Thanks for the info
I test drove one and agree it was fast but very floaty
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Actually heard it was better to get the RS optioned without the dynamic steering. The regular steering was adequate enough for the car.
No joke, had a co-worker go down the street for a used car cause that dealership was selling very similar vehicle for like 2,000 less than we offered based off company policy.
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Plenty of people, get at invoice or below. Pretty rare that we make any front gross on a new car. Now that is coming from a salesmen prospective. I do not get paid on the hold back whatever amount that may be.
Yikes!
1010101
Bad payplan…
I get paid on it but i give that away too. 
I am aware, minis all day long lol
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Wow, that’s terrible…
Employee pricing are very attractive. I remember leasing a $63k S4 for $550 including tax with just my signature.
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Out of curiosity? On a, lets say, $45,000 C300, what would 15% of gross profit come too approximately? If you’re a decent salesman and there’s a couple grand of profit then you can be pretty comfortable,but, I assume there was no base salary and its all incentive driven?
There is never a couple of grand profit.
Almost every new car dept loses money, every month.
Average per copy(per unit) is $1000-$1400 in Detroit but again, it’s a niche market w/ lots of money to play with.
I’d be amazed if the national average wasn’t lower when you consider the coastal cities.
Salespeople are largely, well, poor. Most do not make it 12 months, let alone 36(which is how long it generally takes for your first clients to come back(also not likely now w/ the glut of 84 month purchases now)).
Car sales folk really have to be wise in picking their brand, store and location to make money in today’s world. I’m sure you can guess that most do not.
There are niche folks who can kill it, like @Cody_Carter, @chevysalesgirl, @ChevyPhil, @BMW_Dave, @Samson who have not only capitalized but also monetized their online presence, but that is extremely rare.
The retail car world is evermore shrinking and slowly but surely is grinding down to appointment setters w/ management support.
It might not be every store but the boutique model is coming and coming soon.
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2nd part post my little diatribe above,
That pay plan I posted above is actually the catalyst for my leaving the retail side of the business. That plan is designed for gross, in an employee market, that is volume driven.
Salary depends on the store and location. I believe california is now forcing stores to have some sort of base salary as opposed to draw (which is a per month amount you pay back w/ sales).
I cut draw off as soon as I could as I didn’t want to be held to X hours per day/week if it wasn’t advantageous. It’s also probably why I enjoy my current work as it allows me somewhat of a flexible schedule.
TLDR: Car people rarely make money. The old saying of 20/80-80/20 applies. 20% of the sales force makes 80% of the money - 80% makes 20% of the money.
(this isn’t every store - some have solid management and payplans that keep people their entire ‘career’ in carsales)
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Very informative.
Not sure what you mean by this. The financials for publicly traded dealers are available for anyone to see. Lithia, for example, over the years has reported new car sales as being responsible for around 20-25% of gross profit.
Employees being paid poorly is a separate matter. But the business itself can be profitable.
New car sales is not new car Dept.
Generally the sales, finance and used car are different companies in paper bur merge into one cash flow at the end of the year.
If your new car dept loses 45k , but finance made 400k, who cares?
I can’t comment on how they report their numbers but I’m certain they’re not making 25% of their profit from new cars alone.
I know you’ve brought this up before, and I don’t know how they report their numbers either, but it’s fascinating to me that many publications also point to what Ben is saying, and New Cars are the losers, used cars, F&I and repairs are where the money is made, yet somehow Lithia can make money in new cars, and even more so than used. That’s also showing Gross margins and not Net, which are 2 separate things, as I know you know already. I suspect they are getting some hefty kickbacks based on volume, being a multi-state conglomerate.
There’s conventional wisdom, and then there are the numbers and the two don’t always match. The same can be seen in AutoNation’s financials
Nobody really breaks down net profit per segment, as it’s much harder to allocate all the SG&A and everything below gross profit that applies to an entire company (salaried corporate employees, marketing and advertising, R&D, depreciation, amortization, interest expense on debt, taxes, etc).
Volume kickbacks are part of the biz model. It’s part of what allows new cars to be a profitable business (at least of a gross basis), along with the guess that the average consumer pays more than you or me or most hackrs.