buying a used car "reconditioning fee," WTF?
 

Yesterday we bought a used car. It was a CPO car at a place that said "we don't haggle." The car is unusual due to having the larger 6 cyl motor vs the standard 4 cyl. There were only a few in Houston, and only a couple that were some color other than white and black. This particular car was about $1500 less expensive than the other two, and fortunately, it was the color that the missus (and I) liked the best.

When we were purchasing, we did advise that we had our own financing.

When I got the sheet that itemized the various items (vehicle, tax, tag, etc....) it included a "reconditioning fee" of nearly 5% of the cost of the vehicle. That had not previously been mentioned and caught me off guard.

"Well, we have to recondition the car to ensure that it's in great shape."

My thought was "yes, that goes without saying and is part of the process for every car and every used car dealer, but I've never seen or heard of that being charged separately before today."

I was not happy, and knew that the missus would be livid (she was at home watching the grandkids). I advised her, she said "what, no, we'll get a different car."

The end result, they ended up waving the reconditioning fee completely. The missus was still livid and only just barely agreed that she'd be OK with getting the car.

Have any of you ever heard of a dealer charging a "reconditioning fee" or "dealer assessed fee" on top of a car?

I get it, they can advertise a lower price. Many/most folks probably either won't notice the extra fee when they sign or they'll just eat it if they do notice.

After they waved the fee, they pushed extra hard to have us use their financing.

I'd love to know if the reconditioning fee is applied to all used cars from that dealer or if they were just trying to recoup some profit from us since they'd already agreed to fix some scratches on the passenger's side for us (how reconditioned could it have been?) and we were getting $250 credit towards accessories due to some sort of sale (applied to installation of a trailer hitch) and we weren't using their financing.

I remember reading an article that was posted here years ago, where a journalist went and worked at a few dealers, one was a no haggle dealership and another was a regular dealership. He then wrote a long article about the business and how they try to make money. (ie, you negotiate the cost of the vehicle, then they make up their "loss" in the financing or you negotiate payment/financing then they make up by not negotiating on the vehicle cost as much).

The good news is that the salesman wasn't high pressure and was a really nice guy. He was super busy with another customer and had to hand off the paperwork portion of the purchase to another guy who was also very personable. One of the other cars that we looked at involved a salesman that was a traditional smarmy guy. Anything that I asked him about the car was "oh, yes, it's got that feature, best of the best, fully loaded, safest car ever." I stopped asking him questions because he didn't know the answers of any of the questions that I asked and tried to feed me BS instead.

It’s another BS fee. Just like charging a title fee, paperwork processing fee, etc. Don’t ever believe a dealer who charges a “mandatory” fee either. Even things like temporary tags are not a required charge to the customer, they are just a cost to the dealer that most dealerships like to mark up and charge back. Sincerely a guy who used to have a dealer’s license and had my own small dealership.

Right, I've gotten used to the "documentation fee" and a half a dozen other fees that usually add up to $200-300. They are BS, but seem to be charged at every dealer. This was shocking because it wasn't just a $150 documentation fee, it was nearly 5% of the cost of the vehicle.

Yep, I remember your days as a dealer. Those days and your various posts are the reason that we even looked at the AMG.

As you saw they tack fees onto the sale and if the person pays without complaint they get the extra money. If the person complains they reduce it or waive it and the customer thinks they got a deal.

Here in Ca they are big on the "window VIN etching" and the "alarm" which is basically an aftermarket alarm that has been installed to lower the dealerships theft insurance.

Never heard of a "reconditioning fee", I thought that's what you did as a used car seller anyway.

Sounds like "not something I asked for, you need to eat the cost" kind of thing.

Exactly, this was my first time seeing this "fee" too. Crazy sheisse!

So much for "no haggle." "We're going to change you this extra 'fee.'"
"I'm not going to pay that, I'm outta here."
"Wait, we'll cut that in half."
"I'm still leaving."
"We'll waive it completely."

That sounded like a negotiation.

Steve, you were basically that dealers worst customer.
Where were they going to make any money off you?
You came in with your own financing, no chance for them there.
You looked at the 'fees' closely and refused to pay.
Best thing you did was attempt to walk out.
You always have to be ready to walk if the deal isn't what you want for a car you want to buy, not one they want you to buy.

And yes, I once spent a week as a new car salesman at a local Acura dealership. Didn't get paid a cent for my time but got an education in how to buy a car that is second to none.

