It’s bad out there folks. From top to bottom, the car market is trash right now. Inventories are low. Prices are high. Salespeople’s pockets are running on empty as evidenced by all THE UNHINGED ASS MARKUPS we’ve been seeing. As this markuup at a Mitsubishi dealer shows, they keep getting worse.
Ole Ben Franklin Motors in Oak Ridge, TN is a Mitsubishi dealer. Now we all know that Mitsubishi dealers haven’t been doing so hot the last few years. Outside of the Outlander, they haven’t had anything anyone really wants. Things are turning around with the new Outlander, but other than that the brand sells one car: the Mirage. You can get it in a sedan called Mirage G4 or hatch. Talk about cheap — you want basic transportation, a Mirage is it. Fully loaded (outside of some special edition trims) it comes in right under $20,000. It’s good for people on a budget or as a first car.
Apparently, Ole Ben Franklin has other ideas, as the dealership thought it would be a good idea to mark up a sub-$20,000 Mirage to very nearly what Toyota wants for a base Camry. Overcharging for basic transpiration is a new low.
As you can see, MSRP on this Mirage is $18,265. This is the same price as six other Mirages in their inventory. The dealer markup is $5,995 for a total of $24,260. Now both of these may seem relatively low compared to the markups I’ve covered on here. But this one is way worse because of the target market for the Mirage and because it’s a basic mode of transportation. That’s in addition to Mitsubishi dealers generally targeting customers with bad credit. A simple Google search will show plenty of examples. Some have outright lied on a credit app.
I reached out to the dealer to get clarification on pricing and was given the runaround. They wouldn’t tell me the price. Instead, opting for continuously asking me how they could contact me to follow up. As my colleague Tom McParland noted — and as I can personally attest to — Mitsubishi dealers are notorious for dodging price quotes.
With something like this going on, my advice for people on the bottom end of the market is to shop around if you can. With dealers now marking up the most basic modes of transportation and the used market not being much better, waiting, saving up for something off Craigslist, or public transportation are better options.
Shoutout to @highmileage on Twitter for pointing this out!