Thursday, February 14, 2008

Is This Car Dealer Lying to This Customer?

Hi Tony,

I was at the largest Honda dealer on the planet yesterday.

They told me the car I was interested in was going to auction tomorrow or the next day. They said they are not allowed to keep a car more than 60 days and they would rather see me driving it than selling it to auction.

They said the price they bought the car for was $4,000 above Edmunds TMV.

Wouldn’t it seem they would rather lose as little money as possible on this car by selling it to me at a price below Edmunds TMV rather than paying auction and transportation fees? If the car was going to auction, it would probably be bought by another dealer who will have to buy it less than Edmunds TMV in order to have a profit margin built in.

So my real question is, where can I find typical sale values for the Honda Odyssey at wholesale auction?

Very truly yours,

Marsh C. S.



Hi Marsh,

It could be they were telling you the truth about the car going to auction. It's important for a dealer to continually turn their inventory. 60 days is about average for most dealers. It could have also been a line of crap to get you to make a quick decision. They are definitely lying to you about the $4,000 over! There's no way they paid that much for the vehicle. That's reason enough right there to not deal with them.


The only place you can get what dealers are actually paying at auction is from a dealer who has a subscription to Black Book. It's only available to dealers, and it tracks wholesale prices based on what dealers are actually paying. Perhaps somebody in a car dealership will let you look at a copy.

All my very best...

Tony Iorio

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