The Born Loser by Art and Chip Sansom for August 14, 2023

If you buy a new car you save money, Brutus.

Funny, they don’t look like McLarens

At least he’s honest, Brutus! ;D

Wait until Brutus sees the MSRP sticker and the mark ups. Got 50 grand, Brutus?

Repairs is how the car dealers make their money.

FORD

Chose an auto maker that’s much less prone to be sent back to the shop.

Heads up, Brutus. A new dealer that makes money in repair may be a lemon shop. Now, a new EV is a different matter, if nothing else ’cause of greatly reduced number of parts.

how’d you get the presidents in the money to do that? :D

They make it with volume

Don’t fall for it Brutus! Isn’t the dealership name Lemons Automotive?

Decision time Brutus .

Check out the recall notices and the warranty, Brutus.

Dealers here make money on both..

And there you have it, Brutus!

Nice to meet you! I’ll be leaving now.

Their is a lot of truth to that.

Brutus, Brutus , Brutus! Did you count your fingers after you shook hands with him? They always make a profit when selling a car regardless of who services your vehicle. Might be a good price for the car but check around……

This reminds me of the “Seinfeld” where he buys a car from Elaine’s boyfriend, “Puddy”. Puddy lists all the extra fees added on at the end….“taxes, registration, tires, keys…additional overcharge!” I fell off the couch laughing at that last one.

Bought a new Jeep Grand Cherokee in 2010 and was able to purchase a lifetime warranty. Any repairs cost only the $100 deductible!

Excellent selling point.

Brutus will probably buy one, even if he only went in the dealership to use the restroom.

Just wait until they tell you about the additional subscription fees for all of the options you want.

Brutus utters “Cost, there is a cost and there ils a cost, but the cost of the price is still too high”. Or something like that; hard to hear himself muttering…

I’ve always suspected as much.

Most dealerships make a fair amount on brokering the financing, whether the customer can make the payments is no problem to them as they bundle it off to an investment firm anyway. If you are paying cash or have outside financing, don’t mention that until you have an agreement on price in writing or the price magically rises.

Funnily (sort of), this is pretty accurate. Most dealerships make very little on the sale of new cars, their service departments are the profit centers. If you look at their charges you’ll see why. For example, in 1988 I bought a new Chevy Corsica. Not long after the warranty expired the alternator went bad. I contacted the dealer about repairing it. I still remember the quote $550, ($110 for the part and 8 hours labor at $55/hr). That was a fair amount of money back then and I am slightly mechanically inclined, so I decided to take a shot at it myself. I bought the (remanufactured) alternator at an auto parts store for about $45 and it took me about three hours to remove the old one and replace it. After I did it the first time and learned how to remove a few tricky bolts, I probably could have done it in half the time. How their trained “professional” mechanic could have taken 8 hours is a mystery. Second instance on the same car, I did a lousy job of parking and broke the little Chevy “bowtie” on the hubcab. A piece of plastic about the size of a quarter. The charge for the part (no labor, I did the “install”), $17.

Weird! Those cars don’t look like Teslas!

Yep. That’s what Yugo did.

Brutus had better read the warranty very closely