Nissan to prevent price gouging on GTR
 

Not sure if anyone has seen this yet......... Probably doesn't mean much unfortunately.

http://chisblassternardone.blogspot.com/2008/02/nissan-to-prevent-price-gouging-on-gtr.html

It would be nice but highly unlikely.

However, some encouraging news is that the upper 10% of the richest people in the U.S. that make up 50% of our Gross Monetary value and a large percentage of our spending have all but halted their spending habits. This has led to lower prices on Mansions/ Yachts/ Luxury items and especially luxury and sports cars. Bentley sales are down 40%.

Once these Capitalistic dealers realize that people aren't willing to pay what they were 6 months ago, they will adjust their asking prices. I see somewhere between MSRP and $8,000.00 being the norm in mark-ups depending on the locations.

I would like to say that I am very embarrassed in how 99.9% of the North American Nissan car Dealerships have handled the sales of the GT-R. After seeing this gross display of mark-ups and shady tactics in obtaining GT-Rs for auctions. I think that the GT-R might have been in better hands with the Infinity badge, simply because they are used to having cars of value and prestige.

Most Nissan dealerships seem to lack what the GT-R represents which is all that you want in a sports car plus "class" for a great price. "Class" they (The dealerships) do not seem to have.

-Nate

At least so far, it doesn't seem to be helping at all. I've contacted more than a dozen dealerships here in California and all of them told me they'd be getting "market value" (aka, the biggest markup they can get). The dealership in Fresno said they wouldn't even let me put a deposit on the car unless I lived in Fresno. The dealership in Costa Mesa said they aren't taking any orders or deposits, that they're going to put them on the lot and sell them for as much as they can get. Nice. So frustrating.

The markup is only going to slow down sales of the car. Yeah, the dealership will make more money per car, but Nissan makes less money if fewer cars are sold. I don't know why this sort of thing is allowed.

I guess I have to sit back and wait for a year or two till things calm down. My worry though, is that so few will be sold that you'll never see any for MSRP and even used cars will command higher prices. Same thing happened to the Ford GT. You never saw one of those selling for MSRP and now the used ones are going for $160k+.

It's to my understanding that Nissan sells the cars to the dealers then the dealers sell the cars to the consumers. It is not some type of consignment program.

Its crappy to be on this end of the deal. Just think if you were able to get your hands on 2 gtrs for msrp would you flip the 2nd car for a premium? Of course you would and thats what Nissan dealers are doing.

Just like ps3 and xbox360 selling for x3 MSRP. High demand and little supply

I think GTRNate hit the nail on the head. It's true that the dealerships are in business to make money but these kinda of markups that are being reported kill the spirit of the GT-R's namesake if not Nissan all together. Furthermore, if I were a dealer, I would be more concerned with customer loyalty given the current economic downturn. Securing future business seems to have taken a back seat here and common sense has gone out the window (pun intended). This might be easy for me to say now, but, if I end up having to pay 10k+ over MSRP that will be the last car I buy from that particular dealership. Don't get me wrong, I understand "supply and demand" but this seems more like rape and less like a honest deal. What I don't understand is that Nissan knew that supply would be low and that there is a strong following for this car in the states. They must have known that demand and hype would be high. Why then didn't Nissan ask more from the dealerships per copy? Anyway, the production methods should get more efficient thus reducing costs....right? As much as I hate to say this....... I think I will wait.:(

Cheers

Don't get me wrong, I understand why it happens. I just always find it frustrating when I want a product, have the money and can't get it. And I don't understand why Nissan can't/won't make enough to satisfy the market.

I still don't have a Wii because I won't pay more than MSRP :) and can't find it in stores around here. As a result, my console gaming money over the past year+ has gone to Microsoft and game studios developing for the X-Box instead. Same will happen with the GT-R. My money will eventually go elsewhere if prices don't come down to MSRP.

I know that's the way it goes, but I still feel poopie about it, and it's a shame that Nissan won't be selling huge numbers of these cars. They deserve to sell gobs of them! How come Chevy made 8000 Z06's this year and Nissan can only muster 2500 cars the first year and 1500 every year after? The GT-R should easily outsell the Z06 due to the performance plus practicality (4 seats are a huge win for me).

I think it adds a little something when something is produced in a limited quantity.

