Camaro pricing question

GM said it needs to sell @ 100,000 Camaros a year for the car to continue being produced. What's to keep the dealerships from price gouging and highway robbery? For example if the MSRP of a z/28 is 30,000 is GM going to tell the dealers that they can only sell them for a certain amount over the MSRP or are we at the mercy of the dealer. I ask because a member on another board saw a new Shelby Mustang for sale at a dealership in Calif. for nearly $100K. If the MSRP is 30k I'm not paying a dealer 40k. If GM dosen't step in to prevent this the Camaro will never make the #'s and will be canned due to greed:confused:

I agree with you. There are people out there that will pay, but they won't sell as many cars if they go above MSRP. If I end up waiting 6 years for a new Camaro and some ***hole dealers mark the car up I'll go buy something else, and then I'll say to hell with GM and ago buy a Prius out of spite.:cry:

Gm can't prevent it, except by not alotting anymore to that dealer if they are reported. GM has no way to "make" them sell at that price. However that said look around to a different dealership. someone will be willing to sell at MSRP, although it might cost you a plane ticket to go pick it up and drive it back home. still cheaper than a 10k markup though.

There will always be dealer markup because there will always be someone willing to pay it.

That being said GM cannot legally force a dealer to sell at any price, however this is going to be high volume car so there should be a large supply which will keep markups down.

I am A car dealer and would have no problem packing the MSRP $4-5000 on a hot vehicle....
If you want it bad enough you will buy it......supply and demand....
If ya dont like it buy a hyundai........

Gm can't prevent it, except by not alotting anymore to that dealer if they are reported. GM has no way to "make" them sell at that price. However that said look around to a different dealership. someone will be willing to sell at MSRP, although it might cost you a plane ticket to go pick it up and drive it back home. still cheaper than a 10k markup though.


You are, for the most part, correct.

GM or any other manufacturer is strictly prohibited from telling a dealer what he/she can or cannot sell a car for... It's called anti-trust and the United States Government takes it very seriously. When a GM employee is hired as a 'field' contact, there is a stack of papers he/she must sign. (and I DO mean a stack!) One of them is called the "Discount House Decree" from wayyyyyyyyy back in the early 50s. We cannot -- under any circumstances, tell a dealer what they can charge for a car. Shortly after that decision, the Monroney law was passed that requires that all new vehicles have a window sticker that plainly spells out the MSRP of the vehicle. (thus the term 'monroney label')

Now.......fine, you say......just don't give the dealer any more cars! Wrong again. That is called "mal-distribution' -- and again, the manufacturer is strictly prohibited from "cutting a dealer off" -- so to speak. We must have a distribution system in place that allocates product and it must withstand court scrutiny...............for instance: You might go into a small Chevy dealer --- or Honda dealer, for that matter -- and give him/her a deposit on a hot selling model. (think Z06) The dealer gets product allocated to him based on sales history. Not TOTAL sales history, but history on that particular vehicle line. (in cases of a brand new nameplate, the allocation is usually a blend of one or more existing vehicle lines balanced with a market study) --I digress. In the case of Corvette, we provide dealers with a letter that tells them how many Corvettes they will receive in a given timeframe. If the dealer takes 15 sold orders -- and he/she is only going to get 5-- there are going to be 10 very upset customers....and here's the clincher----we can't tell you "well, he's only getting 5, but go to "Dealer B" 'cause he's getting 24!" -- 'cause that's against the law as well.

So you see, my friends........this isn't necessarily an easy business! Further, I can see that Dodge and Chevy are going to have problems meeting demand for the Challenger and Camaro -- and that in two years, we will, in some cases, be highly criticized on this very site -- 'cause someone isn't getting their Challenger or Camaro in a 'timely' manner.

(And NOW you know why I have such little hair left!)

I am A car dealer and would have no problem packing the MSRP $4-5000 on a hot vehicle....
If you want it bad enough you will buy it......supply and demand....
If ya dont like it buy a hyundai........

Way to go mr. car dealer, you must be really good at your job....
Thats not going earn you a lot friends on this site. Has it ever occured to you that you could sell more vehicles on an enthusiast site by telling us that you'll sell hot cars at MSRP, instead of telling us to buy hyundai?

Dont like it? Join a Hyundai board. :rolleyes:

He is just some used dealer talking crap. Post your dealership page if I'm wrong. LOL.

Hey Fbodfather,

We all know you will deliver us a great car, but it will be things like this that will cause G.M. to "shoot " themselves in the foot!!! :cry: :cry: :cry:

Also, I sure hope G.M. will market this car better than they did with the 4th gen.
This is where G.M. sucks:mad:
They should take pointers from Ford because the KNOW how to market a car!

I am A car dealer and would have no problem packing the MSRP $4-5000 on a hot vehicle....
If you want it bad enough you will buy it......supply and demand....
If ya dont like it buy a hyundai........

Nice attitude.....even though you are right about supply and demand you don't have to be a jerk about it......

And I have no problem going to another delership that wants to sell a car honestly and not gouge everybody that comes through the door.


Please post your website for your dealership......:barf:


(by the way I loved your movie USED CARS....)

Scott, how does GM handle this relative to CSI? If dealer A is misrepresenting GM and products to consumers what recourse does the manufacturer have?

