[user5994461]

Prices are incredibly transparent and accurate.

Made money from buying and selling used cars a long time ago. The business flow died down slowly with the rise of the internet and car estimate sites.

Ultimately people could just go to whatever-site, enter their car model and get an accurate estimate, corrected for year, mileage and maintenance tasks done. There ain't any car bought or sold for 10-20% under or over median value.

[refurb]

Prices are incredibly transparent and accurate.

My understanding is that dealer incentives aren't captured in those transparent prices. And those can add up to several thousand dollars.

That's why if you go to a dealership and say "I'll pay your invoice plus $500", they'll gladly do it since they'll get $5,000 on the backend.

[user5994461]

I used to deal in < 10k€ used cars. That's where there is the most flow. Note that Europeans have much smaller and cheaper cars than Americans.

There never was room for a $5000 margin. The rare multi-k hit became rarer and rarer with the advance of the internet, until it completely disappeared.