He is right. However we were talking about different spreads. I'm talking about the spread from them buying your car then selling it used. They would be posting my car for $21k yet only buy it for $16k. But doesn't matter at this point I'm just going to keep it and hope they use a tech that properly knows how to test for head gasket failure or any cracks/warp in the block.
Dealers don't always mark up used vehicles by that much, and anyone that's willing to pay a $21k asking price for a used FiST doesn't do very well at negotiations. Again, $16k is just their
starting point for negotiating with you and I guarantee you can get the number to move if you were trading it on a new car there. If they wouldn't budge on it, they don't deserve to dealership or at the very least get your business.
Short story-I traded my Mk3 Focus Titanium in on my FiST. They started with the value of $16k, which was just a touch over half of the MSRP when I bought it. Just under 36k miles and two years old. By the end of the deal they gave me $18.5k for it and I signed my new loan for the loaded FiST at $24k.
A couple of weeks later I received a pm over on a Focus site that I admin about a guy posting a thread asking the community about a car that looked a lot like mine. I took a look at the thread and sure enough-it was my car. I got in touch with the prospective buyer and discussed the car with him, he checked out my build thread and later the car and was pleased with it so he bought it (and later, all of the parts I had raped from it). Final vehicle price when he bought it-$18.8k.
Tl;dr-With the way the current vehicle sales system is set up, everything is a negotiation and no spoken word is worth anything because it can (and will, if you're working at it) all change a lot before you sign paperwork. Not every dealership is intent on screwing the buyer on upfront costs, there are some (like mine) that focus on volume and would rather give up some of the front-loading in favor of having a monthly residual from a new car loan.
I'm sure the horse is fully-beaten.
Back on topic-I know you want your car fixed, but it may also be worth your time to repeatedly return to the same dealership and establish your paperwork for a lemon. If the new dealership has the same attitude of not fixing it, I would start accumulating paperwork showing the history of the problem. It's not necessarily the best option, but it's an option nonetheless and one that you must prepare for ahead of time if you want it to be favorable for you.