Buy a Tesla. Its the only way to put a stop to this.
Or from any number of "no haggle" dealers. There are plenty.
Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination
41–50 of 53 posts
Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination
#42These guys screwed me over in exactly this way when I bought a car from them three years ago. I raised hell when the deal I was asked to sign was for ~$2k more than we negotiated, but they wouldn’t budge. I should have walked away, but it’s hard when they spring it on you at the last second after you’ve spent hours getting to that point. Before I left their lot, I pulled the license plate frames with their name off t…
I'm sorry you had that experience. I've helped dozens of people buy cars from them and they are notorious for this. It's a shame, most dealers do this crap. It's ridiculous.
Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination
#43These guys screwed me over in exactly this way when I bought a car from them three years ago. I raised hell when the deal I was asked to sign was for ~$2k more than we negotiated, but they wouldn’t budge. I should have walked away, but it’s hard when they spring it on you at the last second after you’ve spent hours getting to that point. Before I left their lot, I pulled the license plate frames with their name off t…
You will want to contact the FTC Consumer Response Center (877-382-4357) to receive information for applying for restitution as part of this action.
Thanks for the heads-up!
Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Walk into a dealer and say "I will pay that price on the window, but on the condition you won't even try to upsell me in F&I." Aside from a minority of shady dealers, most regular car dealers will smile sweetly and tell you where to sign and who to make out the check to. Tesla just formalizes this by forbidding negotiation. Some people like that. But historically people like to negotiate on big purchases. It's a game…
>Walk into a dealer and say "I will pay that price on the window, but on the condition you won't even try to upsell me in F&I." Aside from a minority of shady dealers, most regular car dealers will smile sweetly and tell you where to sign and who to make out the check to. Every dealership I've been to will nod their head then precede to upsell you in F&I. They'll make sure you don't actually get to F&I until you've b…
I find that if you play no games and you are completely honest about your intentions, they'll just do what you want. If they start to act a little shady, just get up and head for the door. You'd be surprised how quickly the sales guy (or F&I, same difference) gets the picture. You don't let a sticker price customer walk over some missed upsells. Source: I work for a company that writes software for dealers, I pick up a lot of insider knowledge along the way, including strategy. And I've bought like 30 cars over my life. These days I just get a price by email and then walk in to grab the keys. I rarely have to stand up and walk towards the door, because I know who the shitty dealers are in the area and I avoid them. Most of the major manufacturer dealers aren't particularly shady.
Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Start a stopwatch when you sit down. Tell them they have 15 minutes to complete the sale or you walk. They can save time by discarding the upsells you're going to decline.
> Start a stopwatch when you sit down In this car market they’d be crazy to give up a car without upselling, given manufacturers’ prohibitions on raising prices.
That's a fallacy. It's kinda like thinking a real estate agent is always going to get you the best price. No, he's going to get whatever results in a guaranteed sale right now. Dealers are no different. Sure, they'll sell the car to someone else if you walk. But you're right there, paying the price they asked for. They're not going to quibble over F&I.
Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Walk into a dealer and say "I will pay that price on the window, but on the condition you won't even try to upsell me in F&I." Aside from a minority of shady dealers, most regular car dealers will smile sweetly and tell you where to sign and who to make out the check to. Tesla just formalizes this by forbidding negotiation. Some people like that. But historically people like to negotiate on big purchases. It's a game…
That is such a naive take. If you promise to pay MSRP they’re going to do everything possible to take you as a mark. No honor amongst thieves. Buy a Tesla.
LOL. I work with dealers as part of my job. They're just going to sell you what you want. The easiest marks are the folks who think they know how to negotiate. If you are straightforward and you follow through, they aren't going to screw around trying to get another few bucks, they're going to take the sale.
Don't just go make Elon richer.
Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination
#47These guys screwed me over in exactly this way when I bought a car from them three years ago. I raised hell when the deal I was asked to sign was for ~$2k more than we negotiated, but they wouldn’t budge. I should have walked away, but it’s hard when they spring it on you at the last second after you’ve spent hours getting to that point. Before I left their lot, I pulled the license plate frames with their name off t…
+1 they literally did the exact same thing to me a few months back. I'm still trying to get my money back from them.
Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination
#48OP here: I run a popular youtube channel helping people get fair car deals (search YAA). We are building a crowdsourced database of reviews to find dealers who are doing this type of stuff: https://joinyaa.com/car-dealer-reviews/results/
Thank you OP. Wish I had found you earlier this year before buying a car from them!
Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination
#49>According to the complaint, the dealerships would often wait until the end of the hours-long negotiation process to sneak junk fees for add-on products and services into consumers’ purchase contracts, which often run as long as 60 pages. These junk fees were often added despite consumers specifically declining the add-ons or having confirmed prices that did not include the add-ons. In other cases, the consumers were…
> F&I office
NGL I actually laughed at the last one. It wasn't intentional, just as they made a specific comment about part of the drivetrain, I couldn't take them seriously anymore.
They didn't really know what to do about that, which helped things out.
> Everything else aside, buying a Tesla was refreshing because I was able to buy a new car on the internet like I'd buy a new blender on Amazon.
Saturn did this. I think Scion did too, but could be wrong on that. My first 2 car purchase experience were at Saturn dealerships and TBF it left me ill-prepared for the 'typical' dealership experience.
I will say that Truecar was pretty helpful in purchasing one of my cars; at the time I wound up getting invoice on a custom order without a bit of haggling about price. They did do the F&I bit but honestly it was fairly low pressure, (helped it was late in the day and the end of the month so they wanted it on the books.)
My last purchase, I was referred by a friend, the salesfolks were up front and didn't upcharge. Yeah they did the F&I thing but were otherwise as close to the Saturn experience as I ever could have wanted.
> with a healthy dollop of scare tactics to get you to buy "protection plans" you don't need.
Some of them are kinda useful, but case dependent.
- My WRX, I opted for the special windshield coat due to my work route at the time being -terrible- for windshields (I went through 2 in one year on my previous car...) And sure enough that crap worked. Between coating applications you could see the dimples. I also opted for Rim protection on that car. In my case it paid for itself, because #PureMichigan
- I've -never- opted for an enhanced warranty. I typically take the cost of replacing the most expensive component that could fail within 5 years (and/or the mileage I'd expect to drive in that time) and not be covered within the provided warranties, and compare to what they want for an extended plan. It's almost never worth doing.
> "the price is this if you finance and that if you don't,"
Finance/incentives are weird on the surface, but If you think about 'X$ cash back OR Y% APR through ' (where Y is better-ish than common rate,) It's really just buying off the extra interest, like points on a mortgage. Depending on where your credit is at, that financing-arm option may be a better one than others anyway (always shop around though.)
Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination
#50>According to the complaint, the dealerships would often wait until the end of the hours-long negotiation process to sneak junk fees for add-on products and services into consumers’ purchase contracts, which often run as long as 60 pages. These junk fees were often added despite consumers specifically declining the add-ons or having confirmed prices that did not include the add-ons. In other cases, the consumers were…
Yeah generally people don't buy a car frequently enough to navigate the bullshit, plus you kinda get emotionally invested during the 3 hours they make you hang around, softening you up.
I have had pretty good luck laying on my don't give a shit demeanor extra thick.
Out of 7 car purchases in 10 years I have had one instance where I should have walked out because the extended warranty BS was insulting (Honda) and once I threatened to walk if they didn't Due Bill a replacement second key - he didn't like that at all... (BMW).