[yticolev]

I had a dentist appointment today that by chance was next door to a Kia dealer. While they were using a CNC machine to cut me a new crown (which is amazing, I didn't know you could do a new crown in one trip), I had a 45 minute break and visited the dealer.

I asked to see a PHEV but they didn't have one, nor is it commonly stocked. But unlike every other dealer I talked to when I got my regular hybrid, this sales person (on his forth day ever) said it could be ordered from Kia and the price could be negotiated just like a car on the lot. This is not the ordinary dealer swap for this currently hard to find car.

I've read about how hard it is to find one, so Kia making them available to a requesting dealer (if true) is new information that might be useful to someone. This was Dayton Kia in Ohio by the way. I asked also about EV and they said no way. It would have to be shipped from California even if they could do the deal and it would costs thousands extra and take a couple of week for transport.

 

[npaladin2000]

said it could be ordered from Kia and the price could be negotiated just like a car on the lot.

That's something of a half-truth there. Yeah, they can submit a request to Kia, but it doesn't go to the factory as a build order. It goes to the distributors and waits for a matching config to be delivered from the factory, then it gets diverted to that dealer. Doesn't impact the build orders at the factory at all though, as far as I know.

Also, maybe they can negotiate it just like a car on the lot, whether they will is a completely different story. Because of the relative rarity of the PHEV models, especially the higher trims, dealers are holding out for MSRP. And getting it.

 

[yticolev]

That is the way I understood it, order from Kia America, not Kia Korea factory. But no way would I negotiate after the car arrives on the lot, then indeed it might be worth more. This particular dealer looked undersized to me and they only had one Niro for example. So they cannot afford to carry everything on spec.