Trying to buy a used car from a dealer. Are they insane or off or just me?

Factual Questions
261

I recently bought a car as well. In my case, they dropped the dealer add-ons to 3 cents (1 cent each) and said it was just ‘cuz the computer wouldn’t let them remove them completely. So it was, like, $18k for the car and a grand total of $18,000.03 factoring in the dealer add-ons.

Or at least that was the story they told me as we concluded negotiations.

But them I go to sign the paperwork, and I catch something buried in it. The bottom line is the same, of course (&18,000.03), but somewhere in the stack of papers in the middle, where the costs are itemized, I see it’s actually $15,000.03 for the car and $3,000 for the add-ons (I wouldn’t be surprised if this kind of fudging of numbers is illegal, but this is Texas so good luck filing any kind of consumer protection complaint). When I brought it up, they assured me I was getting the add-ons, so not to worry, and I of course reminded them I didn’t want the stupid add-ons. But with that, I think I figured out their game: the bullshit dealer add-ons probably allow then to do two things:

(1) I suspect the dealership itself probably gets to keep a larger percentage (maybe even 100%) of the add-on fees than it would for the sales price. I don’t know if that’s in sales *taxes, kickbacks to their corporate (dealership) overlord, or kickbacks to the car manufacturer (eg: Nissan or whoever as a branded Nissan dealership).

(2) It allows them to suppress the retail price of cars in the area, meaning they can point to those numbers (as they did to me) to devalue trade-ins, especially if they are (as in my case) a chain of one of the larger dealerships in the area and, I suspect, other dealerships pull the same trick (and it sounds like maybe they do, to the point of being an industry custom, from this thread).

*If I get bored over the holidays, I might grinch out and do some digging into this to see if it would indeed effect the sales tax paid to state or local government, and if so I might file a complaint after all because I suspect the government would be a lot more motivated to go after its own interests (taxes) than a consumer’s (consumer protection), at least in Texas.

262

bottom line for this whole thread is Dealers Suck. :angry:

263

I have a friend who owns one, and they are hardly a relic. She even booked us a trip to Disneyland when we were in San Jose- the pre trip stuff included brochures, some vouchers, a collectible pin, and a few other small goodies. They can find bargains we can’t.

Not the texes and such. They have to charge them and pay them. If a dealer takes then off, that just means your price is that much higher.

264

Oh hell no. I did the work to find the lower rate… I’m not calling through a phone tree and trying to talk my way into a discount I can easily get with a click.

265

I was OP in another thread concerning a choice between two used vehicles. I might go look at one of them today or in the near future. Its at a dealer. Anyway, without reading through all the posts in this thread, have any of you had success with the tactic of going in with a top number you’d be willing to pay in mind and saying “I like this car. What is your absolute lowest out the door number?” If so and their best price was too high and you started to walk, did they try again?

266

Depends hugely on the dealer. Many, many dealers are now in the no-haggle mode. The price is the price, the fees are the fees, and your input into the deal amounts to “yes” or “no”.

Your walk-away (real or faked) doesn’t trigger a price cut. It triggers “g’bye”.

267

I have not bought a used car in the US but for the 8 or 9 new cars I have bought, they have NEVER let me walk out, no matter how ridiculous their first number is.

I bought a car for $18,200 when the first price they quoted was over $25,000. The sticker on the car was $20k and change. This was in 2001 after 9/11 and cars were selling well below MSRP. Of course they had some BS about why this model was different. I think that was one of my more marathon sessions. I just sat there and kept repeating my offer for over two hours. Then kept telling them that any junk fees they added on were included in the agreed upon price.

Most of the time they cave within an hour.

My last one a few months ago we started at a difference of over $7000 and I paid exactly my first offer after less than 30 minutes of attempted social engineering.

268

That’s a big concern, if we had gone that route. She’s 500 miles away, and while she’s not stupid by a long shot, she would not necessarily catch any shenanigans.

We wound up buying from Carvana. Likely not the cheapest purchase in the world (looking at local dealerships showed very slightly lower prices)…but by the time I was ready to check out, I knew EXACTLY what we were paying, and there were no added fees.

Plus we got to watch the “car vending machine” in action, which is a cute (albeit overpriced and wholly unnecessary) gimmick.

Of course, we’ve since sunk nearly 3K into the car - we did of course have it inspected, and at 95K miles, there was a lot of $cheduled maintenance needed, and we wanted to get new all-weather tires for it. But she should be good to go (except for oil changes) for quite a while.

