> dealers can abandon even those standards.

Again, based on anecdata, They really have.

I heard of one person who confirmed a price with a dealer, drove there, then suddenly Salesmanager Bob (who confirmed the price) is suddenly unavailable, and the other sales managers couldn't possibly honour that because there's all these other fees, charges, mandatory addons for it.

Their attitude is basically if you want it, and you've spent this much time already trying to buy it - what's another couple of thousand to you.