I'm thankful this is all that's being required by this administration.
Ultimately, I think this is what the majority of dealers wished would be the case all along. Everyone was just gun shy about being the first in their market to make their cars look like $500 worse deals than every other dealer. This helps level the playing field and eliminates the minority of unscrupulous dealers tarnishing everyone else's reputation.
When we brought our illumiQUOTE product to market (automated payments on dealers' websites and quotes in the CRM), we earned business from a few stores in the DC market. Even though I grew up in the Southern Virginia market, it was an eye-opener to see how some stores in Northern Virginia and Maryland handled price quoting.
At that time, we were asked (
demanded) to build a way to remove freight and discount a vehicle using most available incentives, regardless of whether the customer qualified. There was also a "trade rebate" that was applied to lower the price with a heavy stipulation on how the market value was set at the time of appraisal -
this trade rebate was at one dealership, and the only dealership we ever fired...
for other reasons. $60,000 domestic trucks were showing $250/mo loan payments that nobody could get, for example.
My theory:
The FTC and political staffs primarily live in the NOVA/MD market. It is one of the most aggressive and competitive markets in the country. Dealers are fighting hard! When these staff members go car shopping, they encounter a wide range of advertising tactics and in-store processes. It is possible that a few of these people have developed a dislike for that car-shopping experience. Of course, this could have happened anywhere in the US, but this particular market is rougher than most I have seen.
It makes me wonder whether the combination of an administration that wants to change this and a bureaucratic staff that has developed a grudge is making the FTC more heavy-handed
