In several states, that is illegal-Alaska, Virginia, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, and Vermont have banned prepayment penalties. In CA, they are mostly banned, but there are exceptions.
Tax and license is always legal.
When I bought our last car, the dealer said that we could pay off the loan without penalty after 6 months. I suspect that actually was the time at which the “commission” to the dealer was vested. We only went along because at the time wait lists for Tesla from the factory was 6 months.
This was the same shady used car dealer who used plasticized sheets and dry erase marker for their “here’s what we can do” and some numbers changed each time they went back to “talk to their manager”.
On the plus side, Teslas require very little maintenance, and the odd time they did the service came to our house.
Of course, but those are government taxes payable however you buy a car. That’s not what I was referring to, or what the dealer I didn’t like was asking for.
I bought a car last weekend. The dealer tried for over an hour to pretend that the “Dealer Prep Fee” and “Documentation Fee” were somehow different from the price of the car. I just kept subtracting them from the price on the first line in my counteroffer.
Note that these were not tax and tags which were listed separately.
For the seventh consecutive time I bought a car for exactly the price I offered when I first sat down. From back in the 1990s when I had to pay an information service to find the true net cost to the dealer.
I just sit there and repeat my offer for hours if necessary. I refuse to engage in any conversation about the transaction terms. My wife thinks this is horribly rude and refuses to go with me.
I’m an actuary. When we were all young actuaries taking the “interest theory” exam and buying cars, everyone who financed checked the numbers. And every single one found a problem. “Oh, you only qualified for the advertised rate for 80% of the cost of the car, the other 20% is at a higher rate.” “Oh, we included an extended warranty on that number” They always had an excited when they were caught. My husband wanted too finance because the interest rate was 0 (which makes it really easy to calculate the monthly payments) and “she” had made a mistake and ran the numbers at list price instead of the agreed-upon price. (That shop was actually thieves, not just an ordinary dishonest car dealer.)
In contrast, when I’ve gotten a mortgage or refinance one at a bank, I’ve checked the numbers, and once i accounted for the partial month the way they did (which was perfectly reasonable, but not the only reasonable option) i matched their numbers to the penny.
Yeah, i have a lot more faith in banks.
I have an ex-brother in law who is a car salesman (now sales manager). To say that his flexible ethical framework bleeds into his personal life would be an understatement.
You have to worry about every statement he makes, no matter how mundane. He’s always working an “angle”.
My sister’s divorce was of course a nightmare. This chap used their kids to “extract value from the transaction” in a pretty open and shocking way. Unfortunately the teenaged kid saw this as “winning” and admired Dad for it. His mother was the loser patsy.
New cars are easy and I take no bullshit. I walk in to Santa Barbara Honda with my ducks in a row. I say I want this exact model and color. This is my trade in. I will be paying cash and I don’t want the extended warranty. I will also be going to Ventura and Lompoc. You have one chance. You will give me your best offer right now. Whomever gives me the best offer gets my business. I will not be coming back and trying to price match. What’s it going to be?
Except that every dealer pulls some “bullshit” n my experience.
I have to say the time they devote to game playing has dramatically decreased over the last thirty years.
In 1994 and 2001 I remember spending hours.
Last two times it was under an hour, maybe even under half an hour.
(Bolding mine)
A friend’s husband sold cars for a bit. He told me when his MIL needed a car, his wife expected him to walk her mom through the process. He told me it was hard not to totally cheat the woman. He did take a few extra hundred, but he said he absolutely couldn’t help himself.
ETA: He told me the woman was loaded, so what he did wasn’t all that bad
I bought a new car during the shortage and it worked out relatively well. Similar to you, no BS. I had a car I kind of wanted (cheaper than my preferred. gotta save the ducats) on order for over 6 months with no ETA in sight. Bizarrely, the car I actually wanted (Make, model, color, interior, package) was on its way to a different Toyota dealer and the guy that ordered it cancelled! How quickly can you take my $500 deposit? A week later it is delivered and ready to go. I paid MSRP and the bs Dealer Fee but no other markups. All I wanted was already in the trim package I wanted and what I didn’t want I declined. No shortage adjustment fee. No prep fee. And because it took so long in the dealer (all the paperwork was done and I was told come in and pick it up - an hour at the most), after the 4th hour waiting they knocked a point off the interest rate. Oh and I gave them a choice. Revove your branding off my car OR give me a $5000 discount for the advertising. They removed the branding.
