Community Chat

[Jackhound Mom]

Our small town dealorships are all owned by 1 family except our Toyota store.

We found a Honda Fit 2016 that we liked and the sales tag said price was $14000 plus "dealor ad ons."  This was at one of the family stores.

We thought that the "ad ons" might be something like free oil changes.  To our suprise it was a $4000 price increase. Half was for tax, licence and title!  The other $2000 was to get the car ready to sell. We were shocked and before we walked out the sales manager told us that they had to ad those charges to compete with the on-line sales like Car Max etc!

We ended up at Toyota where our car was priced $1000 below Blue book and had no "ad ons."  Just the tag price plus the normal tax, title and licence fee.

Have you ever heard of this?

Thanks for your answers.

[Jackhound Mom]

Hi Pat, waving to you!

[patbz]

Small towns are particularly vulnerable to these tactics; you did the right thing by walking.  We bought a 2015 Buick Lacrosse three years ago and it was an amazing deal.  We checked the car's history before we bought.  Don't intend to ever buy a brand new car ever again ( they lose thousands as soon as you drive it out the door).

[Kachina624]

Ive heard several times lately on news sources that there's a scarcity of used cars right now and they're asking premium prices for them, if you can find one. 

[stevieb]

2020 was the last year Honda produced the Fit and the MSRP was about 16K. I'd suggest the dealer's price of 18K for a five year old used car was laughable. 

[FancyPhillyshopper]

We were shopping for a used car this year, and the market has become very competitive.  Some cars are also selling very quickly.  I most assuredly used CarFax to check all the prices, but not every dealer will post their information --sometimes you have to first go to the dealership website to access the CarFax report.

You cannot get out of paying taxes, title cost and closing process fees, but what does "getting a car ready to sell" mean?  Sounds like they were just passing extra repair costs on to you.

Nowadays many folks are even buying cars online and bypassing dealerships.  Glad you are happy with your final purchase!

[CoffeeNut]

It's a common sales tactic used by quite a few dealerships.  

I tell them if the "add ons" are so important than it would have come as standard equipment on the car.   If they won't take any of the add ons off during negotiation, then I say you are wasting both of our times and walk out.

[Mz iMac]

@FancyPhillyshopper 

"but what does "getting a car ready to sell" mean? "

Washing the exterior & vacumming the interior.

Its actually listed in all that paperwork you sign.  You DO NOT have to pay for it.  Have the dealer black it out & make sure he/she initials the blackout.

[Nuttmeg]

@FancyPhillyshopper

It is common to pay dealer prep charges on a new car. I would not pay this fee for a used car. A dealer can write the cost of preparing a used car for sale. This is not an invoice cost. 

[sometimesQVCaddict]

Every state has different fees, taxes, etc. but there is NO WAY it costs $2000 for the paperwork processing & fees. I'm in PA and I think it was $300-400?! Something like that & that was just 9 months ago. I also bought brand new. There was no delivery fee or "prep" fee either. I would have laughed them off the lot if they tried pulling that @%$&! And you're saying they wanted an additional 2k for add ons?? DEFINITELY a scam & if that were me, I'd report them to the state for ripping people off! I don't care what shortage is happening, you don't scam people like that!

Glad you went elsewhere!