You’re saying that California has a law against auto dealerships putting their logo on the trunk of cars they sell?
I don’t know if it’s a law but it’s definitely not a thing here. It should be a law to not allow them to vandalize your possession with that shti.
Yes, maybe not a law but at least a regulation.
I’d be curious to see a cite to that law or regulation.
Why do you doubt this, after two posters have said it?
Not saying I doubt it but I would be curious to read the wording.
I said that it’s not done here and that it may be a law.
The issue with California’s regulations that are not penal code is that they are buried deep within pages of bureaucratic legalese.
Just take it from us- you do not see that in CA, just the licence plate holders. Come to CA and see for yourself.
Though you aren’t saying the same thing; you said it’s a law or regulation while @hajario said it’s a matter of custom.
OMG. I said that they aren’t a thing here. It may or may not be a law or a regulation or a voluntary agreement amongst dealerships or something else entirely.
On this, I suggest a Ripley- Believe it or Not. Or look it up yourself. This is not part of the thread, its a hijack.
I’ll add my recent car buying story. Wife was wanting a new car, and had decided on a Mazda CX50. Nice car, and there were two available in our area that had the trim level she wanted. One local dealer, Dealer A, had one in Premium Plus trim, but in a dark blue. The other dealer, Dealer B (about 40 minutes away), had one in Premium trim but in that wonderful Mazda red that my wife wanted. It was in transit, but we went to dealer B and talked pricing. Of course, they had the dealer add ons for about $2k (Dealer A also had about $2k in add ons). I told Dealer B I did not want to pay for that. The salesman insisted that his manager said he had to include it, but would drop the price to $900. So their price was MSRP + $900. We told them to call us when the car arrived and we would go back and talk. But I also told them that we certainly were shopping at Dealer A as well. That didn’t change their stance on the $900. Manager at Dealer B insisted it wasn’t negotiable. Their deal was MSRP + $900.
A week later, the car arrived at Dealer B and we set up an appointment for 5 pm to work a deal. But we went to Dealer A at 3 pm to see what their deal was. They offered $3k below MSRP, dropped the price of their $2k add-ons to $3 (yep, three bucks, which was about what they are worth), and then offered us 33% more for our trade than what CarMax and Carvana had offered (which were fair offers based on the condition of the trade-in). So we bought the blue car at Dealer A that day.
While we were signing the paperwork, a little after 5 pm the salesman at Dealer B texted my wife wondering if we were coming in. She texted back that we were buying at Dealer A, and that their insistence that the $900 was non-negotiable was the reason we were not going with Dealer B.
Five minutes later Dealer B texts back and said his manager decided that they were NOT going to lose the deal over $900.
I smiled as my wife texted “You already did”.
Did we get a great deal at Dealer A? I don’t know. But Dealer B can get bent.
Not being an expert, but it sounds like it.
My gf bought a Subaru via email a few cars ago. We were sitting around on a rainy day and she was typing away on her laptop. She asked me if I’d drive her to Greensburg in exchange for her picking up the tab for a nice restaurant.
I said sure, then she mentioned she was buying a car and I wavered. Turns out she’d been back and forth emailing with a saleswoman. I drove her to a Subaru dealer and she ran inside. Just a short time later she came back out and they brought the car out to her, put the plate on, and she drove off with me following her to the restaurant. We weren’t at the Subaru place a full half hour (she wrote a check).
Did she have an e-signed contract from the email exchange?
My wife thought she had a very specific, detailed agreement via email exchanges, but when we got to the dealership they tacked on $499 (“that we always charge”) and then basically said are you going to negotiate or sue us? I dragged her out of the dealership and told them they had until the end of the day to write up the offer as it was agreed on email.
We were still in the car on the way home when they called us begging us to come back.
No idea, it was all her thing. I know she was happy with the price and it took longer to put the plate on, etc than it did to complete the deal and pay. No trade-in.
I want to buy a car and have this experience. is it just knowledge or what?
are some dealers worse than others? because all these weasel ways I have read about make me angry!
Toyota dealers seems worse. If they whip out a “four square”, then you know they are gonna try and cheat you.
4-Square Scams — California Consumer Attorneys.
4-Squares are used by dealers because they make consumers feel obligated to purchase a vehicle at the agreed-upon terms, even if the details of the deal are not explained when they signed the 4-Square. Dealers also use 4-Squares to trick consumers into focusing on the down payment and monthly payments rather than the price of the vehicle. If you signed a 4-Square containing the price of a vehicle, payments, or other terms, the dealer may have broken the law.
These include the dreaded “four square” worksheet that makes it difficult to know how much you’re actually paying, and prewritten scripts designed to part you from your money…For years, dealerships have been using a tactic called a “four square”—a sheet of paper divided into four boxes where the salesperson will write down your trade value, the purchase price of the vehicle you’re buying, your down payment, and your monthly payment. At the top, there’s usually a place to sign your initials to indicate that you intend to buy the car if you like the deal.
*The details of the technique may have changed over the years since Consumerist reporter Ben Popken talked to car salesperson Allen Slone about the four square in 2007—we’ve seen “deal sheets” or “order sheets” without the four boxes—but the basic formula remains the same. *
“It looks really unassuming on its face, but it’s designed to make you pay more and not realize what’s going on,” Slone explained in the Consumerist article. Salespeople will write in big letters, turn the sheet over, and write over and cross out numbers to make it as confusing as possible, all in an attempt “to wear you down and make you sign.”
Zach Shefska says the whole point of a four square is to focus a buyer’s mind on a monthly payment instead of the total price of the vehicle.
I feel robbed. We only got about 240K miles on our Civic, and it was several months shy of 22 years when we let it go (donated to the school district, as this seemed safer than the various charities that won’t do their paperwork).
If you do get a CRV (We have two, one that is 18 years old and one that is 4), one thing to consider is how easy it is to get in and out if your mobility declines. There’s a bit of a “lip” (the floorboard basically curves up a bit to meet the bottom of the door) which requires lifting your foot a bit to get in. I’m tall enough that it isn’t a huge problem, but I can see that it might be an issue in a few years.
Aside from that, I LOVE this thing. We splurged on a top trim line, with more bells (literally, sometimes) than we really needed, but it’s the nicest car we’ve ever owned, and given our history, it may well last me the rest of my life.
Not only Toyota dealers. In fact any salesman that gets you to name a monthly payment will 4-square you even if not on paper