Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
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If you're not happy because they're unscrupulous, walk!! The last thing I'd want to do is reward shoddy behavior with the benefit of my business and my hard earned money.
All of this is in the first talk about price. We don't haggle or negotiate about it. Period.
Ed
I don't care if they charge $2,890 for the doc fee, as long as the total cost is as good or better than I'd pay elsewhere. In fact, I'd prefer it - you don't pay sales tax on the fee.
I hope all is going well there, as I would be there, but cant afford a 300k home.. =o)
How will things be with a Democrat-controlled legislature? Only time will tell. Small businesses have been taking a BEATING here for decades. Taxes, fees, licensing, insurance requirements all on the upswing. Many call us a "banana republic."
Doc fees charged here are around $200-250.
Example of the annual registration fees for my '96 Acura RL. Weight: 3810 lbs.
State fee: 20.00
County fee: 20.50
State weight tax: 28.58 (3/4 cent/lb.)
County weight tax: 47.63 (1-1/2 cents/lb.)
Beautification fee: 2.00
TOTAL TARIFF 118.71
In the old days, it was only the county weight tax at 1/2 cent/lb. I remember the total fees being under $20 on most cars.
Real estate on the rise. $360K is the average home price now.
"the dealer has struck a deal and is now going to welch on it 'cause the customer is getting too smart for us dealers to make a go in this business without finding some new way to screw him" sucker punch.
it's not a "fee". A fee is a transaction term denoting usually a passed on, third-party cost -NOT profit.
it has nothing whatsoever to do with "documentation" costs.
it's as the honest, upfront cars reps on this board have freely stated: add-on additional dealer revenue (profit).
just don't lie about it.
It doesn't matter what the money is used for, its on the paperwork.
It also allows me to find out reaaaallll quick if I'm going to be dealing with someone who is going to be unreasonable when it comes time to get down to business.
Ed
They way the work it in Wyoming:
Taxes, reg fees, etc CANNOT be financed into a car loan. State law.
Your taxes aren't much - several counties have no sales tax, my county was 3%. The registration fees is where you get slammed. They figure you reg fees on a percentage of the MSRP. It's 5% the first year, (my $26,000 truck would have cost $1,300 the first year), 4% the 2nd year, 3% the 3rd year, 2% the 4th year, then $10 (that's right, $10) for the rest of the vehicle's life.
Strange.
So if the doc fee is more than, oh $50 or so, it adds to profit. So be it - who cares. It's simple: If the total bottom line purchase price is acceptable, buy the car. If it's not - move on to the next place.
If you are more interested in how they package the deal, and what they write on the BOS, and what profit the dealer may be making, then you are in the bottom line price, then you are just flogging yourself.
Sales tax one time per owner @5% - $1,000
Excise tax 1st year @2.5% - $500
Excise tax 2nd year @~2% - $400
Excise tax 3rd year @~1% - $200
Excise tax 4th year @.5% - $100
...and so on down to about $35/year
; )
Mackabee
You said (and rightly so), "How much profit a business generates is not anyone's business but the investors and stakeholders." I agree to that, but in this discussion on Doc Fees my point of view was that from the consumer's point of view, dealers would be better making that profit on the vehicle price rather than something like this "fee" which by its very name says to many consumers that this is the price for processing the documents related to the car and the state DMV.
Sorry guy, but to many consumers it sounds like buying the CD Player for $79 and then being sold a warranty for just an additional $50 (and I have had that happen to me in stereo stores too)or purchasing a product on TV for $49.99 and finding out that S&H is an additional $29.00.
My point again is that making a profit is the only way a business stays in business but that the smart businessman will realize that generating profit in some areas of your business is just not good business sense. That's all...not a discussion about how much but rather where it comes from.
Kind of like the many other things that the "informed" consumers don't like about the way car dealers do business. They don't like screamer ads, they don't like getting turned over to a manager, they don't like "what's it going to take to get you to buy a car today", but guess what...these tactics work on the majority of consumers, or they wouldn't be used.
Its not your business to tell the dealership how to run his business. Give them the bottom dollar of how much you want to spend in out the door figures, and if it works, great. If it doesn't try the next guy. If you get turned down several times, you need to rethink your offer.
