Kia Needs To End This Crazy $18,000 Telluride Markup

May. 13, 2021 11:01 AM ET by Sebastian Cenizo Pricing / 36 Comments

This is just greedy.

While mechanics tend to have a bad reputation for ripping people off when repairing vehicles, it's often the case that the dealership has shafted the car buyer first. We've covered countless stories on various dealers that have raised the prices of popular vehicles by ridiculous rates just to make more profit. Despite manufacturers often getting involved and forcing dealers to adjust their rates or giving them conditions before allowing them to stock certain cars, the crazy markups continue. Back in February, we covered a story about how markups for the Kia Telluride have become outrageous because of that vehicle's astonishing popularity. But while that story spoke about $10,000 markups, another dealer is almost doubling that increase.

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As you can see from the photograph above, whoever wrote the notice pasted to the dealership's window is clearly not a summa cum laude Rhodes scholar; the notice is littered with grammatical and spelling errors. But more troubling than poor English is the fact that the dealer is indicating that it does not have time for people who wish to negotiate even a little bit - anyone who requests a test drive understands that they will have to pay between $15,000 and $18,000 more than the recommended retail price. For reference, the base Telluride starts at $32,190 while the top SX trim in fully loaded form exceeds $53,000. That means you could pay over $70,000 for a Telluride.

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At $70,000, you could get a well-specced Volvo XC90, Lincoln Navigator, Mercedes-Benz GLE, Land Rover Defender, or even a BMW X3 M Competition - and you'd still have change. While we understand that dealerships need to make money and can't be blamed for taking advantage of the popularity of their product, increasing the price of a vehicle by more than 50 percent is pure greed. We really hope that Kia gets involved with the dealer directly to put an end to these exorbitant increases. After all, these crazy markups are more likely to push buyers towards other brands than to make the Telluride more sought after.