My comment was:
And your comment was;
Not sure why you felt the need to simultaneously agree and disagree with my point. At a grocery store, their margin is baked into the price of the items which is clearly marked for you to see. They don’t throw it in during checkout is my point.
Exactly. If I am looking to buy a car, or anything else really, I have already decided up front what I’m willing to pay for it. While I’m not going to attempt the embarrassment of trying to haggle in a regular retail store, if I think the price is too high, out comes the cellphone, and I look for a better deal online.
If I was looking to buy a car from a dealer, and felt the price was too high, my response would be “yes I understand that pricing here is considered ‘firm’ however if you fail to sell the vehicle at $X, I am prepared to pay $Y, and here is my phone number”. If the “firm” price is reasonable, this won’t work, because someone else will buy it, but if not, they might very well call you back in a few days or few weeks.
There is a difference between “Love” and “Lust”… With Love, you pay top dollar; but with Lust, you also pay the added on $899 processing fee.
As they say, “Love is Blind, Lust is Helen Keller…”
Googling for commonly used car jargon shows a lot of references to the “profit” meaning, but not much to the “package” meaning. Not disputing what you say, but this difference in meaning is probably confusing to many car buyers. I have no objection to the “add’l dealer profit” meaning myself.
One of the first things they ask is my phone number and address up front before I even test drive a vehicle.
I’ve walked out of at least 5 deals. And of those 5 - 4 called me back meeting my price. Only took one. The other 3 I had already found the vehicle from a different dealer at the price I wanted. And of the 3 where I found the vehicle I wanted at the price I wanted - they actually got the exact same vehicle from the dealer I turned down who then called me back. I don’t have time to play games. My offer was fair. Take it or leave it.
Let me explain why I considered this a scam. I know that no haggle pricing has been around for awhile, but in the past, you do a KBB check and you would find that the no haggle dealer had already lowered the price to what a reasonable haggler would pay.
The issue here is that I did the KBB check and their “no haggle” price was in reality a “haggle” price. But my daughter’s friend had to have a vehicle that weekend because the engine blew in her old one and she would lose her job if she didn’t get something to drive. She was convinced she was getting a fair deal, or at least they would not haggle.
BTW, I pointed out to the dealer that the processing fee may have been illegal the way they did it and they should check with their lawyers. The FTC just announced new regulations that ban hidden fees and since the processing fee was not on the sticker, that could be considered a hidden fee. I have seen cars from reputable dealers that put the processing fee on their price labels.
Well, the first mistake is allowing oneself to desperately need a new vehicle, and the second mistake is letting the dealer (or private seller) know that you desperately need a vehicle.
You make a lot of assumptions there. You’re wrong on both.
In practically any vehicle purchase, the Dealer/Seller begins with all the advantages so the Buyer’s best defense is simply knowing, “This is my bottom line, out the door and on the street price”.
You can “Dress up the Invoice three ways from tomorrow” with Dealer Add-Ons. Administrative Costs, Rebates and Discounts but the Final Price is all that matters, which is ultimately is whatever the customer is willing to spend and the seller is willing to take.
Addressing “Need”, it’s been my experience that there’s few instances of a real “Need”, fewer instances of “Need” for any particular vehicle and more often it’s actually a “Want”.
When this is the case, it’s a Sellers Dream to price it as high as possible so you may as well toss over your wallet. 
That’s what my daughter did when she bought a new 2020 CRV. They made money on a less popular model (2WD) and she got a good price in August. She really needed a car but that was never discussed.
Car sales-staff are probably screening for customers like that, b/c it makes the sales-job easier. Probably the reason they’ll offer few if any complaints if the customer says “too much” and walks out the door. They figure customers stuck in the “must buy” situation will come back later that day or the next morning , and the customers not in that situation, the sales-staff can call them back in a day or two & resume negotiations if they have spare time.
Finding oneself in a financial/job position where it makes more sense $$$-wise to buy a car quickly (even if overpriced) is a pretty common thing. Some buyers in this position might be able to take public transport to work, ride a bicycle, etc, so they’d be willing to wait for a better price. Others, there is not public transport or safe bike route to the job, everyone just does what makes the most sense for them. The car sales-staff probably has a good deal of expertise how to optimize their sales figures by taking full advantage. I wouldn’t call it a “scam”. It’s just the way American free-market capitalism functions.
Sounds like an example of when it’s best to lease a car.
Sure, leasing doesn’t ever put you ahead. But a 1 year lease can buy you time. Time to get your finances in order. Time to look around and decide what kind of car you really like and need, and can afford in the long run. Buying a car commits you to 25K, 30K, 40K and years of payments if you’re not buying cash. Leasing can give you the time to make a better choice than being backed into a corner and having to make a big decision on the spot.
As long as the remaining miles and terms work you can try swap a lease where you take over a lease for the remainder of the term. Co-workers have bought the cheapest vehicles the credit union’s would loan on. One had his car stolen (later recovered) and couldn’t get by with the gf’s car and bought a 2nd gen Ford Escape (still hasn’t confirmed exact year) that’s served him well over the last year or so. He did recover the stolen Ford Crown Victoria but has been keeping it safely in storage while taking the time to return it to how nice it was before the theft.
More recently a co-worker decided to stop trying to hold a Suzuki Reno together after the head gasket blew and bought a 2nd gen Kia Soul from a local new car dealer and he’s happy with the deal and the purchase.
OR…you just buy a smaller less desirable vehicle and keep it for a year.
I’ve never leased a vehicle and never will.
To me the solution that I have always used is to have a beater car, minimum insurance, rarely driven around just in case. It can even be shared by the extended family.
Bingo! I’d still put decent insurance on it, but an extra low-value car is definitely the way to go. Then, if one of your cars needs to be out-of-service for repairs, or is destroyed in an accident, you don’t find yourself making a hasty deci$ion.
By minimum insurance, I meant no collision or comp. The PL&PD should match your regular vehicles. I should have been clearer, but you are right.
Yup!
That was the role that my 1960 Falcon played every time that my 1974 Volvo was in the shop–which was often. Even though the Falcon was 16 years old at the time and looked unsavory because of bad paint, it was rock-solid reliable, unlike my 2 year old Volvo.
We’ve heard you mention this 1974 Volvo quite often over the years
I’m guessing, in hindsight, buying that car was one of your biggest regrets?
In situations like this, one of my counselors used to say “Life is in session”
Oh yeah!
To put things in perspective, when I dumped the Volvo, my next car was a new Chevy Citation, which was actually far more reliable than that POS Volvo–despite the fact that the Citation was one of GM’s notoriously-bad “X” cars.
What was really galling to me was that after I bought the Volvo, two co-workers who owned '73 Volvos revealed that their cars were constantly in the shop with a myriad of electrical and fuel injection problems.
Thanks, guys! 
And, in retrospect, I never should have traded-in my '71 Charger for that Volvo. There was nothing wrong with the Charger, but in an attempt to have a car with better gas mileage, I traded excellent reliability for a highly-flawed car with just slightly better gas mileage.