buying used car from dealerships and their fees..
 

just want to know what are some bogus fees some of the dealerships charge that we should not have to pay and what are some that we can not avoid.
Stuff like Documentation Fee, some dealers charge this and some dont. I guess this isnt a must pay fee? what are others?

this is not specific towards a certain dealership, just in general.

When i try to use the search function, doesn't work too well... usually get a bunch of old threads from years back

Thanx for any help.

when I bought my car used from a dealership, I told them I wanted the doc fee waived and they did.

I was not charged documentation fee when I bought my used car at BJ BMW (keep in mind though, this was when the used car market was at an all time low... so dealers were FIGHTING to make a sale)

when you offer the dealership a price, tell them thats the final price, no free's ect...

if they say no, just walk out and they will call you the next day saying fine, just gotta call their bluff

It's a negotiation and it depends on how bad the dealership wants your business or to sell that particular vehicle.

They may waive the doc fee but then that's x-amount less they'll take off the price of the car. What sounds better, $25000 + $200 doc fee or $25200 and no doc fee? That's usually how it works if they "waive" it.
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Lots of dealers don't waive the fee.... Jim pattison stores shouldn't ever waive it. Our doc fee is only 349 and people get very upset when I tell them they have to pay it. Just keep in mind what fees there are, then negotiate the vehicle price accordingly.
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Only $350 to push some paperwork around, no thanks.

I get the business model of separating fees so the customer knows what they are paying for, yet I think its crap. I bought a house with less add-on fees than the last car I bought.

The $350 is for nothing. It's profit. I'm on your side lol, but a lot of dealership I know of won't wave the fee. When negotiating just add all the fees to the price and negotiate from there.
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I'm not paying a dealer a fee for them to do their jobs. Can I charge an administration fee with every sale because I often have to write things down or print invoices out? Didn't think so. If they don't want to wave it I'd go somewhere that will, period. Dealers are absolutely desperate these days so find one that will work for you and not for themselves.

If a dealer doesn't have a doc fee, hes just going to pump up the asking price.. it really doesn't make a difference to them....

Like I said before, forget that they call it a fee, just add everything together and negotiate from there. What's the difference if they shave $500 off the price instead of waiving a $500 fee? Nothing.

From my experience over the last few years, my take is that the majority of the time people just accept the fee because every dealer does it, and it's easier to add a single fee on to make a bit of extra money than add $500 to the price when advertising. SO the majority of dealers had extra fees because everyone was doing it. Is it BS? Yes. Of course it is. Now a lot of stores have come out to say no fees!!!! blah blah blah, but guess what, they are making the same profit as the dealer with the fees...

If you really want a hint on asking for no fee, just say that VSA requires dealers to list docs fees in all ads, as well as window/sticker prices, and if the fee is not liste dthere you shouldn't have to pay it ;)

what other types of fees will they try to tack on? tire/batt levy?? or is it only just the Doc fee for used cars?

I was going to say this next, thanks for pointing it out. If the salesperson only informs you of the fees after negotiating the price, they are technically in violation of the VSA - yet how much would the VSA punish a dealership for a complaint?

This is why I will never buy a car form a dealership....that and they ALWAYS overcharge for there vehicles.

@ guy above me..... That isn't true, generally they advertise a bit higher then a private sale, but a lot of the time the car will sell for market value anyways.
First would be a warning, a short period of time later VSA would do a follow up and if the problem isn't corrected the dealer will most likely be fined.
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It's very true.....compare cars on Craigslist to cars at a dealer....I have done this over and over and over and the price difference is great.

Example, just bought a 01 Honda Prelude SE for $4000otd EVERY dealer listed the comparable car with similar mileage and condition for no less than $7000 (plus fees, taxes, ect)

I hold nothing against them for it. They are in business to make money.....but the fact of the matter is they want to much money for something that is not worth what they ask for and therefore will never receive any of my hard earned money.

Did you go in to see any preludes or negotiate a better price?

One of the big perks of shopping at a dealership is when you buy a car, the dealer is liable for it. So if the tranny goes in the first week, or the exhaust falls off the car, you have somewhere to go.

I'd say about 1/3 of our inventory right now is below market value, or par with private sales. The other 2/3s in recent inventory which we hope to make more money from. The reality is, people are willing to spend the extra bit to buy at a dealer, I can't count the number of horror stories I have heard about why people won't buy privately. I recently read somewhere that dealership sales account for 75% of the cars sold in BC.

