Even in 2024, some new cars are trading above MSRP…but the gap is shrinking.
As excruciatingly painful and expensive as it’s been to buy a new car over the past few years, recent months highlight an encouraging trend: Prices are falling relative to MSRP. The “Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price” has always been more of a guideline for what you should expect to pay rather than an absolute fixture of the buying experience, but some dealers have taken…well, let’s say “liberties” with automakers’ suggestions. Research firm iSeeCars looked into millions of new car sales over the past year to get a picture of just how bad the problem still is.
On the whole, the gap between dealer pricing and MSRP is narrowing across the board, which is a good sign. Nonetheless, certain cars almost always trade above sticker, and today’s average new car will run you about $45,880, according to iSeeCars’ data. That transaction price runs about 7.2% over MSRP, but again that number is still more palatable than January 2023, when new cars ran 8.9% above MSRP (or $45,597, on average).
To crunch the latest available numbers, researchers analyzed 16 million new car sales made between January 2023 and January 2024. While the general-purpose MSRP across the industry went up by $904 over the past year, average dealer pricing only increased by just under $300. And if you’re looking for a true bargain, certain new car models are actually making it to customers for a decent amount under MSRP.
Models with the highest transaction prices over MSRP
Long story short, if you’re looking for a Porsche…prepare to pay a substantial premium over the automaker’s suggest pricing. The company is far from the only automaker to feature on the top 20 list of models with the highest average prices over MSRP, but most of Porsche’s lineup is indeed here. In fact, you can zoom out a bit to say most performance-oriented German cars are trading over MSRP — including Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz.
But what about the other end of the spectrum? Are there any good deals?
Now, even with certain cars trading well above sticker, it’s still possible to find a bargain if you keep your ears to the ground and your eyes on dealer inventories. If you don’t necessarily want to do a ton of legwork and back-and-forth, though, there are certain cars that are priced to sell. Of course, part of the reason they’re priced so well is down to dealers’ inability to shift higher volumes.
These are the top 20 vehicles priced below or ever-so-slightly above MSRP (more or less at sticker), per iSeeCars:
Basically, if you can’t stomach paying above MSRP, you’ll want to look at EVs that are not currently eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit or recently-discontinued models. For the latter, you’ll come across dealers trying to clear out unsold inventory, leaving the door open to getting an even bigger discount on an EV, certain full-size trucks or large SUVs like the Nissan Armada or Jeep Grand Wagoneer.
In gathering all this information, iSeeCars excluded low-volume models from the analysis, as well as heavy-duty vehicles.