Maybe, but at some costs that may or may not be worth it, depending upon how much you value that little something. Some examples that come to mind:

Fewer production numbers =
Fewer (more expensive) aftermarket parts
Smaller car communities/clubs
Fewer (more expensive) new and used parts
Higher maintanance costs
Higher Repair Costs (fewer people/shops who know how to work on them)
Higher Insurance Costs
Less brand visibility (fewer really cool cars with Nissan's name running around)

Hey I agree with you. But, one has to think that there is a full time team at Nissan who is controlling the pricing and quantity.

lol, you are right as well. I'm sure there are teams of people in charge there that have thought about this longer than I have. :) Smarter too! I'll still cross my fingers and hope that I'll be able to get one within the next few years.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one having trouble swallowing the mark up. Nissan should have just charged $90-100k for the car and I think they'd still have people interested. Tell me the MSRP is $72k but mark it up $20-35k (Bay Area, CA) and for some odd reason I feel like I'm getting ripped off. I'm hoping folks drop off the wait list and the mark up hits $5-10k. This was going to be my first big car purchase but not with that mark up.

Exactly! You know what it is? It's because you're not actually paying for anything physical. "Here, just let me give you $10,000 just cause you're greedy and I'm impatient". Ten thousand dollars!?! Surely there are more important things to do with that much money?

Interesting read in Autoweek this week. One journalist talking about how when the Vette ZR-1 first came out in 1990? that everyone paid way over MSRP ($70,000 over in some cases). Today, low mile examples are only worth $25k.

Go ahead and pay your mark up for the GT-R to get it now and hope you don't ever sell it because that money evaporates the second you sign the dotted line.

Perhaps it's a good thing. There's certainly a lot of benefits to waiting. The price will drop (hopefully), first year bugs will get sorted out (I had a 2001 Vette Z06 that had to have the motor torn down and rings replaced, as did many others) and who knows, maybe the V-Spec will be out in a year or two and either I'll be able to get one of those, or I'll buy someone else's who's trading up. :)

You're right, perhaps it is a good thing. Forced patience. I see paying MSRP as overpaying as it is. Maybe I can find something else to waste my money on this year and wait for a better opportunity. Heck of a car though.

There are short and long term effects to this price gouging. You can speak to me all you wish about supply and demand curves, but luxury items already have a lot of value inflation by their very nature, and it does in fact change the game a little bit.

I feel for the dealerships that put out a $50k franchise fee and get allocated one car in the first year, and I recognize that they want to make their money back. There's some accounting pressure to do that obviously, but it just shows the type of people who are involved in this are not in it for the long term.

After 2 or 3 abhorrent experiences at dealers, I won't buy a 2009 GT-R. I probably wasn't going to buy one anyway, really, because I wasn't early enough. Net loss to Nissan? Nothing. Now, based on their behavior, the chance of me buying a 2010 is *significantly* lower than it was before. In addition, if my wife drove me there to pick it up with me and fell in love with something on the lot (which does happen), I would have bought it for her, but not now, because I've already seen what's driving the decisions they make. The entire opportunity for us to become a Nissan family is simply disintegrated. Every dealer I spoke to seems to me to be just so money-hungry, that if I was to buy a truck, or a passenger car, or a 350Z, I would cringe at the experience of even going in to shop for it for fear of being lied to or taken for another few bucks -- and I have good reason to believe that, that is what happened when I went in to buy a GT-R (and I do mean buy).

Net loss to Nissan? Immesurable. When I buy an M3 this year, or a used GT-R next year, or anything that doesn't involve the dealership, it's a small dent. How many people are coming with me after this horrendous experience?

Then, I get an email from Nissan yesterday touting the new GT-R, the Supercar for anyone, anywhere, anytime. Yeah, except me, here, and now apparently.

I am in other luxury markets as well, mainly wristwatches. I have dealers and companies who are enthusiastic about pairing me with pieces that move me, and I get items at retail that you might not be able to, because I buy for myself and the dealers love to sell to me, because I don't flip. Did you hear that? The dealer cares who they sell to instead of how much money they can extract from a rare piece. These dealers are healthly, strong, reputable, and doing good business. They could have made a few more bucks, but having the business intact and strong is far more important to them. When they spend $1 million dollars to get into a new line of watches, they sell at retail and experience the pain on day one so they can sell at retail and experience the benefits in a few years.

Pricing considerations and market adjustments on the GT-R *now* means pricing considerations and market adjustments in the future, and not always in the dealer's favor, trust me.

Believe me, these dealers aren't selling you over sticker because they can make a quick buck, you're becoming a qualified cash-producer at the service shop for them and into the future however they can figure out a way to achieve it. Go pay them $20k over and see how you get treated next time you need a favor and you've established that fair pricing or money are not of importance to you. I'm sure you're guessing that they'll bend over backwards, but why in the world do you think they'll start doing that after the purchase?

