6-figure markup works out for Audi dealer

The key word is "suggested." Because dealerships are independent businesses, they are free to sell vehicles for less — or more, in the case of popular models — than the manufacturer's suggested retail price.

Some early Chrysler PT Cruisers sold for as much as $10,000 over sticker, as incomprehensible as that might seem today.

Automakers generally dislike when dealers mark up a high-demand vehicle, though there's often little they can do to stop it. Occasionally, dealers can be cajoled into backing down, though.

When a photo popped up on Twitter this month showing a $10,000 markup by an Illinois dealer on the new Ford Mustang Mach-E electric crossover, Ford Motor Co. spokesman Mike Levine jumped on the case.

"The markup has been removed from this Mach-E," Levine tweeted the next day. The dealership's website indeed showed the advertised price back down to MSRP.

But that was nothing compared with the markup that an Audi dealer near Las Vegas demanded for a 2021 RS 6 Avant wagon that had a sticker price of $142,009. Audi Henderson added a $100,000 "market adjustment" to that, according to The Drive.

The Drive wrote about the six-figure markup and then contacted the dealership, which justified it as "a 'moonshot' to try and ride the wave of high car prices, especially for more expensive exotics like the RS 6 Avant," wrote the story's author, Peter Holderith. The store said it was planning to reduce the markup to $35,000 but provided another update after the story was published:

"Thank you for the publicity," a dealership representative wrote in an email to Holderith. "We just sold the car. We appreciate it."