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> The attempt by auto manufacturers to cut out the dealer would only result in higher prices and less customer service to the public,” he said. “The new car dea

• moritonal 3y ago
  I'm trying to understand it the same. How is this different to them saying "you have to buy airline tickets via a travel-agent?", or "you cannot buy from Intel, only eBuyer?".
  • jackmott42 3y ago
    These dealer protection laws made sense decades ago, they no longer make sense, but dealers bribe our politicians to protect them. That is all it is.
    • voisin 3y ago
      How did they make sense decades ago? What changed?
      • jackmott42 3y ago
        There used to be a very few number of car companies who held a lot of power over dealerships and used to abuse that power, which led to laws protecting dealers in ways that at least arguably made sense at the time, but don't anymore.
        • j16sdiz 3y ago
          Do we now have lots of new car company? ( i don't think so ) Does car company now have less power? ( with subscription and OTA updates , I think they have more power than ever)
          • ceejayoz 3y ago
            > Do we now have lots of new car company? ( i don't think so ) Yes, we do. The "Big Three" of Ford, GM, and Chrysler now face significant competition in the US from Japanese, German, Korean, etc. carmakers.
          • foogazi 3y ago
            Euro / Asian auto companies exist now All new electric car companies too
          • no_wizard 3y ago
            I think if we removed the dealership (sometimes called "franchise") laws that prevent manufacturers from selling directly to consumers, we could see more competition not just between existing players but also lowers the barrier for new entrants into the market. Tesla and Rivian, for example, wouldn't even be able to exist without this, the cost of setting up new dealerships is enormous otherwise.
      • asveikau 3y ago
        I'm not an expert in this topic, but coming naively to it, it strikes me that direct to consumer retail of all types was harder before the internet, which required more middle men to distribute goods.
      • emodendroket 3y ago
        My understanding of the history of this system is that auto manufacturers wanted a way to dump their inventory reliably and so independent dealerships came into being. Then the dealership owners got rich and influential enough to essentially get themselves enshrined in state law in multiple states. But someone else can fill me in if that’s incomplete or not quite correct.
  • red-iron-pine 3y ago
    [flagged]
• merpnderp 3y ago
  Last time I bought a car, I called around until I found a good deal then I went there and talked to them to get the actual number. Then I called the other dealers I'd spoken with and asked if they could beat that deal. I spent 8 hours going back and forth, but got my car for 20% off MSRP. I couldn't have done that if I'd been dealing directly with Ford.
  • TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
    Good for you? What if we had a free market approach where both options are available and we can see what happens? How is more competition not a good thing?
  • double0jimb0 3y ago
    You ended up paying the dealerships cost, which is probably same you would have paid if dealership was never in the picture.
    • emodendroket 3y ago
      Once in a while dealerships are motivated to dump stock at a loss. Not a great argument for the system but who’s to say the OP didn’t get a good deal.
  • foogazi 3y ago
    You got a better price than the other dealers offered but not less than what it cost that dealer
• emodendroket 3y ago
  Dealership owners are a reliable Republican constituency. This kind of local bigwig was one of the most reliable Trump supporters and I'd guess the same is true for DeSantis. I mean you decide if that's a "good" reason but it is the real one.
  • tclancy 3y ago
    Here's a recent article supporting that: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans-party-car-dealers-2024-desantis.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans...
    • emodendroket 3y ago
      Perhaps one of the wilder things I learned in this article is how many laws make it illegal for an automaker to set transparent prices. State mandated Three-Card Monte.
• jmclnx 3y ago
  Also with the right-to-repair fights, the automakers want to kill all the independent Auto Repair and Auto Parts Shops. We really need to get right-to-repair laws passed and enabled.
  • no_wizard 3y ago
    Separate issue though. The dealerships don't help here, they typically only use OEM parts anyway
• calvinmorrison 3y ago
  > So this is the reason given in the article, but what are good reasons, if any, to prevent direct-to-customer sales? because cars require service, someone needs to do that service, be trained and have master techs on that service. How do you handle lemon laws without dealerships? Just look at the nightmare tesla has been for owners with years of bad repairs, delays, etc. OEMs provide a bunch of stuff that is adhoc to making new crs like long life spans for part productions, having dealerships service recalls, and so on. there's a lot of non-new-sale-stuff that is done
  • ceejayoz 3y ago
    > because cars require service, someone needs to do that service, be trained and have master techs on that service. My cars have had no trouble getting service at independent mechanics. > How do you handle lemon laws without dealerships? The same way we handle them with dealerships? The organization that sold you the car is responsible for the fixes, or refunding the vehicle if it can't be fixed.
    • calvinmorrison 3y ago
      > My cars have had no trouble getting service at independent mechanics. Have you ever worked at an indy? We rely heavily on dealerships for anything from borrowing specialty tooling, local parts departments, knowledge and advise etc. > The organization that sold you the car is responsible for the fixes, or refunding the vehicle if it can't be fixed. Totally. I think it's six of one half a dozen of the other. Car manufacturers generally coalesce around the efficiency of having new sales, parts departments, repair departments all in one building in many localities spread all over the place.
      • ceejayoz 3y ago
        > We rely heavily on dealerships for anything from borrowing specialty tooling, local parts departments, knowledge and advise etc. What makes it impossible for the manufacturer to provide such things? If Ford chose to do away with dealerships, they couldn't provide regional parts and training facilities? (Hell, they'd probably already need to buy out a dealership or two for every major city or region already, anyways.)
