Hacker News Reader

Comment by namdnay | Hacker News Reader

The whole “dealer inventory” thing seems so strange as an outsider. Is it specific to the US? Or North America? In Europe (or at least the European countries I’ve been in) and Japan, you go to the dealer, they will have a few showroom and test cars, and then you sit down, spec your car, haggle the price (this is changing in Europe with third parties who will negotiate for you), and then wait for your car to come out of the factory

From time to time there will be a showroom car on sale that matches, especially if you’re near the end of that generation

View on HN

Same in India as you mentioned. Dealers have some inventory for "want to buy NOW" customers.

In the US (and I assume also Canada) it's almost the exact opposite. Custom order cars are possible, but rare. The vast majority of new cars sold are built with a factory-chosen set of options and sold from dealer inventory. Transferring a car from another nearby dealer if needed is also fairly common, if they had the particular color or option group the buyer wanted but the local dealer didn't.

Which made car shopping quite a hassle for me because I wanted something that isn't very common (non-sport trim with highest spec options and manual gear) but which wouldn't have been any problem at all for the manufacturer (since they list those options on their site for those models).

But why do you think the system is setup this way? Car dealerships in the US having more money (or financing access) to keep stocks than other parts of the world? US customers wanting instant gratification for their purchase? (although, likely, anyone likes that over delayed car delivery, it's just that once you get used to instant car delivery is hard walk away from it)

Spitballing here: more land in the US means lower cost to stock cars in dealerships. Also makes it easier to do an impulse purchase with all the easy financing available, compared to the European scenario of waiting for delivery (and possibly changing one's mind).

Car dealerships often sit on prime retail locations. So that vast inventory will often sit in a location close to but not conveniently adjacent to the actual dealer.

Did you actually try to order what you wanted? I've been ordering my cars from the dealer almost exclusively for the past 25 years. Never had a problem. Sure, they'd rather sell a car off the lot, but I've never had one tell me they wouldn't order the car for me.

I did get rejected by Audi when I wanted to order a car in a special paint color. They advertised "any color you want, just $2500 extra". When I tried to take them up on it, the reply was, "We don't know you, your dealer isn't a top performer, and our custom paint shop is booked up over a year anyway. So kindly bugger off."

I suspect you’re paying a large premium. The last car I bought included a $10K discount off MSRP or a smaller discount with 0% financing, but only for in-stock inventory. That was before haggling, as those were pass-through dealer incentives.

Presumably, no one pays anywhere near MSRP for that model unless they custom order from the factory.

I’m sure it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, but still.

Could it be because only 25-30% of cars in the US are domestically produced?

Meh, I doubt that even 20% of the cars in the UK are domestically produced, and yet you still order your cars from the factory

The price of land seems to be a good starting point to explain the difference

Reply on news.ycombinator.com