charging MSRP and walk if they wont come down

I talked to 7 dealers who wanted between $2,500 - $7,500 - or a bidding war - (imagine actually trying to have an auction on a new car) before I found one who is accepting orders at MSRP

The point of my thread is NOT that I wasn't able to locate a car at msrp - my point is that it bothers me greatly that :

1 - is going to get a bad rap due to slimey dealers taking advantage of people who are caught up in the scarcity hype (these are NOT Porsche 959's)

2 - Hard working young people are going to get cheated out of hard earned $$

If your interested - you can contact Chuck O'Neil the sale's manager at Greenwich Mitsubishi - and he has a few of his first year allocation left to sell at msrp (203) 622-0606 with no dealer ad ons or other games

Ther are many other dealers who are being fair - they are posted here

If enough of us refuse to pay over msrp the price will come down

Untill Gets its act together like subaru and starts to punish these bad apple dealers who are taking advatage by pulling thier allocations - - then its up to the individual to keep themselves from being shafted

Please remember - with $$$ you can always buy - - there will be enough to go around

Mark F

I'm not the one making a big deal out of the MSRP thing.

People around here act like this is something new and only happening on the Evo. It happens all the time with lots of vehicles. Even such pedestrian cars as the Honda Odyssey and Pilot have been subjected to substantial markups over MSRP for extended periods of time - because of supply and demand. "OK, that will be MSRP + $1,000 for your Odyssey minivan. It will be here in 4 months, I hope you like green."

I've never really experienced that kind of problem selling Mitsubishi's before... but I digress.

Some folks are treating this as a moral issue when its not. It is an economic issue. The MSRP is not an absolute. If it were, every car would sell for MSRP - no more, no less. In times of high supply and low demand (like so far this year) product gets discounted heavily below MSRP to move it. Heavily might be a bit of a misnomer since markups have shrunk so dramatically in the past few years, but again I digess. Then of course in times of high demand and low supply, prices will go up (gasoline anyone?). It's the market that sets the price and when people are queueing up for your product there is no reason to sell cheap. That's just the way it is and hardly is this unique to the automotive industry as my crude example above demonstrates.

BTW

I have not at any point given an opinion on charging over MSRP. I merely treat it as an economic reality.

We have all heard the expression "money talks and bull**** walks" and it is absolutely true. You'll pardon me but the letter at the head of this thread falls into the latter category. It carry's no weight or meaning. Unsold cars sitting on the dock or on dealer lots have meaning. Don't want to pay over MSRP? Don't. If somebody else will then so be it. Just be prepared to accept that as long as somebody else will then you'll be S.O.L. until unsold units start piling up. At Evo production levels, that could be a while though.

At my store I have been involved in several intense discussions about pricing for the Evo. We could probably get more than MSRP for the cars - my competitors are getting deposits up to $4,000-over - but we chose not to, a decision I support, even though it means $1,000 less per car that I would personally make. Instead I'll probably make about $450 per car, which ain't bad at all for a new car in this day and age, and downright unheard of for a new Mitsu. In this particular market I think it was the right choice to make and since 2 of the 5 deposits I have taken came to me for that very reason, I think I was probably right. If others get more money then more power to them. I can live with it either way.

Mitsusalesguy

I have a customer that is coming from Northern California to Texas to buy one because all the dealers near him are charging 5k over MSRP so he just decided to come to Texas and get one. I think it will all die down after the first shipment gets here. I still have 3 cars that I don't have a deposit on and 3 more that have deposit on but have to order the car. My dealership is getting 8 cars for the first batch. We have been a Mitsu dealer starting in 1989 they did not mark up past MSRP on the Galant VR4 only 1000 made. We would rather build a good relationship with our customers than take a lot of extra money from 8 people so they can go and tell everyone how we "ripped them off"
I am just happy the cars are coming!!! I can't wait to take the first test drive with my customer. Well that is all I have to say.... other than I really enjoy this board. It can pass the time when it is raining out and there are no customers to talk to

Oh ps it was one of my customers the first deposit I took back in November that told me about evolutionm.net
edit for spelling

M3lachsilber

Great job on your customer satisfaction awards from MarkF.

Also appreciate you and your dealership selling the cars for list only...

It seemed as though you were justifying the over sticker concept.

My bad.

Alfriedesq

iTrader: (6)

Yeah it seems MarkF is one of the good guys !

To me it dosn;t seem like the demand is there to pump these cars out at $5,000 over sticker - what is driving this is the offending dealers have calculated that it woudl be easy to sell them at MSRP - so there is no need really to take msrp deposits - - if they can screw someone who has the hots for the car the first few weeks at $5,000 over they will otherwise they will prob let them go at msrp - - - the very fact that there are dealers welling at MSRP who are still selling through their first year allocations at this late date should be strong evidence that there is no need to pay $5,000 over sticker - - - (there are some folk who like to pay to get tied up and beaten with a whip - I guess some just like paying $5,000 too much?)

For $5,000.00 I could buy myself a whole bunch of nice engine upgrades at www.pruvenperformance.com

I just hope that enough of the people with deposits on deals way over MSRP read this and decide to re-negotiate - or move thier business to guys like Mark or the other guy from texas

OH - and the slim chance that may take away future allocations to punish the dealers who are taking advantage of this situation by charging $5,000 and up over sticker

Malibu

boys, if the M3 sells at 5-10k markup - dont dream and think there will be a major crackdown on bad sales. what makes u think a potential M3 or 911 buyer wont jjump on a EVO VIII @ 35, 40k and "save" money - just to be the first on their block with an EVO.

Speedlimit

Hi,

Because.... with the exception of the Recaro front seats, the interior is an $18,000 Lancer without cruise control. Plus it is NOT a beamer or Porshe. Of course I could be wrong.


Speedlimit.....

Vtec1

MARK F well said


That's exactly what i was trying to do is make a liitle money on the side , but people started to get all *****y about it. Who on this board wouldn't want to make $5,000 dollars. Point proven it takes money to make money and i know for a fact that if any of u had the oppertunity to make money u would jump on it no questions asked. So why do all u people criticize me about marking up my evo for ,$5,000 over. Hell just for u people i'll mark up $2,500 for any color and option u want that sound fair.