[Colin]

It's certainly the case in HI, buyers just need to be calm and work past it.

 

[Colin]

Those dealer markup stickers make my blood boil.

Here in TX all the CRZs are heavily marked up with pinstripes, "Pro Pack" and other nonsense.

My advice is to refuse those markups and insist on a special order the way you want it.

I hate that Honda allows this.

Honda Motor Co has no say in this. Trying to dictate pricing would essentially be price fixing and against the law. There is a reason that it is called Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price. Dealers are free to go down off of the sticker price or to go up.

 

[Colin]

if i'm not mistaken, Honda doesn't allow more than $1k-$1500 markup on their cars... but like i mentioned this doesn't apply to "limted edition" vehicles... the dealers does what they want with those...

Let's see if I can help set the record straight on this issue. First off, full disclosure, I work at an Acura dealership in Hawaii. We put $3995 of dealer markup on every car. But I can't think of any time in the last few years that anybody has ever paid it (or even a part of it)

Bizzy, as for what Honda allows, as I stated before, they have no say in what the dealership does once they get the car. However, they can (and do) limit how much they will finance over the sticker price. This is typically expressed as the percentage over the sticker price and this allows for a dealer to "un-bury" somebody who is upside down on a trade-in. This might be where you have gotten the impression that Honda has "rules" about pricing, but they do not. Only rules about financing.

So the question is; if you've never charge the dealer markup, why add it at all? While I cannot speak for other states, I can say that in our state we're not allowed to raise the price (above the posted price) for different customers. This means that we have a difficult situation when somebody is "upside down" on a trade. So, the dealer markup exists because we can always lower the price, but cannot raise the price (on an individual basis). Anyway, I hope this helps clarify what Honda allows or doesn't allow.

 

[Colin]

^^ I'm certainly no attorney, but I can say that there is no way that Honda can dictate to an independent business what they can sell the car for. Maybe price fixing is the wrong term, but the basics are there. They sell the car at wholesale, after that, it is up the the retailer to set a price that will sell in their market. If that happens to be over sticker at the expense of customer good will, well... the dealer will sleep in the bed they make.