1. Varying Outcomes and Experiences of Getting a Price Quote for a Car Online

    The Volkswagen Golf R is going to be released soon. It’s a car I’ve wanted for a few years, ever since the R32 went out of production and the rumors of a replacement based on the MK6 Golf platform started coming out.

    It’s a pricy car, and might be beyond my reach right now. That didn’t stop me from going online to try getting dealer quotes, though. In the end, it showed a remarkable variability of competency (even though no dealer contacted seemed to have even average competency with computers and the Internet) and greed.

    The car I wanted a quote on was the two-door model, manual transmission (which is the only transmission available, it seems), without the extra sunroof and navigation package. The MSRP of this car is $34,760, including destination charge.

    Here’s the current roundup:

    • Santa Cruz Volkswagen offered one with sunroof and navigation, in a color not in my top two choices, for $36,260 (which reflects MSRP). A number of words were misspelled in the reply, and an email reply requesting more information got no further response.

    • Capitol Volkswagen offered the car for $5000 more than MSRP, or $39,760. Email replies calling this out as bullshit provoked butthurt responses claiming demand exceeded supply (even for cars ordered custom? Hmm), finally ending with a survey email congratulating me on my purchase elsewhere.

    • Steven’s Creek Volkswagen quoted MSRP exactly, after a couple of follow-ups asking for my preferences in the car. They did mention that the car would need to be ordered.

    • Sunnyvale Volkswagen came back with response, which I think was automated, that quoted the price for a normal Golf.

    I’m curious why auto dealerships seem so firmly stuck in the dark ages, as far as computing and the Internet goes. I suppose it’s the automakers that mandate the shitty CMS systems that all dealers use. Or that they mandate that CMS as the bare minimum a dealer must support, and no dealer is savvy enough to put together anything better. I await eagerly the future wherein I can just search inventory for the exact car I want, and the price I want, or even just order the damn car online and have it built and shipped where I please.

    The auto industry seems ripe for a disruption of this middleman bullshit.