Approximately 8/18/03 16:15, Big Daddy uttered for posterity:

> Actually, it varies by area, but usually the dealership marks up a used car
> about $3K over the price they paid and invested post-trade for things like
> cleanup, new tires, or whatever.

In a *normal* market, which hardly describes Silicon Valley right
after 9/11. I've seen livelier morgues than most of the dealer
lots were then.

Used SUV's seeem to be a bit higher than this around here, 4-5K
particularly Grand Cherokees, Toyota 4Runner, and newer
Explorers.


> Now, realizing that there is no hidden
> money like on new cars, expect to get one for $1000 over what they paid, or
> $2000 off what they ask.

Would guess the nasty discounts on new cars could make it harder
to get discount on trade in.

> Many dealerships, however, leave the prices off
> the cars and allow the salesman to artificially mark up the car.

Don't see much of that around here, most dealers have window stickers
with the snicker snicker price. Rarely one will have several
hunks with large number pricing for whatever reason.

Guess is that the Ford dealer here wanted to get *some* money
moving in and started putting a lot of big number prices on
several of the better vehicles... and the sales types were
willing to drop the window-priced ones after only 1-2 tries
which tells me upper management wanted this stuff sold in a
bad market not expected to recover. The Jeep dealer didn't
start dropping prices for a coupla months, but by that time
even fewer people had money to buy. And the Jeep dealer
just refused to consider offers near or just slightly
above what was in big numbers just a couple doors away.
Lotsa ticked off sales types at the Jeep dealer, as they
simply weren't selling much except PT Cruisers and lower.