As for the rest of us...this is why these boards are wonderful, for us as consumers, and for GM. We can post, without slander, the dealers that have unscrupulous pricing practices so friends won't get taken (the Vette guys have been working together on Z06). While as a site Jason, etc may not want to endorse certain dealerships, we can write good and bad experiences. I think we have talked about this, but it would be nice to have two sticky threads (as time marches on) to put feedback about purchasing/ordering. This in-turn should be copied by posting members and fed to GM customer service. This keeps us and GM up to date on the good, the bad and the ugly with dealer relationships. Thoughts?

P.S. On the dealer who posted about packing on price...did you do the same with SSr when it arrived? If so, remember the customer you burn on one Vette/Camaro/etc for the extra $5k will remember your level of "service" when shopping next time. That may also mean you eat a lot in floor plan and turntime due to lack of repeat business. Next time think about that when you are trying to call past customers to move the load of Malibus and Colorados on your lot.

Anyone remember when the new T-bird convertable came out a few years back and how much they were going for over MSRP? Now they already quit making them, just like anything else you have to wait until the moment is right to act, just remember who these dealers are and never do business with them in the future. The problem is there are just so many "posers" in the world that only want a car because it is the hot thing at that time, let the posers burn their money and the smart shopper waits until the timing is better and demand has lowered. Remember the PT Cruisers, VW Bugs, Prius, all these cars were extremely hot at one time and demanded over MSRP but now they practically give away PT Cruisers and the others have dipped as well(except for the Prius when gas went up).

There will always be dealers out there that will try and take advantage of the situation regardless of the long term consequences (reduced consumer based/reputation). On the other hand, there are also always going to be dealers out there that recognize this and use it as a competitive advantage to sell volume at or below MSRP. You just have to find them. Odds are if you live in a large city, you can drive 20 miles outside the city to a more rural area and those dealers are usually more than happy to take your business. If you are getting gauged, justt tell the dealer to F*&$ off and take your business elsewhere.

Has GM ever looked into fighting that selling BS in court? You shoudl have controll over who sells your products directly from you because they represent YOU.

Has GM ever looked into fighting that selling BS in court? You shoudl have controll over who sells your products directly from you because they represent YOU.

My guess is that is probably would not go far. That is equivilant to saying that a consumer products company should be able to regulate the price that Target or Wal-Mart sells their products for. I know that is comparing $3 shampoo to a $30k car, but the concept is the same. Untill the public as a whole is unwilling to pay over MSRP then we will continue to see this. Like I said previously though, the great thing about living in a free market economy is that even though dealers are around that will charge you several thousand over MSRP, there are other dealers that would love your business and charge you at or below MSRP.... just have to shop around. If more people did this, then the problem would become non-existent.

Nice attitude.....even though you are right about supply and demand you don't have to be a jerk about it......

He is right only in that they have a limited supply which they create an artificial demand for.

Yes, there are more buyers than customers when new cars first come out, however no one has ever told me they went to a dealer and got into a pricing war over the first whatever. If you get two customers who each decide they will trump the other then Ive got no problem with one walking out of the door with the car and a lot less cash.

That however, is not what happens. What happens is a shipment comes in, they throw as much as they can get away with on the sticker before it hits the showroom. Thats not demand, thats speculation. Any economist will tell you its a self defeating practice.

Of course dealers like our friend here will make sublogical attempts to justify it with, "Oh this car cost 10k extra because there is a high demand for it."

To which I would reply, "Well then why is it still here?" :rolleyes:

I'm still curious if we're going to be able to work out a CamaroZ28.com "group purchase" rate when the car comes out?? :confused: Find a dealership (or a small handful of them) willing to mark the price DOWN below MSRP for a group of Camaro enthusiasts who will line up at the door waiting to place their order, if they know there is a DEAL to be had :thumb:. This wouldn't be bad for that dealership either ... they'd be able to out sell almost any other dealership on the Camaro, so they'd still make their profits ;) (but we could get a group discount :)).

an informed buyer?

I'm still curious if we're going to be able to work out a CamaroZ28.com "group purchase" rate when the car comes out?? :confused: Find a dealership (or a small handful of them) willing to mark the price DOWN below MSRP for a group of Camaro enthusiasts who will line up at the door waiting to place their order, if they know there is a DEAL to be had :thumb:. This wouldn't be bad for that dealership either ... they'd be able to out sell almost any other dealership on the Camaro, so they'd still make their profits ;) (but we could get a group discount :)).

Nice dream! I'm not a dealer, but if I was one that was only going to get 15 for the year, then I'd do the same as our dealer friend above. Just looking at the stealers that asked over sticker for the Z06, they are still selling other cars just like normal.

The only legal way I can see for GM to overcome this is to build the cars for a year before they deliver them to dealers. Maybe then there would be enough supply to keep the prices down, but somehow I think even that wouldn't be enough on this car.

Let's face it - the line to buy this car forms with the guys paying most up front. Those of you wanting it for less than MSRP are going to have to get pics of a dealer in compromising situations, or you're going to have to sit on the sidelines for a few years.

Don't get me wrong - I abhor paying sticker as much as anyone, but that's just the way the game is played given the legal situation the dealers have. Look at the damn Playstations ferchrissakes! Some are selling in the thousands on e eBay.