- Florida dealer listed 2026 Honda Prelude at $174,600.
- Dealer later claimed the inflated figure was a typo.
- Excessive markups continue to erode brand perception.
The reintroduction of the new Honda Prelude was supposed to be a feel-good story. But just as the car begins to reach showrooms, steep markups and middling performance expectations have already dampened the mood. One dealer in Florida, however, has managed to turn the whole thing into unintentional satire.
Delray Honda / Acura recently posted a 2026 Prelude with an MSRP of $43,650, at an asking price of $174,600 in listing on Cars.com (since corrected). Don’t worry, it’s not actually expecting someone to pay that much. What it really wants is for the buyer to fork over $15,000 more than what Honda suggests. Phew!
More: Delusional Honda Dealers Marking Up New Prelude To Over $60,000
After noticing the wild price in a Reddit thread, Carscoops reached out to the dealer immediately. Sometimes, although it’s rare, prices like this are technically real. A dealer might want to hold onto a specific model or car, but they’ll part with it for an outrageous price, as we see here.
In this case, though, the dealer confirmed it was just a typo.
“That’s a typo… $58,970 is the selling price,” the dealer said in an email to Carscoops. Oh, okay, so just $15,000 over MSRP then. In other words, it’s only about 33 percent more than the car is supposed to cost if Honda had its way.
Fees, Trays, and Tire Kits
Instead, Delray Honda / Acura seemingly decided that brand image doesn’t matter as much as some extra cash in the bank. To its credit, it did return a request for detailed pricing in which it clarified to us that only $10,000 was markup or as they call it, a “market adjustment”.
The additional bump in pricing came in the form of accessories and fees. Those include door edge guards, a nitrogen tire kit, wheel locks, custom pinstripes, a trunk tray, wheel locks, wheel well molding, a dealer fee of $999, an electronic title fee of $399, and more.
We asked if customers could buy the car without those accessories. Regarding items like the wheel locks, trunk tray, all-weather mats, and door edge guards, Delray Honda said it would be willing to remove them, but doing so would only knock $500 off the price.
Multiple industry studies and consumer surveys over the past few years have found that excessive markups erode brand trust, not just dealer goodwill. Buyers consistently report associating price gouging with the automaker itself, regardless of how often OEMs insist pricing decisions are “out of their control.”
Over time, that resentment impacts repeat purchase intent, brand loyalty, and even recommendations to friends and family. That’s the quiet, long-term cost of stunts like this. The screenshot lives forever, the joke spreads instantly, and the brand, Honda in this case, ends up wearing it alongside the dealer’s logo.
So yes, the Prelude isn’t actually $174,600. But in an era where perception spreads faster than corrections, the damage from seeing that number at all is very real.