Sir, I will throw in a $50 gift certificate to Pea Soup Andersen’s.
Love it. I’ve seen the semi permanent branding on cars but I don’t think that’s allowed in California. They do give you a “free” plastic license plate holder with their branding on it but that goes straight in the garbage as soon as I get home.
Is it really necessary to be there in person? Can’t you negotiate via email?
Thanks. I was told to have the dealer do it and don’t do it yourself because invariable you/me/he/she will damage the finish. The dealer has special solvents and zip-zap that “F. U. Bub Auto Dealer” sticker is off.
Some places? Yes. See some Tomi Mikula (Delivrd [sic]) videos.
Also, you agree to a price via email or phone and you walk in. Now the price is more because reasons.
I was thinking. The strategy to talk about your trade in after getting the OTD price is that the buying of their car and the selling of your car are two different transactions AND they can’t use trade-in value to screw you on the out the door price. But I just thought of another reason. Everyone has heard horror stories of how the dealer will “check out” your trade in while negotiating and then when you want to walk, they can’t find the key so you can’t leave. People have actually had to call the police before the key is mysteriously found. If that is dealt with after the deal on the new car is made, holding your old car hostage makes no sense.
I’ve posted on here before about my attempts to negotiate via email. Did not go well. Either they refused to quote any reasonable price (like $2,000 over MSRP long before the pandemic) or would quote a price and then add thousands in fees when you get to signing the paperwork.
Or some staggeringly rude messages saying we are not participating in your “reverse auction”
The guys who put PPF on the car after we got it had to take off the dealer branding to do so, and we told them to just leave it off. 
@obbn Did you get the car or not?
These are two of the responses I got last time I tried to negotiate by email, on a car that I eventually ended up paying $38,400 for. The other email responses were ALL offers to sell me cars at truly ludicrous prices, which I took to be a big FU.
"I have an exactly the way you described with MSRP of $43610. When you have enough confidence to make an offer over $38000 within the next 72 hrs, we can continue the dialogue.
And if you can never come to the showroom at least once, my price doesn’t matter because Massachusetts State Law requires original signatures in order to consummate an auto purchase and registration."
"I’m not in the business of helping you buy a car elsewhere and or to be a pricing service. For that you can research through the innumerable websites now at your disposal.
If I live to be 100 years old, I’ll never understand why people are afraid to just buy a car at an established target figure of what they feel is fair…heck that’s what’s done on every other purchase consumers make, even a house!!! But with a car they worry about another $100 and then complain that buying a car is so difficult."
I think that is the big catch. What is fair? Most other purchases in the US there is no negotiating, so people aren’t used to it.
Cars are so different. Pay too much and you feel like an idiot, aside from being out the money. There are websites to help determine what is a fair price, but those aren’t always right. Plus everyone encounters a brother-in-law or message board poster who will tell them they paid too much, regardless of how good the deal actually was. Many people hate this whole game.
Even if you do have a fair price, there is no guarantee the dealer is going to accept it. They may think they can get more out of you, or the next customer, so why take that fair deal, when an unfair one might be just around the corner?
I simply offer the KBB target price or whatever Edmunds or Cars.com has as the equivalent. They are usually very, very close.
Never had it rejected. Might have taken two hours to get accepted, but it gets accepted.
Then I never wonder about whether I got a good deal.
This might not have worked during the pandemic great car shortage.
I wouldnt mention either of those until the price is agreed upon.
Yep, not allowed in CA
Be careful. KBB has two books- one of the dealer, one for the buyer, with rather different prices.