So I am waiting on my carnival SXP and I am at the top of the factory order list. this is driving me bat shit crazy every time I look at the dealership I am buying from website and they are charging ridiculous amounts over MSRP thus most likely reducing their own allocations and extending my waiting time exponentially. I am paying 4K over MSRP and they are now charging between 6k and 9k on all of their cars. 4K on a 51,000 van is somewhat reasonable, but they are charging 6-7k on models that sell for 30k. Kia dealerships in large part are the greediest in the industry as far as I can tell.
Kia Dealerships BS Market Adjustments
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If you are custom ordering, it's not to the factory or dealership's benefit to do custom orders. It's to their benefit to sell their current inventory. You're never going to get a better deal even with other dealers. There's a good video on how this model works at this video:
It's an uphill battle.
I’m not really looking to get a better deal, just wondering how much it slows down their volume thus allocations by charging upwards of 25% above MSRP. Kia seems to be the worst, the dealership I’m working with for example has a $28,000 k5 that they are listing at 34,000. I’m going to make an assumption that no one that is in the market for a under 30k car is going to say wow I should buy this 28k kia for 34k. Just an observation really. in terms of carnival they have a $36000 LX asking $45000. I just don’t see many people buying that, and than in turn their allocation which to my understanding don’t get fulfilled until they sell the units they have. Just seems kinda stupid for dealers to charge outlandish market adjustments. I think buyers are finally getting more and more hesitant to pay these very inflated market adjustments. I hope so anyway.
What's outlandish to you is affordable to someone else. The demand is driving the pricing up. You're right though, at some point, people will say enough is enough and the pricing will either level off or start to come back down to earth. Until then, it's every man for himself out there.
It’s affordable to me, however the 4K markup I agreed to is not really the smartest purchase in history at 7, 8, 9k on a Kia or for that matter any common make and model it is definitely a bad buy. So I hope that at least there is some line in the sand that consumers aren’t willing to cross to level the market back out. Time will tell
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Can you even really "order" one I was told by one dealer that they just get allocated a certain amount based on voulme and then if it happens to match what you want they might call you to let you know but it's not like they are making one just like you ordered with them such as Tesla for example.
One dealer I talked to was taking $1000 deposits to "order" it and was only charging a $2000 sticker markup.
Another dealer said they aren't charging any mark up but to just call them the second week of every month to see what they have allocated and coming to them and if it would be something I would want.
One dealer I talked to was taking $1000 deposits to "order" it and was only charging a $2000 sticker markup.
Another dealer said they aren't charging any mark up but to just call them the second week of every month to see what they have allocated and coming to them and if it would be something I would want.
Yes, you can order one from the factory, but those take the longest. I've seen members on this site waiting 9 months to a year for a factory order in this current market. The fastest way to get a car is to reserve an inbound dealer allocation - which some people mistakenly refer to as ordering. It follows a similar procedure whereby the buyer pays a deposit and specifies trim and color combination then waits for a vehicle matching that combo to be delivered. It feels like you're placing an order, but you won't get custom accessories at the factory like tow hitches or mud guards.
Kia does allow factory orders, off subject but Toyota does not. Dealerships submit basically a wish list to the manufacturer and the manufacturer may or may not fill it. I did talk to a Toyota dealership that wanted a deposit and wasn’t being honest that the deposit wasn’t actually for a factory order.
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KIA of Fargo ND is selling all KIA Carnivals at MSRP. They are not marking up above MSRP and they are not forcing customers to buy dealer packages such as undercoating, etc. I just placed an order there last week for a red Carnival SXP and did not need to put any money down. We worked with Mike Aguilar, nice knowledgeable guy, I would recommend him. He said that KIA of Fargo is getting orders from people in Alaska, NY, etc because of their pricing. Cheaper for customers to pay MSRP + a plane ticket to Fargo than buy from their local KIA dealer. He said their lead time has been about 6-9 months. They recently received a red and a black Carnival that I'm sure will soon be off their lot once the customers pick them up.
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The dealership already has a handsome profit at MSRP, especially since these cars are not sitting on the lot costing them rent. I don't begrudge anyone a fair profit, but I absolutely refuse to support price gouging for anything. As long as buyers continue to pay over MSRP this will continue.
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I agree somewhat. The thing is volume is way lower than pre-pandemic levels, so dealers have to make up the profit margins from somewhere. Imagine, for example, a dealer moves 10 cars per month previously, and makes $1,500 per car as profit (at below MSRP, after discounts, hold backs, manufacturer's incentives, etc.). Fast forward 3 years, the dealer gets 1 car per month, no holdbacks, invoice price has gone up, the margin between MSRP and invoice is tighter. I am not saying they are right for doing this, but it is what it is. Until the supply/demand gap is resolved, the mark-ups is going to continue.
@ericgolson58103 That red one was actually mine! We picked it up from Kia of Fargo about a week after that. It did take 9 months to get, but we had an excellent experience at Kia of Fargo and did not get charged over MSRP. I would highly recommend this dealer!
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Then they lay off sales people just like any other industry. There are dealers out there who are selling at MSRP. The ones who are adding obscene profit to the MSRP are the greedy bastards who would price gouge you $20 for bottled water during a drought. As I said I don't begrudge anyone a fair profit, but I draw the line at price gouging. And that exactly what this is.
Some OEM's agree and are punishing dealers who do this. I read numerous stories about companies like Ford reducing dealer allocations to the dealers who were caught price gouging during the pandemic. Unfortunately, this was the exception and not the rule for most of the industry.
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I wonder now that the economy has cooled and we are 2 years into the product, if there will be some deals to be had on the Carnivals.
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Probably not until the supply picks up. Right now they're as rare as hen's teeth. Maybe that's by design, maybe that's supply chain issues. However supply chain problems don't seem to affect other vehicles. You can find Niro's, Seltos, Sportage's even EV6's. What's so special about the Carnival that makes it a rare commodity?
Despite it's exterior styling, it's still not an SUV and SUV's outsell minivans by a large margin.
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Point taken. Perhaps seeing the demand KIA will ramp up production of the Carnival in the future.
Lower production numbers, it’s one of only four minivans even for sale in the US and a whole lot of people really like it.
Also, the Carnival is not assembled in the USA, whereas the majority of the Kia SUV's are as I recall.
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