I really don't care what they call anything other than my cost out the door. I know they don't get to control sales tax or title and regis. fees. I do see some value in being able to drive off the lot without a trip to DMV (especially in this current environment, where it's by appt only and can be months out). So I don't mind their charging for that convenience. But I only ever discuss out the door cost. I'll always use their financing if it gets me the best deal, and then I'll pay it off after one month if I have a better deal or just want to use cash.

Yup. We bought our CR-V on a spur of the moment type deal. We were prepared to pay cash but got a better deal with the dealer financing. They were able to work it out to our number out the door so we were happy.

That's why I've given up buying a used car from a dealer unless it's a Porsche or other high end dealer. The BS just takes my temper to redline too fast.

These days the discount on a new car vs the over priced used car market makes buying a used car almost a worse financial choice.

Any hints/tips for improving the process?

Know what you are looking for, not what they are trying to sell you. If a car 'isn't the one' exactly walk away.
Let the sales guy know up front that you have your own financing and are willing to buy 'the one' right now. And know what you are willing to pay for it too.

I once had a customer come into the Acura place on a rainy Dec night, close to Xmas. He told me he and his wife had been out drinking and stopped by to look at new cars as they were going to get one when they came back from their vacation in January. He asked for a brochure. When I got the brochure from the manager's office, the manager asked me what was going on. I told him they wanted to look at the brochure. He said to let them test drive the car. I thought is this guy nuts? They've admitted to me they'd been drinking, it's raining and he wants me to let them test drive a car?
Needless to say, they didn't test drive a car, but, the manager sicked the slimiest sales guy in the place on them. When this happened, the customer says to the manager "I thought I was dealing with Scott on this." Manager says, no, so-and-so is taking over.
They hammered this guy for 2 hours. He wanted to lease it, no money out of pocket, no money down type of thing. He really didn't want a new car sitting in his garage for 2 months while he was on vacation so he raked them over the coals for an outrageous deal he knew they couldn't do. We finally closed up for the night with them still at the table. Next day I walked in and quit. I asked the manager if he knew why the guy didn't buy a car that night. He said he couldn't do the deal. I told him no, it's because he didn't want a new car sitting for 2 months while he was on vacation. He asked how I knew this. I said because I talked to the guy.

So, the best advice I can give you is, be ready to walk out. There are too many cars out there not to be able to find 'the one' for you someplace else.

You're going to love this.
At a Honda dealership I applied to, their training started out by saying 'Every person that walks onto our lot has $800 of YOUR money in their pocket.'
Needless to say, I didn't stay for the second half of the training session.

Wow, crazy. Yeah, I'd NEVER make it in that sort of environment.

Worst car buying experience ever was when I got my 996. It was at a Porsche dealer but in the color combo I wanted. It was a no haggle place. First thing that went wrong was a higher price than agreed to once I got to the finance guy's office. Funny that I had to go to the finance guy's office since I brought a check...

A bunch of fees and some agreement to binding arbitration that was non-negotiable.

It took some time and pain but I got to the place I wanted.

The dealer was part of the Sonic auto group. I've done some research on Sonic, pretty bad customer and employee reviews.

Edit:
I said 'no haggle' but there was a trade-in so there was some haggle on that portion and the out the door price.

Not that we often buy cars, but I'll definitely keep that in mind. Sonic seems huge, kind of like the "clear channel" company that I think bought up a bunch of radio stations.

I needed a shower the last time I bought a used car from a dealership. I see why Carmax gers away with overcharging since they don't pull much of this crap.

It was one of those mega dealerships along i45 near clearlake. A couple year old forester with 25k miles on it advertised for 26k was about 32-33k new.

Walked in, drove it and said I would be happy to buy it for advertised price. Things went downhill fast. Guy comes out with an itemized invoice for literally more than the new price. So many absurd fees. Got a bit heated with the guy over how exactly they recondition a 25k mile single owner car. I should have just left but ended up in hours of arguments to come down to the price they had listed on the internet.

It was the only highly optioned forester in the right color and mileage that my wife wanted in Houston area. I felt bad about giving them any of my money.

few years later bought my focus st at planet ford. They had a big sale advertised when ford said they were no longer selling them. IN and out no problem, paid cash price they had listed which was 25% off MSRP.

I think dealers are fighting back in the age of internet info. Since I am trying to never finance another car in my lifetime i think I wll stick to cash purchases of private owner cars.

We did buy our minivan from carmax. Completely pain free and pleasant process. THough I am sure we paid 1500$ more than we should have.