Of course there is a complete opposite in many cases as well, where people had bad experiences at a dealer.

Keep in mind when we price our vehicles we compare them to other dealers as well as private sellers to make sure we're competitive.

Majority have Doc
Some will have Security/Etch fee, which is actually a tangible insurance product, but they make it mandatory. ($200-$400)
There are sometimes leasing/financing fees.

New vehicles have batt/tire which is $125 total I believe(This goes to gov't)
Also A/C tax of $100
I think recently they kicked the tire tax which was 25 of the 125.

Yea I agree that the doc fee is part of their job, so why should we have to pay for it?

In that case, can we offer to do the documents ourselves?

lol, do that! Claim you have a background in accounting/bookkeeping or something.

Like I said before, the doc fee doesn't cover anything, it is completely made up garbage. Every person you ask will give you a different definition of what it covers.

Oh, no argument there. The buying experience can be far better when going through a dealer. But in 100% of my experiences it costs far more.

With an automotive background, I'm confident in the vehicles I buy and do not need the services of a dealer to do that for me. But for many people this is an additional cost for them that they would have to factor into a private sale.

I did contact and have a look at a few Prelude's at dealerships and as usual they were flexible on the price but no where near what they should be sold for. At most the cars are worth 4-5000 in good shape. When they will not go below $6800otd I walk away.

When I look for a car, I'm not concerned with the person on the other end making money. As a consumer, this is something I do not care about. I care about getting the best deal humanly possible. I don't want competitive, I want a steal of a deal as do most people. I also dont want to waste my time negotiating a better price when there are people out there already selling for less.

When someone asks for a fair price I see no need to ask to pay less. When I sell something the price I ask for is a price I would expect to pay for the item if I was on the other end. I do not inflate the price in the idea that people will want to pay less for what I have to offer....

Completely right about the majority of car buyers not havign the experience needed to evaluate a car/inspect it. That's why we need to help them.

In a car sale, somebody in the process has to lose in order for someone else to benefit. Whether it be the customer we took the trade in from in the first place. The dealership we pruchased the car from who couldn't sell it. Or the dealer who sent it to the auction, or the final consumer who buys it.

Now if the middle man (our dealership) got a steal of a deal on the car, chances are you will too if you have decent negotiation skills. A lot of the time (espeically in recent years) this isn't the case because we are paying too much for cars when we bring them onto the lot.

If you're looking for the best deal humanly possible, I should send you my 90 -day unit list at the last day of the month. Usually to get rid of them before auction, we are willing to lose 1500-2000 off of what we paid, which is usually at least $1000 below the lowest price you will ever find a similar unit for privately.

I know it sounds like the typical "The car is below our cost!"Crap from a salesperson, but in all honesty, there are a lot of cars that we lose a decent amount of money on in fear that we will lose more at the dealer auction. And these few cars that are blown out the last day or two of the month, are going to be an awesome deal for whoever is lucky enough to call on them.

But yea I see where you're coming from, and it's frusterating when we dont have the room in the price that we should, or when we pay too much for vehicles when we bring them onto the lot.

Such is the way of any consumer good :P
As a business you guys are in business to make money and in car sales that means a mark-up. People are willing to pay for this cost when it means peace of mind and aftercare from the dealer. There will always be people like this and that is why sales people like yourself will always be valued by the customer.

For me, I will never pay more than I absolutely have to for a vehicle. But where I save on a car I loose in another area (ie. have no idea about computers and I'm sure I have over payed for every computer I have ever owned). Such is life :P

@Jgresch
what dealer you work at? you guy guys have a list of used cars?

Also when you are talking about 2001 vehicle, most of new car dealership will not even sell a 10-years-old vehicle. The reason being they will not be able to make reasonable profit on it. Say the wholesale price is $4000 and they make up $2000, that makes $6000 selling price. All the sudden you are looking at 50% makeup and most of people will think that is not reasonable. But when you are talking about newer vehicle like 2008 vehicle. Says the wholesale price is $15000, plus the markup $2000, $17000. Not that much difference now, and you will be able to have all the advantage from buying a dealer. Even you are buying from a private seller, you might not be able to get it wholesale price otherwise the private seller can just sell the car to dealership for wholesale price. Why bother all the hassle selling their self.

Back to topic, like Jgresch said, just negotiate from the bottom price including all fees, or if you have a trade-in just negotiate from the difference. Works out the same at the end. Also there are always some better deal from dealership trying to roll their old stock so the chance is there....