The "sticker price" is called the Monroney, named after the congressman who made it a federal law to force car dealers to at least post an asking price for new cars, after he'd gone car buying and the dealers all had no prices posted and offered wildly varying prices. It's a piece of fiction, and only serves as an asking price.
a couple of things to remember when shopping:
1.) New car sale prices are really an auction, anything to use as leverage is fair game.
2.) They (the salespeople) are forced to use every trick in the book to seperate you & your money. If you're into sales techniques, carefully observe what they're doing to you. ie: bait & switch (not having the car they advertise in the paper in stock), selling up, hidden charges, physical disorientation, hiding the keys to your trade in, etc.
3.) Be kind to your car salesperson, they make on the average appx $30,000+/year.
4.) even the "invoice price" is fiction, most of the manufacturers hold back a % of the invoice price and pay it to the dealership quarterly, so the dealership can sell cars @ "invoice" & still make $.
5.) Where car dealerships make their real % of profit is on their service dept, go there before you go up front to the sales area to get a feel for what they're doing to their loyal customers.
The only place I've seen more agressive sales techniques is in time share vacation sales, (a good place to get free stuff if you can say no to an obvious scam).
Saturn dealerships are the only brand to try to leave the high powered sales out, and they've always lost money.