Not just cars no one wants.

Last car I bought, a Subaru Forrester, which is like 25% of cars in Seattle, I knocked $4000, off of msrp by haggling from 28k to 24k, cross shopping across dealers and walking in with a set price I was willing to pay after finding the lowest dealer. Also going in during 2 manufacturer rebates (one cash, one charity match), and at the end of the quarter. 2018s were starting to show up, bought the 2017.

They got real triggered when I said "all you gotta do to put another name up on that trophy board is come down $500 more" (they were writing all of the sales on the window as they happened).

Brought a book to read while they went in to "talk to the manager".

While there is the option to compared to 'no haggle', I can sit there and waste an hour on their BS for $4k. I find it fun and interesting, and I don't buy cars when I have to only when I want to. Helps to have multiple backup transportation methods.

I would rather sit through a timeshare pitch. What a waste of time for all involved

If I had bought a Prius Prime a few months back I could have gotten $1000 cash back from Toyota, plus a $4500 federal tax credit. Right off the bat I would have beat your haggle by $1500. What a haggler I would have been!

But seriously-- if we're comparing "no haggle" to "haggle" then it doesn't really make sense to include the manufacturer rebates in your total. You'd presumably get those even if dealerships didn't exist.

Fair... It was $800 cash back from subaru and a $200 charity match. however the dealer just tossed in the $200 for the match so they could make the sale and pump up their charity numbers. So $800 of that $4k was a thing you would have gotten anyway. So I only dropped the price $3200. Still a good hourly rate.

Of course in this market if you had bought one you could have immediately drove it back onto the lot and sold it back for more than you paid …

Yes. But that's like the Mitch Hedberg joke where he sees stacks of Sam's Cola at Sam's Club for 25 cents and suddenly in his mind he's become a soda salesman.

"Hi, would you like to buy a can of soda for 50 cents? It's warm, because this is a half-ass deal..."

Heh I was referring to the fact that used 2019 models with 40k miles on them currently will sell for MORE than MSRP for a brand new car, because the used one is on the lot and available, the new ones are 6 months out.

Except they inflated the MSRP by $4k beforehand in order to give you the impression that you got a discount.

I can see the MSRP online and at the no-haggle dealer and on the website for the manuf, MSRP is the one number they do publish.