Let me preface this by saying I am a very patient guy. If you want to save money you must have a good mentality that you never need to buy a car, but dealers must always be selling cars.
I looked in the Pacific NW (as I live here). The Best I could get for an EX w/AWD (no nightfall or premium package), was $2k over sticker all the way up to $5k over sticker in the Amazon/Microsoft Seattle area.
I started looking to the south in California. The LA area has some volume dealerships and one offered $1500 over sticker, but that was as low as I could find.
I moved into the Rocky Mountain region and found a few dealers in Utah and Colorado that were around $1000 over sticker…
I discovered the north east of the country also well over MSRP, while the south was little bit lower and in some cases close to sticker.
The sweet spot seems to be straight up the Mississippi River.
I placed my down payment with Lawrence Kia of Kansas. I won’t give my exact price but I got over $1700 off the sticker! They were very easy to deal with, very simple pricing, no gimmicks, etc...
i’ve noticed another dealer in the Kansas City Missouri area is $1900 a sticker on their website.
It cost me about $900 to ship it to the Pacific Northwest, but I’m still saving about $1000 bucks under sticker at the end of the day. That’s a lot better than paying $2000 over sticker with a local dealer for no reason whatsoever.
Bottom line is they are easy to work with. I was their 38th person to order at that time (early February). They are clearly a volume dealership engaging in KIA’s stair-step program to get bonuseach month.
Trend: The last 3 to 4 weeks I've noticed inventory is starting to increase across the country… If dealers start having inventory over 30 days (meaning they will have to pay interest on those vehicles) dealerships prices are going to start coming down quickly as supply is catching up with demand.
For now, if dealers can keep getting at or above sticker price, that pure profit will pay for some of that inventory that’s accruing interest, but They hate to do that and would simply start having to move cars faster to avoid 30+ day inventory, which means lower prices.
Hope that helps!