One of my former co-workers was a stupid car buyer. His only pint of interest was the monthly payment. He was upside down in his POS car and he "just knew" that only a new car would solve his issues.

He looked at lots of cars at a local "auto mall" that has several dealerships all side by side, and most all the manufacturers all there. He had two salesmen get in a fist fight over him as a customer. The fighting salesmen were in a real fistfight, and crashed through a glass wall. He just left.

Good luck with that. The dealerships have now taken over Craigslist, after having fully taken over Ebay too.

Our CR-V experience was long but not too bad actually.
Our daughter bought an Accord the same day. We worked her deal first.
When the manager came back with our credit report and said we could buy as many new cars as we wanted to, I knew we'd get our deal.
I let my wife do some of the negotiating. She offered a nice round out the door figure that turned out to be under their invoice price. We got to see the invoice since we'd seen the car up on the transporter that morning and I knew it hadn't been sitting on their lot more than 6 hours. We'd gotten there at 9:30, my wife saw the car up on the top tier of the truck at 10 and we were driving it home by 4:30 that afternoon. Took a while for them to prep it since I made them wash it twice. It had water spots all over it the first time they drove it out for us to take.
I told the manager they should really work on that part of their delivery process. Lots of people only get one chance to buy a new car in their lifetime and it should be as perfectly clean as possible for that experience to really be special for them. The car will probably never be cleaner than it is when it's delivered to the customer. She appreciated my candor and really wished I'd traded in my Accord coupe on the CR-V.

buying a used car reconditioning fee = PROFIT!

Step 1 - Collect customers
Step 2 - ???
Step 3 - Profit

Get it?

On the point of monthly payments...When we traded in our Pontiac Transport (remember those?) on a CPO Honda Odyssey it was kind of funny how the negotiations went. I knew what I wanted for our van. I was willing to pay the advertised price of the Honda. The salesman, whom we'd bought our Accord from too, kept coming back from the manager's office and started talking with...Your monthly payment will be...
We finally got him on track when we threatened to walk out do to a pending dinner engagement.
All I wanted to know was how much were they going to give me for my van. We were paying for the Honda with a check so no payments involved.
Once he understood that, things went great.

Exactly. We purchased a car from Carmax about 20 years ago. It was quick and painless. No idea if I over paid or not, but it was a great car for what it was and I didn't feel like I'd been robbed or bent over. A few years ago, we helped my son buy a car (legwork, not financial) and because he was super strapped for time, we found a decent car at Carmax that he purchased. We probably paid a little more, but it was a good car at a decent price and we were in and out in a few hours.

Buying cars from dealers usually just sucks. I did get my Boxster from a dealer in Dallas. The process was, at least, smooth, and customer services was excellent. I probably paid a little premium, but then it is a special edition and was super low miles at 6 years old and CPO. Again, I didn't feel like I'd been robbed or screwed, so I think it worked out OK.

I actually think we ended up getting a good deal at this place, but I hate having to deal with the crap. Give me what I want at a fair price, and I'll be in and out with minimal fuss. That's what I really want.

I Over the years I/we've bought a few cars at much smaller lots, and those experiences have been better. Maybe the small guys are less slick or don't have time or can't get away with the same shenanigans as the big guys.

When we bought an '02 Accord way back in '02, I knew exactly what I wanted. V-6, EX-L four door, white over tan.
When the local dealer said he had just what I was looking for he was right. I actually drove it when it had 0.5 miles on it. Told him I wouldn't accept it if it had over 3 miles showing when I came to get it the next day. I knew they were going to drive it some to fill up the tank so I gave them that.
Traded it in on my present Accord, which is another story in and of itself.

Probably right. When I was just out of the Army and going to law school in the late 90's we got a few cars from 'buy here, pay here' lots.

Traded a great '88 Mercedes 190e 2.6 plus $100 for a BMW 635Csi
then a few years later traded that 635Csi plus about $4k to get a BMW '88 M3

There didn't seem to be any tricks or scams. Just simple car trades.

Back to my 996 saga. I waited for about 2 weeks for the dealer to 'get it up to their standards' before I picked it up. The day I went it still wasn't ready AND they had done some things I specifically told them to not address like returning the side marker lights to US spec. But the real problem was they didn't check the hydraulic rams that operate the soft top. A few weeks later I found one leaking and luckily found a guy that makes replacements or reconditions them. Price was good, about $700, IIRC. But the programing cost was pretty painful.
All I wanted to do was break contact with the dealer. I didn't even bother to let them know or ask them to pay. That's just how painful the buying experience had been.