Ed
Perhaps that's why you will continue to be on the bottom of the list of folks we consumers trust. Too bad that so many have a chip on your shoulders about dealing with the public. Yea, I know that there are a lot of morons walking into car dealerships just as there are driving cars, buying Big Macs, or on the internet, but it seems you guys don't want to admit that some of the problems in the business stem from the guys on your side too!
I guess I need to admit...you are all right! No car salesman has ever lied to a consumer, no salesman has ever inflated costs associated with a car purchase, no "manager" has ever shot a deal a customer just made with a salesman full of holes, and finally no one who has ever sold cars in any dealership anywhere in the US has ever been of slightly questionable character.
You know what....you are very right..I am not in the car business. Thought for a time I might like to be but obviously don't have the sterling character your business demands.
I swear that some of you folks are your worst enemies. Yea, the tactics work so well that most people would rather get root canal then buy a new car! Oh yea, many people keep coming back because they are too stupid to walk when the deal changes or when they get treated like morons...of course that's something you wouldn't know about! The people like being treated like this because they keep buying cars! Right?? What the heck, if the system ain't broken don't fix it, right?
Well I for one am tired of being treated like I am there for the plucking. I have never "grinded" a car dealer for more money off and I'm sure in many people's minds I have paid more than I should. I am one of those bozos who goes into each purchase thinking I am dealing with an honest person who tells me the truth. Sorry, but I guess I am a real jerk...but I am also getting to the point where I refuse to deal with someone who treats me badly. I have and will continue to walk when I don't like the way the deal is going or the way I am being treated.
Glad you guys enjoy the sand because in my opinion many of you have your heads buried there!
I don't pull any of the "old school" stunts that you listed above, and if you're getting treated like you are "ripe for the plucking" then perhaps you should modify the way you shop for cars.
What you fail to realize, however, is that neither of us get a vote in how a car dealer operates his business. I've been told many times that my vote doesn't count. When the owner of the company decides that he is going to have a doc. fee, I can choose to line up and salute, or I can look for work somewhere else. And, since I work at probably the best dealership within 100 miles of here (ethically, etc.) then I can honestly justify why I'm still here. Its a daily dillema whether to go somewhere else (and make much more money) or to continue to try and improve things here.
It does get old beating my head against the wall, though, I'm seriously considering a carreer change.
Ed
Lets all just be friends!
Sheesh.
Ed
For a while after that, I started adding $1,000 to our coded price on the windshield to begin with and actually had more success because people saw they were "getting to us" for more money.
: )
Mackabee
I've seen this a couple of times. The most radical was one of my fellow Texans.
As a manager, I asked him to leave. Sure I'd like the business, but he's going to trash my salesman's attitude, tank the F&I guy on a Saturday, treat the service department badly and trash us on the survey.
All this for a $100 deal? Not me!!
Car_man
Host
Smart Shoppers / FWI Message Boards
At $300 it is just another profit area. As our host says above, the out the door price is what is important. I think that the high Doc Fees are there so that when people shop price ($200 above invoice plus taxes, titles, and FEES)there is added profit.
Take Car Man's advice and shop the OTD price and the heck with what column they put the costs into!
doc fees pay the girls in the office and the guys in new ar detail....
; )
Mackabee
Car_man
Host
Smart Shoppers / FWI Message Boards
The big problem for me is the customer never knows what a fair out-the-door price is.
I have learned that Edmunds TMV is a fair price (for dealer and customer) for the car. Tax I can figure out on my own. So I need to know what a fair Doc fee is in order to calculate a fair out-the-door price?
Sound like I’m being too detailed.
Well here is the situation I’m envisioning. Say the dealer and I are $600 apart after two hours of negotiating. Lets say this means that the dealer is around $300 above the TMV price for the car. I can just see the manager and salesman laughing in the back saying, we’ll give him the $300 and just add it to the doc fee.
I guess I can always protest an added handling/prep/delivery fee, but if the documentation fee is always charged and changed at will, it renders negotiating for a couple of hundred dollars useless.
Duncan