Can anyone tell me if the "INVOICE" price of a car is what the dealers' pay the manufacturer to get it on to their dealerships to sell? If not what is it? What do you call it? How much less is a dealer's cost on the cars they sell?

Reason I ask is to be more informed when I step into a dealer to bargain a price for a car this 2 wks. from now. Not sure what I want to get yet though. I have had a dealer tell me over the phone that the invoice price is what he (dealership) pays the manufacturer.

Thanks in advance.

 

According to The Pricing Maze: How to Get the Best Deal by Consumer Reports
Dealer invoice. The "invoice price" is the figure printed on the dealer's invoice from the manufacturer. Invoice price used to be hard to come by but now is commonly available, both online and in printed books. Both Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds list dealer invoice prices on their web sites and in their pricing manuals, which can often be found in libraries. The dealer invoice price, however, may not be the dealer's actual cost. This is because a couple of other factors-holdbacks and incentives-may reduce what the dealer actually pays for a particular vehicle

http://autos.yahoo.com/consumerreports/pri...ricingmaze.html

Hope that helps.

R

 

Thanks for the info. That's what I was thinking. I did not think that the "invoice" was the actual cost of the dealer. Just did not any other facts/knowledge why.

If anyone else has more info. to add, please do.

Thanks again AP1.

 

Secret AP1 has just about said it. You may also want to check edmunds.com and follow the links to their pricing and advice. Dealers also get a "holdback" from the manufacturer, which is ranges from none to 3% of MSRP, depending on make. This means that their cost is no higher than invoice minus holdback. But there may be plenty of other incentives, some straight to customer, others to dealer from the manf. Some are published, some are not. Also, in the past manf's gave dealerships another kickback for end of model year cars just to get them moving, as much as 5%. But I believe this isn't very common anymore. Basically, they can sell a car at invoice and still make money. But how much, I do not know.

 

Federal law mandates that auto manufactures sell their cars to
all dealers at the same price. However, they still want to reward
dealerships that do large volume. That's what incentives and
holdbacks are for.

 

You guys are great. Thanks for the info.

 

I found this site very helpful.

www.carbuyingtips.com

It's a busy, poorly designed site but lots of meat.

Especially found the downloadable spreadsheets helpful.

And the entire section about buying a car.

-- Tom