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Automotive intelligence covering new car prices, best car deals and more.
July 15th, 2010
The Truth Will Prevail
The TrueTrends monthly report includes TrueCar’s unique of BMW’s offerings are available in 2011 models, including
Price Flex Score, identifying new cars with the most the 3, 5 and 7 Series, M3, X5, X6 and Z4.
negotiating room, as well as best deals by Greatest
Percentage below MSRP, Total Incentives, Greatest Price • Vans, subcompact cars, and sport cars are where the best
Drops and Days in Inventory. Highlights included: potential inventory-based discounts will be seen. On
average, convertibles are staying in inventory for 137 days,
• The Greatest Discount section features makes and while subcompact cars and sport cars are on-lot for 79 days
models that offer the highest discounts on 2010 and 2011 and 72 days respectively. Meanwhile, Luxury SUVs
models. continue to move off the lots quickly, with an average
inventory stay of 31 days.
• Model year 2010 domestic makes including Chevrolet,
Ford, Mercury, GMC, and Chrysler offer the biggest • The Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback is a potential steal,
discounts. remaining in inventory at an average of 166 days. However,
it will be tough finding a Lexus LX 570, which has an
• Foreign automakers including Toyota, Honda, BMW, and average stay of 12 days.
Kia are offering the biggest discounts on 2011 makes.
• In this edition we’ve added vehicle category breakdowns
• Wednesday, July 28th will be the day consumers can for least and most flexible vehicles, greatest discounts,
expect the best buys for the month, with a projected 12.5% greatest price drop, and days in inventory.
discount from MSRP. In addition, the first half of August will
see steady discounts over 8%. • These TrueTrends findings will provide consumers with
the insights necessary to be better prepared before
• BMW is leading the way in sales of 2011 models, with purchasing their vehicle.
66.6% of their month’s sales coming on 2011 models. Most
How the TrueCar Price Flex Score Works
The TrueCar Price Flex Score measures the elasticity of a deal significantly below (or above, if you’re not careful!) the
transaction price by model. The Price Flex Score calcula- TrueCar average transaction price. Here are the 2010
tion dynamically incorporates the factors that affect price models with the highest and the lowest Price Flex Scores.
variance including the model’s transaction price range, We also show the models with the highest and lowest Price
current inventory and sales data. A vehicle experiencing Flex Score within each vehicle category. The scores range
extremely low inventory and a small range of transaction from 1 to 100. A score of 1 corresponds to the lowest Price
prices will have a low Price Flex Score. Don’t expect much Flex Score and indicates a very small -if any- negotiation
of a discount from the TrueCar average transaction price on power. A score of 100 indicates the highest Price Flex
a vehicle with a low Price Flex Score. If a vehicle has a high Score, meaning there is a big range of transaction prices for
Price Flex Score, however, you have the potential to strike that model.