We're buying a new vehicle soon. One of the finalists is a Subaru Forester, and the salesperson told me they were selling them for $500 below invoice.

So I looked up the invoice pricing online and found multiple sources showing me that (for example) the Subaru Limited, no options, had an invoice cost of $29,062 plus destination fee.

The price I was quoted (and I did separate out fees, destination, etc.) was not $500 less than that. The dealer has sent me the invoice to show that, yes, she did quote $500 under that invoice, but the invoice is from "Subaru Distributors Corp." The invoice from them is a couple hundred higher than that invoice cost I found in multiple spots online.

I looked Subaru Distributor's Corp up and they're a $33 million company, so they SEEM to be some sort of middleman between Subaru and my local dealer, since $33 million isn't THAT much in sales in the auto industry. A regional middleman perhaps?

So do all Subaru dealers buy through some intermediary, and therefore I'm potentially paying for some markup for that intermediary? Is that their normal distribution? Or do some buy directly from the factory (thus, factory invoice cost being a term)?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.