[googlryas]

It's not just supply and demand, because the manufacturers have been pissed at the dealership markups, because it makes them look bad. And the manufacturers can't do anything about it because of state enforced middlemen in the car sale process.

And it's not scare quotes, I'm just using the phrase that they used, which I had never heard of before.

And, it was unreasonable, because of some details which I did not include, which is that the specific vehicle was listed as for sale on their website for $40k, but only when I called did they say that it was actually only for sale for $55k. That's a bait and switch.

[ghaff]

Well there are destination charges/dealer prep/paperwork etc. I recently had to buy a car. And by all indications low-mileage used are hot tickets right now. Had to pay something like $500 in dealership charges which is more than I've paid in the past I'm pretty sure but not highway robbery.

Didn't even try to negotiate the sticker price but, to my surprise, was about to get the price for some "factory installed options" (which included a first aid kit!) added to my trade-in. So the used car situation cuts both ways.

I was probably pretty lucky to get the car in "only" six weeks.

But didn't even try to get a hybrid or electric.

[PenguinCoder]

$500 is a far cry from $15,000. It's still insane for what amounts to some paperwork and processing fees though.

[ghaff]

Sure. One is clearly padding. The other is we're going to add a massive surcharge and if you don't pay it someone else will. I actually consider myself lucky getting a semi-reasonable deal in a not too extended timeframe on something I'm happy with in a supply-constrained environment.

[frumper]

the 15k markups are on top of the normal dealer fees like destination charges.