Dealers Already Charging Markups For The 2023 Cadillac Lyriq

Pricing for the 2023 Cadillac Lyriq Debut Edition starts at a cool $59,990, surprisingly reasonable considering the luxury electric crossover’s premium features and technology. However, current market conditions have introduced a substantial amount of instability into the automotive market thanks to a low-supply, high-demand scenario caused by all various supplier issues. This has, in turn, prompted some dealers to take advantage of the situation and charge well over MSRP for new vehicles, and the Cadillac Lyriq – which has yet to officially launch in the Americas – is already subject to such markups.

For example, a Cadillac dealership in Thousand Oaks, California attempted to squeeze an extra $5,000 from the buyer of a pre-ordered Lyriq, which is presumably a Debut Edition model. The buyer wrote to Cadillac Society about the surprise charge, stating that they were not informed about the additional fee until the dealer received their vehicle allocation. The dealer justifies the upcharge as a “market adjustment,” and states that it is necessary “due to high demand and limited supply” of the Cadillac Lyriq. The buyer, understandably frustrated with the upcharge, indicated that they walked away from the sale. 

This certainly isn’t the first time a dealer has charged well above MSRP in recent memory. Perhaps the most extreme cases of markups on a Cadillac product occur with the Escalade. Dealers have asked for as much as $25,000 to $40,000 over MSRP for the full-size luxury SUV. And earlier this year, Cadillac Society stumbled across a few Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing super sedans with markups as high as $35,000 over MSRP to reflect a “fair market value.”

The “fair market adjustment” prices are so extreme in some cases that Cadillac’s parent company, General Motors, issued a warning to offending dealerships to discourage the practice. The timing of the warning suggested that Cadillac and its parent company, GM, are concerned about dealerships taking advantage of customers interested in the highly sought-after Cadillac Lyriq. So far, this warning seems to have had little effect, so it will be interesting to observe how dealers handle the sale of the all-new electric crossover. 

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