The SRT Viper is one of the hottest models on the tip of all of our tongues and we are all excited to see it hit showrooms in November. We have seen many weird things, however, when it comes to its official release. In a report, we learned that only about 15 to 20 percent of all Chrysler->ke21 dealerships will “earn” the right to sell it by having their entire team trained on the car, among other odd qualifiers.

Well, we have finally found out exactly what this all boils down to for dealerships. The “training” program that Chrysler is making dealerships put their employees through will run the dealers a whopping $5,000 to have completed. Following that, the dealership still has to pay an additional $20,000 just for the right to sell the Viper, given the dealership meets all of the customer service criteria.

That brings the grand total to sell the viper to $25,000, or roughly one-quarter of the price for one base model SRT Viper. We are all for Chrysler wanting to get this release right, but to gouge your dealers like that is simply inexcusable. Regardless of how much money you may think dealerships make, keep in mind that the average new car sale nets the dealer less than $2,000 in profit.

That would mean that a dealership would have to sell roughly 10 to 15 SRT Vipers (at the average profit number) to break even on bringing the damn thing into the showroom. I worked at a high-volume Dodge dealer and allow me to tell you that the two Vipers we had on the showroom floor never left their spot on the floor – even for a test drive – in the year I worked there.

Chrysler is likely making far more profit on the SRT Viper than the dealers will and it needs to step up and provide these cars at a lower rate than $25K. The $5,000 training fee is understandable, but $20K just to “earn” the right to have it grace your dealership’s lot… Yeah, we feel a collective “Screw You Chrysler” coming from the majority of dealerships.

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