[zachshefska]

Disclaimer; I run a popular youtube channel educating consumers on car buying.

Greg did a good job documenting the challenges of buying a car in today's market. Fortunately, we are starting to see a softening in consumer demand which has led to used car prices to begin to drop in some areas and for certain types of vehicles.

We expect that as automakers increase production we'll go away from markups. The timeline for that is tricky since Asian brands (Toyota and Honda especially) are struggling MUCH more than American automakers. MSRPs are rising fast too, so while dealer markups may disappear as demand weakens and supply increases, don't be surprised if you see MSRPs that are 5-10% higher year over year.

Wait times right now for hybrid vehicles are over a year. The push to PHEV and BEV will continue to be delayed due to ridiculous prices. The average transaction price for a new EV last month was north of $66,000. Not affordable.

Great insights in Greg's article. I wish we could have helped him before he embarked on the journey.

[ghaff]

The current supply shortages made the process less bothersome for me in some ways because I didn't really expect to have much luck haggling. Wasn't perfect. "In transit" meant it wasn't built yet and I was in a bit of a hurry. (Had car but car had problems.) Doc fee was high. A couple of 50% BS sets of "factory installed options." (Though got price tacked onto my pretty generous trade-in.) Some annoying attempts to upsell but "no" worked fine. Didn't need financing.

But overall, it was a couple of visits and a few hours and I got the vehicle (Honda) in six weeks.

[germinalphrase]

Are Japanese manufactures supply constrained due to chip shortages in particular?

[sremani]

Hey Zack, I was about to plug your channel. Good work bro!