5 ms·

Kia sells quite a few cars that start at $20k, like the Soul and Forte

wlesieutre 2y ago
Quite a few $20k ish, though only the Forte actually making it under that. Forte LX starting at $19,900. Of course that's without without the $1,155 "destination" fee, so even the Forte really starts at $21,145. But considering inflation, $21k isn't a bad price.
- OptionOfT 2y ago
  We need laws that ban these junk fees. Any advertised price should be one I can get when I walk in. I cannot get the car without registration. I cannot get the car without 'destination' fee. Bake it into the price.
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    Registration cost is too variable. Varies by state, and even by city.
    - bartvk 2y ago
      You'd say someone would build an API to retrieve that information by city. But I would not be surprised that the product seller can't be bothered inserting that information into their sales flow.
      - rootusrootus 2y ago
        Okay, so build the API, and now customers will need to enter their locality before they can see the advertised price. It won't be a popular decision.
    - triceratops 2y ago
      So compute and post some defaults? At least the state and city that the dealership is located in?
      - rootusrootus 2y ago
        Sure, add that to the list of disclaimers in the small print so that the customer from the next town over will have something to reference when the dealer cannot sell them the car for the advertised price. The problem is that cars are not treated like most other commodities. E.g. You don't have to buy a license to use a microwave or register it with the government. The closest analog is if you live somewhere with sales tax.
        triceratops 2y ago
        > add that to the list of disclaimers in the small print Correct. Instead of a vague "registration fees may apply" disclaimer now there's a "registration fees assuming <city>, <state>" disclaimer. It's definitely not worse for anyone, and is arguably better for the customers who will register in <city>, <state>. That's a green light for a utilitarian.
  - yonaguska 2y ago
    The destination fee isn't really a "junk" fee. it's variable based on how far away from the plant that manufactured your car or, or the distance from nearest port of entry. Delivering a car isn't cheap. There's certainly some level of arbitrage going on, but the delivery driver is usually independent of the dealership.
    - triceratops 2y ago
      The dealership knows ahead of time how far they are from the plant and how much it costs to ship the car. GP was asking that the fee be included in the advertised price. That's fair.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        The dealer should do that. However the manufacture cannot do that - they are advertising to people all over the country - some of live next to the factory and some who live across the continent.
    - wlesieutre 2y ago
      And yet the destination fee is the same no matter where you are. If you buy a Chrysler Pacifica in Detroit, 15 miles from the assembly plant, you get to pay the same $1595 destination fee as someone 2000 miles away in Los Angeles. Since the fee doesn’t actually reflect anything related to cost of delivery, it’s hard to see it as anything other than hiding part of the MSRP so that they can lie about cheaper prices in advertisements.
  - EricE 2y ago
    Just ask the dealer to compute the out the door price. It really isn't that difficult and certainly doesn't require yet another stupid regulation!
    - triceratops 2y ago
      So instead of easily comparing prices online, now you have to call dealers individually and ask them to compute the out the door price? Which they already know and could post online themselves? This is exactly the kind of problem regulations are meant to solve. Preventing false advertising and bringing information to all market participants make the market more efficient.
      - rootusrootus 2y ago