• CydeWeys 3y ago
  Use just a little bit more cynicism and the actual reasoning becomes clear. Car dealership owners are one of the most reliable Republican constituencies. They make outrageous amounts of money through government-mandated rent-seeking and donate to Republican candidates 6-to-1. What we see here is nothing more than a quid-pro-quo, a handout to the dealership owners in exchange for their loyal monetary support over the years. So yes, it's not about protecting the consumer. Dealerships are of course actually terrible, as everyone knows. This is about protecting the dealership owners. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans-party-car-dealers-2024-desantis.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans...
  • ack210 3y ago
    I certainly don't mean to be defending either party, but the bill received bi-partisan support. Only 2 reps voted against it in the house, and it received unanimous support in the senate (which includes 12 democrats). https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/637/?Tab=VoteHistory https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/637/?Tab=VoteHist...
    • colpabar 3y ago
      A lot of people pretend this isn't the case, but democrats also receive political donations from rich people and then pass legislation that is favorable to those rich people. But the underlying cynicism is correct. It's a racket. required disclaimer: i don't like republicans either
    • ahahahahah 3y ago
      The 6-1 ratio means that democrats are also getting a lot of money from dealership owners. Then, given that both the house and senate there are 60+% republican and all the republicans will vote for it, anyone voted against it is just symbolic and then is that symbol worth upsetting their own backers? I think a better way of understanding how the two parties feel about regulation of specific industries is to look into how different states regulate those different industries. This doesn't work well for very regional industries (think coal or I guess logging, for example), but car dealerships are everywhere.
• wesapien 3y ago
  It's complete bullshit. I despise both car dealerships and realtors. They exist to service themselves.
  • no_wizard 3y ago
    I've had pretty universally bad experiences with dealerships, especially ironic in relation to what DeSantis has said here because I distinctly remember advocating myself that something should be covered under the manufacturers warranty, and the dealership said it wouldn't be, and I was very certain it would be, and I had to call the manufacturer (Kia) to get the dealership to play ball. They didn't want to go the warranty route because it turns out, it paid less for the repair. Realtors on the other hand, I've had some good interactions there, the last 2 I used saved me money and got me more for my dollars, at least.
  • axus 3y ago
    I wouldn't say complete BS, they do provide services. The problem is the monopoly practices which go unrestrained by the government.
    • wesapien 3y ago
      They do but in this day and age the information asymmetry is not that huge or isn't there anymore (depending on the customer). They put up a good face to hook you in. My experience is that they become less enthusiastic (to say the least) once they know that their "sales" force powers will not work on you.
      • emodendroket 3y ago
        Yeah, having someone forward you MLS listings does not exactly justify a five-figure payment.
        • apple4ever 3y ago
          No but having one who knows the law, all the little things to look for, and fights for you even while you are signing paperwork is worth it. (Our realtor was awesome and totally worth the money, at least as a first time buyer).
• hn8305823 3y ago
  They're called "stealerships" for a reason. Actually several reasons and overpriced, excessive, or unnecessary maintenance is one of them The reason dealerships are surprisingly powerful politically is they are usually family owned and operated so they have much wider discretion over political donations and/or bribes.
  • emodendroket 3y ago
    I mean a dealership is often the biggest business in town. They’re big cheeses locally. And provincial elites often have a lot of resentment for national ones, which explains a lot about recurrent political conflicts.
• timtom39 3y ago
  Automobile dealers are separate business entities with different motivations from the manufactures. In particular, they have historically demanded access to training, access to parts, ability to negotiate price, trade ins, etc. IMO danger of them disappearing is what we see with tech and luxury brands who go through a ton of effort to enforce their MAP and are not particularly motivated to make things repairable. That being said, they are middlemen and there is defiantly a balance.
• Tangurena2 3y ago
  Historically, car manufacturers screwed dealerships. One of the ways was selling franchises then deciding that they could make more money selling directly to customers. Or that they needed some extra cash, so selling so many franchises that none of the dealerships could sell enough to break even. Many of the laws about warranties were due to poor behavior of manufacturers. In the US, repair parts need to be available for at least 10 years for cars. In the past, the manufacturer could just decide that they didn't want to sell repair parts - just buy a new car. The Great Depression reduced the number of car manufacturers by about 95%. Which brings me to a more important point. A number of laws were passed to prevent the Great Depression from happening again. Repealing several of them gave us the 2008 financial crisis. Making exceptions to the Securities Acts of the 1930s lets us all relearn the history of why those laws were passed in the first place with all the crypto scams. These laws exist for a very good reason and repealing them is only good for con artists and crooks. The rest of us get screwed. Modern car dealerships in America are the embodiment of modern rent-seeking. Every department treats every other department as the enemy. Each department that touches an item (spare part, used car, tires, floormats, whatever) has to raise the price 30% to cover overhead and the need to be a profit center. Sears went through this exact same behavior as it crashed and burned. Jack Walsh used the same behaviors to make General Electric the darling of Wall Street. > tried to push every useless feature or additional warranty that they could. Every sales rep that works on commission works this way. Salaried sales reps don't. Any commissioned sales rep that refuses to work this way ends up quitting very very quickly. Disclaimer: I used to work for General Motors which used to be the largest car manufacturer and the very reason that many of the dealership & warranty laws were passed in the first place.
• tmaly 3y ago
  I am hoping if he wins the nomination, he will select a car salesman as his VP.