269

Carvana has a whole new set of problems that (usually) don’t occur with traditional sales channels: Carvana allegedly leaving car buyers on the hook after selling cars without title | Fox Business

270

Is that new? The article is from 2022. Supposedly, according to them, the issue stemmed from the huge amount of cars moving through inventory during the COVID auto shortages and paperwork not catching up in time. Which doesn’t excuse it but it shouldn’t (hopefully) be an issue right now.

271

I mean “new” in the sense that they’re not problems associated with other auto retailers generally. Judging from Jalopnik and other sites which follow the auto trade, Carvana has cleaned up its issues in some states but not in others.

272

I just - in the past 12 hours - got confirmation that Carvana had completed the titling process for our car. It took a full month.

So now I have to dig up our original purchase agreement (presumably in email, as it was all done electronically) along with my license and various insurance info, and go to the DMV - hopefully they’ll get me the tags right then. The email says " * Please refer to the FAQ provided at delivery for a list of documents that you will need to bring with you to the DMV to complete registration." - well, anything they gave us then is 500 miles away with the car, so I hope that’s all we need!

273

And they FedExed a letter the other day, which showed a large titling fee (700 bucks or so); I panicked briefly thinking we were supposed to shell that out, and was pissed as I was pretty sure we paid it when we bought the car. Then I looked more carefully, and saw that it was the RECEIPT for them having paid it on our behalf. And behind that, in a plastic sleeve, was the title for the car - which reminds me I need to scan both that and the one for our ancient CRV and load them up in Dropbox.

I have a DMV appointment this Thursday - could likely have gone as a walkin sooner. Hopefully at that point we’ll get the plates, which I will then send overnight to our daughter to put on the car.

274

In the UK it is normal for the dealer to stick a banner on the inside of the rear window. If left on the sun will bake them and make them hard to remove but when done soon they just peel off - no semi-permanent branding allowed.

By law, number/licence plates must show who supplied them. This is usually a small badge at the bottom of the plate, which is fairly unobtrusive.

275

I’ve been looking for a used car for a few months and still haven’t found exactly what I’m looking for. A couple of whoppers I’ve come across after linking to dealers via Carfax, CarGurus etc.

  1. The advertised purchase price was pretty good but when you click on the details it said, “Advertised price is balance when financing after a 20% down payment” Uh, OK.

  2. Car Gurus had a car listed with a way below average asking price. It even said “Seems too good to be true” . The details revealed on the dealers page said, among other things, “$3995 engine and transmission certification” . WTF?! I wonder what they are certifying. That the car actually has an engine and tranny? Looking at the reviews, more than one person said "They surprised me with some sort of engine guarantee that had to purchased for (various multiple thousands of dollars amounts)

Another dealer page said to contact them via their page with questions. Providing a phone number was optional. In this case, the photos appeared to be stock and not the actual car. As a matter of fact, there were two different colored vehicles in the pictures. I sent them them a question regarding this and all I could get back in the way of a reply was “Please provide a phone number so we can arrange a test drive and answer any questions.” I wouldn’t do that and pointed out that their own page said that they would communicate via email, if that was preferred. I got the same “Give us your number so we can talk” email from a different guy. See ya.

Yet another dealer had a car with a Carfax that had as the last service entry “Engine replaced. Spark plugs replaced” The next to last entry was “Serviced” at Acme (not really) Transmission and Repair. I called Acme asking if they could tell me what was done to the car and was told to call back next week. These were both after the dealer took possession of the car. In this case, I actually talked to someone on the phone. Her first words were usual “When can you come in?”. I pointed out the service records indicated the engine has been replaced. Her reply was, “And…?” She seemed completely unaware of the work “Well, do you have any details or records?” says I. She said she would find out and call me back in ten minutes. The next day I emailed and asked what was going on. I said that if they couldn’t supply details, to not call me back. Crickets. The next day I got a voicemail from a guy asking when I could come in for a test drive and asking me to call him so we could talk. Today I got an email from her asking me to call so we could discuss the car. I replied that if they wouldn’t provide the invoices for the work done on the car, to leave me alone. There’s 99% chance that I won’t go look at the car even with the invoices but this is becoming a form of entertainment for me.

How these people stay in business is beyond me. Something about suckers and minutes, I guess.

276

how are points 1 and 2 even legal?

putting up a price and then having small print saying … you just need to add an arbitrary 4 digit number to get to the Real Price ™…

aren’t There consumer protección agancies a round (or did Trusk already shutter them down?)

277

Yes, shutdown.
The CFPB is effectively shut down . Following email directives from Russell Vought, the newly appointed acting director of the CFPB and head of the Office of Management and Budget under the Trump administration, the CFPB has halted all operations.