        They'll have to know your address in order to accurately tell you the OTD price. Are you willing to give that information to every dealer you're querying about price? There are also choices you can make during the registration process that will change the costs a bit. Quoting a fixed price for that would require yet more small print disclosing that certain choices were made. I just don't see how it works out. Registration costs money. Not just when you buy the car, but over and over and over throughout the time you own it. You should know this as a driver. Further, the registration cost does not vary by dealer, so you don't need to know it in order to negotiate the best price.
        triceratops 2y ago
        > Are you willing to give that information to every dealer you're querying about price? Dealerships generally get your name and phone number if you call them to ask about the price including fees and taxes. If you make them post defaults online, they get nothing from you. Clearly better. > There are also choices you can make during the registration process that will change the costs a bit. I'm curious about this. Do you have some examples? Besides GP is also talking about things like the shipping fee, which are decidedly not variable or unknown. The dealership knows how much it costs them to ship the car from the factory and how much they want to charge you. They just choose not to disclose it.
  - cpburns2009 2y ago
    The destination fee is baked into the price in my experience. I recently priced used vs new cars, and every new car had the destination fee embedded in the advertised price. Customizing a car on the Kia website included the destination fee. No dealership in my metro tacked on an additional destination fee. The destination fee was line-itemed for total MSRP on the window sticker.
warner25 2y ago
The Nissan Versa currently starts around $17k, and I see a lot of those on the road. The Mitsubishi Mirage is similarly priced but I don't think I've ever seen one in the wild. I rented a Kia Soul a few years ago and thought it was perfectly fine. But with so few options, like the parent, I'm planning to keep my current car (a 2008 Prius) indefinitely, just paying for repairs as needed until parts are unavailable or nobody is willing to do the work. My worry is that US automakers have all but abandoned the compact and midsize economy car segments, and I don't know what tariffs will mean for the Japanese and Korean automakers that do cover these segments. But see my other comment about the pendulum swinging back and forth.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Japanese and Korean automakers make a lot of their US-bound cars in USA, so I don’t think it will be that bad. A Honda civic is likely to be more American than a Chevy compact, for example.
- JohnBooty 2y ago
  I rented a Versa about 5-6 years ago and I was surprised how completely "fine" it was. It was a totally functional vehicle. The radio sounded good enough. The seats were comfy enough. It was a bit of a slug, but it had enough power so that you weren't scared for your life when merging onto a highway. If those sound like low standards... well, this was not always the case for bargain basement cars...
  - warner25 2y ago
    Right. I've been saying for a while that if you need four seats or fewer, there's no good reason to buy anything more expensive than an entry-level Versa, Soul, Corolla, Civic, etc. (If you need five or more seats, especially with kids' car seats, you're obviously looking at more expensive three-row minivans.) One way of looking at it, validating the point that others have already made in their comments, it is that there are no bargain basement cars anymore; everything now comes with an automatic transmission, air conditioning, power locks and windows, cameras and sensors, etc. As recently as 2008 when I was buying my Prius, these things were optional on many models. Today's compact cars are, I think, the size of midsize cars from 20 years ago too. It's kind of like housing in America where the cost per square foot didn't actually rise much in some places, but the average home is now twice the size, so the average home price doubled.
josefresco 2y ago
I posted in another comment above, but I bought a 2023 Kia RIo 5 - excellent car. Small, simple, efficient and IMHO good looking. The Forte and Soul are larger (I also own a Soul)

