Hey hey, why is the meme lounge so serious.
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They will all try to do that until they get margin squeezed.
I don’t think we’ll get back to the crazy inventories across all brands but that’s probably more to do with holding costs in the current interest rate environment.
You don’t custom order TVs or microwaves or dishwashers … cars are the same thing IMO.
I’m probably a little biased because I’m from Detroit but car manufacturers have a bad habit of trying to be the smartest person in the room as opposed to focusing on who’s doing the smartest thing.
I actually think a lot of these car companies are rapidly approaching what will be a sustained period of pain. They’ve all been able to pretty much do whatever they want during COVID and it was always successful / profitable. They’re going to start losing on some things and it’s going to change how they view the market.
The money they’ve made over the last few years - they’ll find a way to give it back.
Autos are a broken clock
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Has volvo ever done 4500 loyalty for cars before like they did in november?
No but they did have a $5,000 rebate plus first payment waiver on inscriptions and R designs in 2019.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Rebates don’t save you money - rebates price things appropriately for the market.
Car manufacturers do not give you money, they free up cash flow for themselves.
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That’s one version of LH.
But it shouldn’t be the only way.
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Perhaps there’s a different way to monetize on this website platform.
Just some examples:
- Readers have to reach 12h of read time in order to post or ask questions.
- Readers have to pay as supporters in order to read Signed and Share Deals?
This will eliminate most of the newbs and keep only serious people wanting a specific car. Anyways just brainstorming. This is a great site to gain knowledge and resources and I would like to keep it as long as possible!
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Wouldn’t that make the website pointless?
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Monetize the platform to keep it running.
For people who want to duplicate the deal, they got to pay…that helps the website.
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The 250 donation thing could work. Like @mattevan did. He gave a lead and in exchange a 250 donation
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Oh and the reason car prices are ‘higher’ now is not entirely due to the rate increases.
Most car manufacturers used COVID as an opportunity to revalue their cars so they can skew the residual values going forward.
In my opinion right now the car world is in a game of chicken between the dealers and the manufacturers.
Just my personal opinion but I think the manufacturers are going to lose this one.
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Agree on monetization. Harsher topic posting restrictions with a small pay wall on concrete details will help sift the noise.
This is a good problem to have. I imagine founders can either go in to protect their core audience and get some bags or just try and get a bag if it’s not in the cards to do a big redesign of experience.
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That would only work if you have a car to pass along though right?
yeah that’s the only bummer. You could charge to view the hard copy contract that is in “signed” since dealers want to see that more often than not. 
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Volvo has high inventories now, so does MB with EQS. They won’t keep inventories low if they can produce more. So we should see more deals, I think. And since this is Leasehackr, we should go back to hacking leases. Flipping (if it happens due to used cars prices as you said) should be a bonus, if that happens as you predict. But can we have both at the same time?
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I think something like a paid section with minimum read time would be a good idea
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I personally think towards the end of this year a lot of the car companies are going to pull the plug on the Frankenstein units.
C40s, EQS, E-Tron GT, Mach E, F150L …
Gas GC, SL Mercedes, pretty much everything GMC lol
If you want to see a crazy comparison go look at the RAM I signed for in February of 20. That same truck today is $12,000 more expensive before rebates…
You can’t tell me it costs Stellantis 20% more to produce that truck… Especially they’ve already killed off the rebate packages.
Its not that big of a stretch to think all these car companies are drunk off the Kool-Aid. They pretty much have two years of sales data that is not rooted in reality. A lot of these products should have been mothballed or massively adjusted but the companies got a fake sense of reality because people had to buy cars.
Most of these non-American produced EVs are playing chicken with the treasury over the EV rules. If they decide in April that factory leasing does not qualify for the tax credit, all of their cars become paperweights.
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Guys, the owners are well ahead of us all and understand the value of LH. But, as I said before, the highest value was pre-covid or maybe 2 years ago. Someone like Autotrader could just attach the forum to their site and become a real competitor to Edmunds, because Edmunds forum is just Q&A.
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Agree. They are doing it because they can. Tesla or Fisker or Rivian can’t.
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Honestly, I’m just looking for a section of the forum where a thread doesn’t spiral like these current threads did. My suggestion was to open up a private area where info could be posted without being mass circulated and then forwarded to Mercedes’ corporate office.
I’m sure owners have better idea of how to monetize or place value on their site
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