Dealer wants to sell cars and provides the numbers they will sell the car at. They dont want to deal with many calls for people who are just shopping them and will never come back. Broker does that work for them (effectively a marketing extension)
Client wants a great deal and convenience. If they like the numbers and service the broker is offering, they will hire the broker and pay a flat.
Dealer sells a car with minimal effort
Client gets a good deal with convenience
Broker makes their money and continues a good relationship with client and dealer
In the markets that I’m familiar with, the seller generally pays the buyer’s agent’s commission.
And the commission your buyer’s agent receives is traditionally a percentage of the sale price, so the more you pay for the home the more your agent earns.
You come off as angry. You also have just a little bit of knowledge, but write as though you are an expert. You are a frustrating personality. A broker gets paid by you. They have pre-negotiated dealers that are mostly better than you can get on your own, and they can do it now. You have to decide if the fee is worth it.
What they don’t do is do hours and hours and hours of work tracking down a very specific deal with the parameters you dictate. That would not be a worthwhile business.
Put yourself in the other persons shoes. You come off as the worst kind of consumer. Screw everyone, except you of course.
Seems like the OP has their answer already so not to beat a dead horse but similar questions have come up before and presumably will again
Think you’re either overthinking this or conflating it with a real estate transaction. A “broker” on LH typically presents a series of pre-negotiated deals. They are typically not negotiating on your behalf.
The fee is for the convenience of a pre-negotiated deal, time saved on the search as well as the time spent at the dealership, etc etc.
This is not real estate brokering or M&A where the stakes are much higher and people are compensated for the time required to negotiate on behalf of a client, advise every step of the way, etc.
Something similar does exist in autos. But if it’s anyone good, the time they’ll spend is worth way more than the $500 fee you typically see for pre-negotiated deals on LH.
But to be fair, any broker… real estate or car or whatever has only one party’s best interest in mind… theirs. Of course they are trying to give the best service/deal to a buyer and then the most hassle-free/vetted transaction(s) to a seller… but let’s not assume they are your bestie.
Auto Brokers (not to be mixed up with real estate brokers who follow different guidelines as regulated per state, or stock brokers who follow federal guidelines), are a middleman, middlewoman or middlethey. They can find your specific requirements and search nationally, but due to the price of vehicles and total out of pocket cost of buyers, they usually workout pre-negotiated deals with dealers (selling many/inventory) and present those to buyers (typically buying 1). For that service they charge a small fee usually a small percentage or flat fee to the buyer. They may also not charge the buyer a fee and get paid by the dealer. They may also get paid by both. They are providing a service to dealers (selling inventory) and buyers (getting the vehicle that is either hard to find or something they can’t get the price on themselves).