Quite a few $20k ish, though only the Forte actually making it under that. Forte LX starting at $19,900. Of course that's without without the $1,155 "destination" fee, so even the Forte really starts at $21,145. But considering inflation, $21k isn't a bad price.

OptionOfT 2y ago
We need laws that ban these junk fees. Any advertised price should be one I can get when I walk in. I cannot get the car without registration. I cannot get the car without 'destination' fee. Bake it into the price.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Registration cost is too variable. Varies by state, and even by city.
  - bartvk 2y ago
    You'd say someone would build an API to retrieve that information by city. But I would not be surprised that the product seller can't be bothered inserting that information into their sales flow.
    - rootusrootus 2y ago
      Okay, so build the API, and now customers will need to enter their locality before they can see the advertised price. It won't be a popular decision.
  - triceratops 2y ago
    So compute and post some defaults? At least the state and city that the dealership is located in?
    - rootusrootus 2y ago
      Sure, add that to the list of disclaimers in the small print so that the customer from the next town over will have something to reference when the dealer cannot sell them the car for the advertised price. The problem is that cars are not treated like most other commodities. E.g. You don't have to buy a license to use a microwave or register it with the government. The closest analog is if you live somewhere with sales tax.
      - triceratops 2y ago
        > add that to the list of disclaimers in the small print Correct. Instead of a vague "registration fees may apply" disclaimer now there's a "registration fees assuming <city>, <state>" disclaimer. It's definitely not worse for anyone, and is arguably better for the customers who will register in <city>, <state>. That's a green light for a utilitarian.
- yonaguska 2y ago
  The destination fee isn't really a "junk" fee. it's variable based on how far away from the plant that manufactured your car or, or the distance from nearest port of entry. Delivering a car isn't cheap. There's certainly some level of arbitrage going on, but the delivery driver is usually independent of the dealership.
  - triceratops 2y ago
    The dealership knows ahead of time how far they are from the plant and how much it costs to ship the car. GP was asking that the fee be included in the advertised price. That's fair.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      The dealer should do that. However the manufacture cannot do that - they are advertising to people all over the country - some of live next to the factory and some who live across the continent.
  - wlesieutre 2y ago
    And yet the destination fee is the same no matter where you are. If you buy a Chrysler Pacifica in Detroit, 15 miles from the assembly plant, you get to pay the same $1595 destination fee as someone 2000 miles away in Los Angeles. Since the fee doesn’t actually reflect anything related to cost of delivery, it’s hard to see it as anything other than hiding part of the MSRP so that they can lie about cheaper prices in advertisements.
- EricE 2y ago
  Just ask the dealer to compute the out the door price. It really isn't that difficult and certainly doesn't require yet another stupid regulation!
  - triceratops 2y ago
    So instead of easily comparing prices online, now you have to call dealers individually and ask them to compute the out the door price? Which they already know and could post online themselves? This is exactly the kind of problem regulations are meant to solve. Preventing false advertising and bringing information to all market participants make the market more efficient.
    - rootusrootus 2y ago
      They'll have to know your address in order to accurately tell you the OTD price. Are you willing to give that information to every dealer you're querying about price? There are also choices you can make during the registration process that will change the costs a bit. Quoting a fixed price for that would require yet more small print disclosing that certain choices were made. I just don't see how it works out. Registration costs money. Not just when you buy the car, but over and over and over throughout the time you own it. You should know this as a driver. Further, the registration cost does not vary by dealer, so you don't need to know it in order to negotiate the best price.
      - triceratops 2y ago
        > Are you willing to give that information to every dealer you're querying about price? Dealerships generally get your name and phone number if you call them to ask about the price including fees and taxes. If you make them post defaults online, they get nothing from you. Clearly better. > There are also choices you can make during the registration process that will change the costs a bit. I'm curious about this. Do you have some examples? Besides GP is also talking about things like the shipping fee, which are decidedly not variable or unknown. The dealership knows how much it costs them to ship the car from the factory and how much they want to charge you. They just choose not to disclose it.
- cpburns2009 2y ago
  The destination fee is baked into the price in my experience. I recently priced used vs new cars, and every new car had the destination fee embedded in the advertised price. Customizing a car on the Kia website included the destination fee. No dealership in my metro tacked on an additional destination fee. The destination fee was line-itemed for total MSRP on the window sticker.

warner25 2y ago

The Nissan Versa currently starts around $17k, and I see a lot of those on the road. The Mitsubishi Mirage is similarly priced but I don't think I've ever seen one in the wild. I rented a Kia Soul a few years ago and thought it was perfectly fine. But with so few options, like the parent, I'm planning to keep my current car (a 2008 Prius) indefinitely, just paying for repairs as needed until parts are unavailable or nobody is willing to do the work. My worry is that US automakers have all but abandoned the compact and midsize economy car segments, and I don't know what tariffs will mean for the Japanese and Korean automakers that do cover these segments. But see my other comment about the pendulum swinging back and forth.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Japanese and Korean automakers make a lot of their US-bound cars in USA, so I don’t think it will be that bad. A Honda civic is likely to be more American than a Chevy compact, for example.
JohnBooty 2y ago
I rented a Versa about 5-6 years ago and I was surprised how completely "fine" it was. It was a totally functional vehicle. The radio sounded good enough. The seats were comfy enough. It was a bit of a slug, but it had enough power so that you weren't scared for your life when merging onto a highway. If those sound like low standards... well, this was not always the case for bargain basement cars...
- warner25 2y ago
  Right. I've been saying for a while that if you need four seats or fewer, there's no good reason to buy anything more expensive than an entry-level Versa, Soul, Corolla, Civic, etc. (If you need five or more seats, especially with kids' car seats, you're obviously looking at more expensive three-row minivans.) One way of looking at it, validating the point that others have already made in their comments, it is that there are no bargain basement cars anymore; everything now comes with an automatic transmission, air conditioning, power locks and windows, cameras and sensors, etc. As recently as 2008 when I was buying my Prius, these things were optional on many models. Today's compact cars are, I think, the size of midsize cars from 20 years ago too. It's kind of like housing in America where the cost per square foot didn't actually rise much in some places, but the average home is now twice the size, so the average home price doubled.

josefresco 2y ago

I posted in another comment above, but I bought a 2023 Kia RIo 5 - excellent car. Small, simple, efficient and IMHO good looking. The Forte and Soul are larger (I also own a Soul)