Don't give up. It took a couple of weeks, but I found a dealer to place a deposit with at MSRP. Life is too short and chaotic to wait another year…who knows what may happen. The ADM or junk fees may or may not go away, but you’re guaranteed the MSRP will go up due to inflation.
I agree and this would be an effective solution in an ideal world but car buyers in general (ITS or not) are all in different life stages and have different needs. Even if most people refuse to pay any ADM, the demand is there and dealers get to decide whether they want to take advantage of that fact or not. Sure there's been some improvement but for everyone to stop buying cars until this is resolved is wishful thinking.
I'm not suggesting anyone stop buying cars altogether, just only buy from reputable dealers who don't add ADM, or other, fees. Required accessory packages is a little more nuanced as you at least are getting something in return. I understand in some areas this may mean going out of state, but even a one way airline ticket and a drive home is less than the ADM/fees some dealers are adding on.
Yup totally get it. Here in CA for example, nearly every dealer has ADM and it's simply the way the market is at the moment. IMHO, it doesn't make them any less reputable than others.
It's a whole different market out there, but I guess what I'm getting at is that the added ADM/fees won't get you anything extra that I won't get paying MSRP at my local dealership. It goes straight into their coffers which are already flush with cash. Maybe ethical would be a better choice than reputable.
You are correct. I think that is a better term and I've been trying to find a word for it for a while now.
Yep. I know someone who paid TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS over MSRP for a ducking base model, zero option CorollaCross. Unfortunately, this person doesn't know a thing about cars, sees them as point A to B appliances, and wanted to get it over with ASAP, so found a dealership that had the soonest allocation coming in and went for it. Also, needed a car because old one went out. So yeah, I'd say that's representative of the general public of car buyers currently.
Do you NEED a car right now? If not, don’t stress. I get the feeling the ITS may very well end up going like the original RSX-S. They sold an insane amount in the first two years and then sales absolutely plummeted. We are in an age where the manual transmission is considered a downgrade by the public at large. Once the fans get one in the first couple years, I’m willing to bet prices will level out. Plus, the older the model gets, the more updates it will have added on. At the end of the day there aren’t boatloads of people able to spend 50-60k on a car. Most people want suvs. Most people want automatics. There’s only so many people who are willing to spend like this, especially because it’s an Acura and not a BMW, or Audi, or MB. Y’know… the brands that are literally everywhere.
I think we're already seeing that with the Type R. There's only so many people who are willing to pay this much for these cars. I went to a dealership a few months ago and they had an FL5 and asked for 20k over and were firm about it. Went again recently and they had another FL5 and they said "15k over buuuuut if you're serious about buying we can work with you on the price, it's not a problem". Sounds to me they're not super confident in finding a buyer at those prices anymore.
ADM is an "Additional Dealer Markup" which does not get you anything additional like accessories or protection packages. It is sometimes called a "market adjustment" by them knowing they can sell these cars for more than MSRP.