Do you really think they're done gouging you after this one time? :lol:

Well said.

This is perhaps the biggest problem and it's all Nissan's doing. They targeted a $135,000 car's performance and did it right. But they completely missed their pricing target. Perhaps they under-priced the car because they wanted to sell it at Nissan dealerships. Whatever the reason, they've made a huge marketing mistake by under-pricing the car.

Furthermore the problem is exacerbated by the fact that dealerships don't make that much money on the cars (Japanese dealerships historically have thinner margins on their vehicles but they do sell more). This is encouraging the dealers to make as much money as they can on these limited quantities of vehicles they are getting.

Plus it doesn't help them that Nissan is charging them a premium to sell the cars.

All this adds up to over-MSRP sell prices and they won't come down if the quantity of cars produced continues to be low.

Nissan gets an A+ for producing this car. And they get a D- for how they're handling its marketing and sales. This combination isn't going to benefit Nissan like it could have.

if we turn to a basic supply and demand curve, we can answer several questions

the demand for this car is high, it would still be high if it cost $135,000, car's are not priced on performance alone, generally higher performance = higher cost, car's are based on production cost and brand value

theoretically, if they produced more GT-R's, this would better meet demand, it might have made sense to stockpile them and release a ton of them at once, that is a way to attempt to combat price gouging.

if they raised the price, demand would lessen, and they would be closer to meeting it


also, i don't know that the car is underpriced, there is just much MORE consumer surplus than most people are used to seeing. that was Nissan's goal, to produce a super-car at affordable cost, because this car has huge value (benefits/price) it is in high demand

Nissan has done very well with this car so far. They produced a car that goes faster than a 911 turbo (performance benchmark), and it costs considerably less.

I know that everyone whines about the markups, but it's hard to control capitalism at work. If anything, this is a good starter course in economic theory.

"We are taking steps to let the dealers know that marking up the car is not a good thing,"


Haha, is that a joke? I mean I can just see the dealer's response:

"Ok, thanks for your input.
(turns around)
Let the auction begin!!"

Dealers are independently owned. Nissan cannot stop them from charging what they want. They CAN however limit their future vehicle allocation. We will see if Nissan does anything. I highly doubt it.

Demand is not high, if it was, they would have alreadly sold out, instead more than 50% of the cars coming to the us are unsold. If the gtr was priced at 135,000 they wouldnt sell many if any. The dealers are attempting to extract all the conumer surplus, but it doesnt seen than many want to pay more than msrp.

Has anybody ventured into a Nissan dealership lately? From what I've seen, this car is doomed! They definitely screwed the pooch when they went with Nissan rather than Infiniti. At least the Infiniti store has a clue about the importance of the buying experience. As an avowed Porschephile, I must confess that Porsche doesn't always get it right, either. But Porsche is miles ahead of Nissan, as witnessed by this price gouging on the GT-R. The only real price gouging I've seen at a Porsche store was with the Carrera GT, which was already $400K and just a leeeeetle bit outside my budget. ;-)

BTW, Lexus has the best buying experience in the biz, IMHO. At the very least, Nissan should appoint GT-R "experts" in each dealership, and THAT's the guy who sells the car. This car is so specialized I can't imagine what will happen when a qualified GT-R buyer walks onto the lot and becomes just another "up." What on Earth was Nissan (or Renault) thinking?

If I decide to spend $70k+/- on my next car, my solution is simple; if any, repeat ANY "market adjustment" dealer markup remains on the GT-R, there will be a used 911 Turbo in my garage. End if discussion.

Are you listening, Nissan?

I will never pay over MSRP. Period. If that means I wait a while to get whatever it is I want, then so be it.

Are you listening, Nissan?

All that being said, here in the US a manufacturer walks a fine line. They are free to issue MSRP, Manufacturers SUGGESTED Retail Price. However, if a manufacturer leans on the dealers too heavily regarding pricing, they risk an antitrust action. All it takes is one angry dealer to say the mean old manufacturer won't allow him to make a fair profit and won't ship him cars because of his pricing structure/policies. The manufacturer takes it in the shorts. The dealer will probably lose his franchise at the first opportunity, but he won't care because he'll now be the majority shareholder of his very own car manufacturer. ;-)

Yeah, I think a used 911TT is probably in my future. ;-)

Are you listening, Nissan?

