Not at all. Electrical Tape is made of black vinyl, you’ll also find that many car manufacturers use black vinyl on the B-pillar to make the windows look connected. The electrical tape is rolled out like a pin-striping over the chrome. So long as it’s a good brand like 3M (who are known for making automotive vinyl),…

Quiet you! I, one of millions of Internet people, want multi-billion dollar corporations to bend to my whims for products I'll never buy just so I can have something to complain about because my first world life is too easy and this is all I have.

First, it’s a Terrain so...

not even kidding you, I was working on trucks and one of the VP’s called me, after driving a mule truck around, complaining that the sun was bouncing off the chrome into his eyes, and he wanted me to fix it.

I had a body shop call me to tell me I ordered the wrong window mouldings for him once... said the car had chrome and I sent him black.

its $60 a car on every car, and thats just one component of the package. lets say you have a full “black out package” how much does every one of those new pieces cost, and how much do you charge the customer. FCA and GM don’t have particularly good profit margins right now. and these packages are meant to make money.

It all depends on what the design was before. So for instance the Grand Cherokee has a DLO that is stretch bent and co-extruded stainless steel. to make that whole thing a black color that meets all appearance and endurance specifications is not possible with current technology, because the film needs to be applied…

It’s a shame that the chrome trim pieces have to exist, in the first place. They have always looked terrible, on every car. Hell, 15 years ago, I was covering them up with electrical tape, and it actually looked fairly decent.

...the black paint has peeled off of those strips...

He’s talking about $60 for every vehicle, not just the ones with the blacked out option. The extra cost comes from needing to use a multi-piece weatherstrip trim instead of a single piece.

As another OEM STEM worker (chemist/material scientist here) always glad to hear other people chiming in when people who just have no way of knowing what goes on try to tell us how things should be. Thank you for the insight. You may return to your never evnding stream of meetings and outlook requests now.

The paint peeled off your Tundra’s trim because Toyota didn’t spend the extra $60 and just painted over the standard trim.

my time to shine!!! I worked for *INSERT OEM HERE* as a release engineer for weatherstrips, and DLO’s those chrome strips around the windows are not so easy to change color, they aren’t like a bumper, or insert on the side of the car. they are almost always stainless steel or aluminum usually stretch-bent or stamped.…

Urine denial if you think this is an a-pee-ling color

Your dad may very well have worked hard to earn his money. That in no way automatically excludes him from being a dick. I’m glad he eventually got the car he wanted for the price he wanted, and I hope he enjoyed it, and if he still has it, or you have it now, you are both still enjoying it. But having said that, on…

Dude... why are you so perplexed about dealer markups? If someone out there is willing to pay $5,000 over some price the manufacturer suggested, then that good is worth that amount of money. Is it worth that to you (or your dad in this case)? I guess not; but it’s just simple supply and demand economics... nothing…

I don’t hate because I don’t have to hate. I do this every single day. I have great repeat and referral business. My average survey score through the manufacturer surveys is over 99%.... Over 5 years in the business. I’m a top 300 salesman nationally for a company that is a small dealership and doesn’t even carry my…

No. I’m not wrong... I negotiate every fucking day. It’s my job. I know how to negotiate.

My dad is a blue collar guy who worked his ass off for 35 years. And he doesn’t treat sales people like shit because their bosses decided to markup a high demand car.

Good for him. That was still rude to do to someone you didn’t know, hadn’t spoken to, and did nothing to you, and it doesn’t make sense that you think it was justified and praiseworthy. If you can’t get that through your head, I have nothing further to say.