Angelus,
The answer to both of your questions varies, based on make and model and how desperate the dealers are to move inventory.
Occasionally dealers will take a loss on vehicles. Generally that's pretty rare, but they can take a tax write-off for it, and often if they are willing to take a loss, they'll make it up on the back-end by getting money from the factory or the parent company. I've known Ford dealers to do that, in order to keep up their desired "market saturation," and they were incetivized by Ford Motor Company. So the dealer didn't actually lose on the deal.
Without something like that, its almost impossible to get them to sell a car for less that $500 above invoice, and its generally higher than that in my experience. Then you always have the BS "delivery fees" and crap that are non-negotiable.
As far as depreciation, I think it is generally the case that your vehicle loses ~30% resale value in less than a year. Cars are risky to finance due to this, and why banks allow you to finance the whole thing without a substantial downpayment I don't understand. I guess that's why gap insurance is so prevalent these days. Generally speaking, anyone who buys a new car is already underwater on it by the time they drive off the dealer's lot.
Some cars don't depreciate that fast, like a Honda. They generally hold their value longer. They do still lose a significant amount in the first year, however. Identical cars, (with the same make, year, miles, etc,) with one being "new" and one being "used or preowned" will sell for different amounts simply based on perception. You never know what's been done to a vehicle that's been owned by someone else. The dealer can account for everything that's been done by them, however, and the warranty has some additional value as well.
_________________ Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!
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