Get what your saying, but the manufacturers charge it across the board on compacts, luxury cars, especially to Canadians, even if it's built in Canada, like the MDX was, because they know we are used to getting screwed, we often pay double the freight of the Americans for a vehicle made here! But I don't want to derail this thread. Should be two or three levels of freight. Made in North America, under $30k, one price, over $30k another price, overseas another price...
while reduced freight costs for "Made in North America" would be good, tiered freight costs because of the cost of the vehicle doesn't make sense...a $20,000 car and a $70,000 car cost the same to ship (from/to the same origin/destination).
and i agree, pricing should always be "all-in" (aside from HST or whatever taxes are in your area)...i've said that for years...many years ago, i worked for Bell, and Bell Mobility launched a family of rate plans called "All-In-One"...the plans were competitively priced and simple as the only extra cost was tax...the problem was marketing...our cheapest plans were $30-$35 whereas our competitors advertised plans "Starting at $20/month*"...of course, that little "*" would point to the fine print where you would see about $8 in "fees" tacked on, and our plans included a couple of extras other companies charged for...so, when comparing apples to apples, we were bang on in price, but appeared to be $10-$15/month higher...this is despite numerous advertising campaigns...Bell's hope was that the other companies would follow suit...they didn't, and after about 10 months, the All-In-One plans were dumped.