^^^

thats probably a little hopeful, if you don't buy the car, someone else will, you're being a bit immature and outlandish

Actually, I'm not being immature or outlandish at all. I've never paid over sticker for anything, be it car, real estate - nothing, and I won't start now. I'm being consistent. I just don't see the value in paying a $10k or $30k premium for the car. It's just not worth it to me. You're free to spend your money any way you choose. ;-)

I remember back in '99 I was looking for a weekend plaything. In an effort to lessen the cash outlay, I looked at the Anniversary Edition of the Miata. It was a cool little car and had a certain amount of exclusivity, I guess. But the dealers were tacking on a huge "market value adjustment," which put the car close to Porsche Boxster range.

I started thinking about it and took a Boxster for a spin. I ended up driving a Boxster home. Which car do you think held it's value better? It certainly wasn't the extremely overpriced Japanese import. (I'm talking about after the dealer added his markup.) The Miata was correctly priced at MSRP. That's why they put an MSRP sticker on cars to begin with. ;-)

Moral of the story: If the price of something doesn't smell right, remain patient and something better will usually come along.

At $70k, the GTR is a bargain, assuming the frustration of dealing with the Nissan dealership network doesn't drive you to drink. At $80k to $100k, I'd just as soon go buy a Porsche that is actually valued correctly at $80k to $100k. Porsche is a known commodity in the specialty sports car/exotic car market. Proven technology and proven endurance racing results.

I'd still consider the GTR at sticker, but not a penny more.

BC

I'm with you GTRGuy. The very thought of paying an exclusivity tax so I can say "hey look at me, I'm a fiscal idiot" seems pathetic. Sorry, I love the car, but not THAT much. Some may say that if you have big dough, it doesn't matter. Sorry, no matter how much money I make or save, $10K will always mean something.

I've played this game before and also had similar results. Back when the S2K came out, I desperately wanted one. Every dealer I contacted had their nose in the air and a $10-25K premium on a $32K car!! I ended up with a really nice CPO BMW M Roadster.

When the STi came out, same thing except that there were a couple of dealers who preferred to do volume and customer service over outright rape. Paid MSRP the week they landed.

I still have hope for Nissan. Once the dealers feel out the market, there will be a different kind of "adjustment" I believe. If not, I can wait for some rich guy who paid $20K over sticker to get bored of his new toy. :)

What he said ^^^

That is good to hear. We'll have to see what impact it really has. Hopefully Alot.
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Well, I'll repost it this way: if we all are pissed at the dealers and their mark-ups, there is one thing you can do to hurt them: do not buy what they are selling. The hype will go away, people who dont care about the money will get their GTR's, there will be something new and exiting on the market. If you can live without this car (and you could before)-just dont buy it now. I here people telling about calling all Nissan dealerships in the region/state. That creates more hype. Those dealers just drooling about mark-ups after getting gazillion calls a day. I propose the movement: NO DEALER GETS ANYTHING OVER MSRP.


But if this car is something you would die for--than stop b****ing and go and buy it.

Did you just cut and paste this disaster of a post in three different threads? :confused:

i think we are all overlooking something/ Nissan sells the car to the dealer, the dealer sells the car at MARKET ADJUSTMENT price/ so lets take a example of the Evo X MR completely diffrent class of car but yet marker adjustment in my region is still
present/ you can go to any mits lot here and find 2-3 on lot/ why because people are not
paying the markup/ it has been said many times in this thread/ people are paying it/ so
why not charge it/ common sense if you can make more money on demand, why sell it at MSRP. Back to what i was saying, Nissan gets the money back when they sell to the dealer, Nissan does not see *ANY* of the market adjustment/ take for example the Zr-1. price is $104k MSRP i believe, They are trying to sell for 200-300K for why??? because why the demand is high, so is the price/ look at oil prices/need i say more?? if any person on this forum had a gtr and was offered X amount over what they paid simply because the person offering wanted the car that much more, there is no one in the right mind that would say "i paid sticker for it, so i will give it to to you for sticker" now those financially able to afford a GTR probably are not concerned with the price/ the targer median for GTR owners is $150-200K a year and are avid car guys that probably have a collection of cars/supers/exotics already, this car was not built to be affordable, grantide for what it is, even with markup/ it is competing/beating cars twice the amount (exception Z06) but to say Nissan is the bad guy here i don;t feel is right/ if pricing was announced at $120K (Which is where the competition is priced) then people would be complaining about how expensive it is, but because the car is priced at $71K with *adjustment* people are mad. it all comes down to this: NO ONE IS MAKING YOU BUY THE CAR FOR THAT PRICE, those who are buying *KNOW* what they are paying and are willing to pay it.

just my 2 cents
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