Originally Posted by Flyer

Oh, they do. They make many times the profit than they do selling lower-end vehicles. Same with manufacturers....even more actually. The manufacturers make most of their profits for the high-end truck and SUVs. Higher-trim SUVs and trucks are their profit centers, and they basically subsidize lower-end sedans and cheaper vehicles. They make 1K plus holdback or just holdback on a small car and 8-10K plus holdback on a large SUV or high-end truck. I used to sell cars in the summers to make extra cash in college , and the bread and butter was the higher-end vehicles. They basically just make holdback on the others. It is/was a little better during Covid but even at MSRP, they were making $2K-$3K.

Big dealers have pretty big overhead so they really focus on the high end sales and used sales. I still know a couple and chat with them at times. The market has become strange, with all these big national conglomerates (Larry Miller/AutoNation/etc.) buying out the individual dealers. HOPEFULLY, things will settle down in another year and we can go back to having control over the dealers.