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Topic: Car dealers are unnecessary middlemen?< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 10 2012,10:16  Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
This article is about car dealer in MA suing Tesla because Tesla is selling their cars directly to consumers, and there are laws to not allow that to happen.  The law says that a non-affiliated entity has to sell cars, different from the manufacturer.

http://www.npr.org/2012....se-laws

This suggests to me that car dealers are a racket protected by law, and consumers aren't allowed to buy a car without a markup to a middleman.

Is that about the long and skinny of it?  I just never thought of it that way.

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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 10 2012,10:47 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
How the fuck is a car dealership considered "non-affiliated" when the company logo, which probably looks mysteriously like the logo outside corporate HQ, is plastered on signs a hundred feet high?

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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 10 2012,12:43 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
What. The.  Fuck.

Hey, MA, freedom, bitches

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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 10 2012,12:48 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
Nobody knows what freedom is anymore nor do they care.
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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 10 2012,14:47 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
I don't think I could have used more punctuation per word.

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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 10 2012,15:49 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
It was very dramatic.

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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 14 2012,13:59 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
Of course they're not unnecessary.  Who would reset on-board computers for fucking exorbitant prices miles away from a garage?

EDIT: I spent six hours and $200 doing today what should've taken two or three hours and $20, because of the combined incompetence of a car resaler, the brand dealer, the dumbass garage, and the fucking corrupt state gov't.  I'm very much in a, "Yes, let's fuck them all," sort of mood.

Edited by Malcolm on Nov. 14 2012,14:00

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Diogenes of Sinope:

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"Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them."

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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 14 2012,14:24 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
For most cars you can get little devices online that will let you do resets and stuff yourself.

I've been considering trying to hack my car's programming - just because - but so far I've resisted the urge.

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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 14 2012,14:26 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
I saw one that connected your smart phone to your car, and had an app.

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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 14 2012,14:30 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
The reset was actually free (the repair was not because some-fucking-how valve stems aren't part of a tire/wheel warranty).  Just took a couple hours out of my day.  The fact that the garage is forced to send me to a dealer to do the reset is fucking obscene.  The fact that some engineer thought it was a good idea to attach a $100 sensor to a fragile, but otherwise $10 part blows my fucking mind.  The fact that the state actually has fucking regulations requiring the garage to replace working parts just because they're connected to broken components fucking astounds me.  The gov't is a fucking mafia.

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Diogenes of Sinope:

"It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."

"Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them."

Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC:

"Better dead than smeg."
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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 14 2012,14:46 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE

(Malcolm @ Nov. 14 2012,16:59)
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 I'm very much in a, "Yes, let's fuck them all," sort of mood.

aka: normalcy?

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PostIcon Posted on: Nov. 14 2012,17:22 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
Today is extra special fuck you day.  I had several people independently fuck up the simplest fucking things: directing me to the correct location of a chain garage, writing down a phone number correctly (fucked up every digit except the area code), being able to give directions with specific road names and highway numbers as opposed to "this highway, that road, then that other road, then this other highway..."

If it weren't for the fact that the cap was stuck on the goddamn valve, I could've just mighty putty'd the fucking thing together again.  In a sane car repair world, this was a 20 minute $20 fix.  Instead, it takes six fucking hours, me driving about at least 80 miles round trip, and $120.  I'm also going to take the agreement to someone with more legal expertise than myself, but the fucking thing looks like the fix should've been covered.  In order for it not to be covered, the language has to mean the opposite of how I interpret it.  "Include" literally would have to mean "exclude."

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Diogenes of Sinope:

"It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."

"Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them."

Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC:

"Better dead than smeg."
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PostIcon Posted on: Feb. 20 2013,05:16 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
Little followup on this.  Turns out these laws are why you aren't seeing cars being sold on amazon.

http://www.npr.org/blogs....changes

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PostIcon Posted on: Feb. 20 2013,06:34 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
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Car dealers argue that the laws are necessary to protect dealers' investment, and to protect the jobs of people who work at car dealerships.

Well that's about the shittiest argument for a law I've ever heard.

They're not even trying to pretend that this is for the public good.

Wasn't that exactly the same logic used when the buggy whip industry tried to have those newfangled automobiles outlawed?

Edited by TPRJones on Feb. 20 2013,06:45

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PostIcon Posted on: Feb. 20 2013,06:45 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
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"If you just take our organization alone, we employ over 2,000 people," says Tammy Darvish, who runs a group of auto dealerships and sits on the board of the National Automobile Dealers Association. "That's 2,000 families throughout greater Washington that are dependent on us continuing our business operations."

There are plenty other businesses employ lots of people but don't have so much protection from state laws.

Um, yeah.

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PostIcon Posted on: Feb. 20 2013,07:24 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
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They (the laws) restrict where new dealerships can open, giving dealers the exclusive right to sell within their territory. This makes it almost impossible to create an online dealership.

What's more, the the laws make it very hard for manufacturers to close exiting dealerships. Manufacturers don't have leverage over dealerships if they want them "to provide good customer service, low prices, nice facilities, or anything else," says Yale economist Fiona Scott Morton. "That [dealer] gets to stay as long as he wants, and if he does a bad job, that's just what he does," she says.

So ... protected monopoly plus indemnity against sucking?

QUOTE
That may partly be due to the fact that car dealers have a lot political power. Dealers contribute a big share of state sales tax revenues — as much as 20 percent in some states — and they tend to be big local employers. That makes state and local legislators listen to bribes and kickbacks.

I made have added those last few words.

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Diogenes of Sinope:

"It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."

"Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them."

Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC:

"Better dead than smeg."
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PostIcon Posted on: Feb. 20 2013,08:44 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
So why doesn't Best Buy have laws protecting it against online sales?
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 10 2014,16:45 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
OMFG.

Latest Tesla:
Can partially drive itself (You can summon it on private property!)
0 to 60, 3.2s
$122k

Want.

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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 10 2014,18:05 Skip to the previous post in this topic. Skip to the next post in this topic. Ignore posts   QUOTE
I saw an article a couple of weeks ago that they really aren't that great.  The folks that drive them for a week and write the reviews love them, but the guys that have them for a year or so aren't all that enamored with them anymore.  I read that they tend to have a lot of issues.
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PostIcon Posted on: Oct. 10 2014,18:06 Skip to the previous post in this topic.  Ignore posts   QUOTE
I'd like to have that year to find out.

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