I have a relative that owned a Ford dealership in a very small town. Somehow they got 2, yes 2, generation 2 Ford GTs for sale a few years ago when they were new. One car they got for being the best dealership in the market size. The other they literally won some Ford lottery for.

Anyway, the buyer of one of the GTs told my cousin not to start it at all. He was instructed to push it off the transport and into storage building. When the next transport arrived, he was instructed to not start it and push it onto the transport.

Pretty sure they got about $100k over MSRP each on those cars, so it was worth it.

Wow, obviously an "investor." Very, very sad. Those cars should be driven. I guess it's a way for them to be nicely preserved, and maybe someone down the road will drive it.

a title fee with profit has been enshrined into law in Oregon - it's only $40 in profit but still a lobbyist's dream

but none of this is as damaging to the consumer as dealers running their own "mandatory" service items which greatly exceed the manf.s spec.

yep. been searching for a car for my son and private owner sales are almost impossible to find. scammers have just recently ruined FB marketplace as well.

Now days I think private owners just punt and take it to Car Max if they're available. They make it so easy and offer reasonable prices too IMO.
We've sold two cars to them in the past. First was our Honda Odyssey. I looked up Kelly Blue book and did some figuring based on the condition of the van. When my wife said she was done with driving a minivan I took it straight to Car Max. Before leaving she asked what I was going to accept for it. Told her my price and she's all 'You'll NEVER get that much for it'.
I called her from Car Max asking her to come get me. She was about to head to the movies with the kids and their cousin's. Should have seen her jaw drop when I handed her the check for my exact price.
The next car we sold to them was actually the car that replaced the Honda Ody, an '85 Mustang convertible that my wife said she really wanted. In the end it turned into the biggest POS I've ever owned as a familyman. She never once put the top down on her own and wouldn't ride with any windows up and the top down, like you'd do on a nice clear winter day with the heater on full.
Got a good price for it too, thankfully.
My daughter sold her Accord to them before leaving to move to Japan. I would have bought that car from her if it'd been a V-6. Son-in-law sold his Ford pickup too. No hassles, take the money and run.

Added fees are a code word for profit. I'm ok if the dealer makes a profit but don't tank the price of a vehicle and then add on stuff to improve the profit.

I bought a new car last year and negotiated the sale price. I knew the DOC fee, taxes and title transfer costs. I had my own financing. I get the invoice and as I am reviewing the costs and I see a charge of $300 for nitrogen in the tires. I went in orbit. My first response was take it out and put air in tires. I almost walked - which is something you should always be prepared to do. After a discussion with the manager we agreed on the price. After that discussion, there was no talk of upsell, payment buying or anything else.

Fee's are known as 'packs' to the insider's.

I've been charged an administration fee before. Total BS.
I wanted to buy another 4Runner and my wife wanted me to give others a chance.
I went to dealers and asked them how their product compared to the Toyota.
They all came up with crazy stories about how bad the 4Runner was that made me want to cry

$300 for nitrogen, that's a rich one.

Yeah, when that Honda dealer said everyone who walks on the lot has $800 of your money, I thought to myself, I walk onto a lot of lots just to look at the cars. What the he!! kind of place is this?

I'm all for the dealer making a profit. They have to make a living too. But just so they do it in a more upfront manner. I always try to work from the invoice price, not the msrp, and yes, I know there are all kinds of paybacks after the sale for advertising etc. but those are between the dealer and Mfg'r, not me and the dealer.

One of the couple friends we know live out of state. The wife of the couple's mother died, and had a very nice low mileage Accord. The husband had no practical way to get it home to sell it, and they did not want the car. We went to AutoMAX and handed them the paperwork of the title with no lien, and the power of attorney letter he had. They offered a nice price, and it was processed and we were out the door in short order. I had zero interest in selling it for them and dealing with the hassle of selling a car. It was a great deal for everyone.

Sorry guys but if you sell your car to Carmax you got ripped off. If you buy a car from Carmax you got ripped off. They do the same BS, they just do it in a less smarmy way. Same auction cars for the most part, limited inspection or reconditioning. They just have less annoying sales people, better marketing, and a less annoying sales model. They are very convenient but don’t kid yourself into thinking they are fair.

One great approach when buying a later model new or used car is to figure out exactly what you want then call around the area to every dealership that has it. Ask for their no BS out the door price in writing, tell them you’ll buy from whomever offers you the best price. Probably half won’t respond because they are the really slimy ones, but you’ll get legitimate offers that will likely be competitive. I’ve had two very pleasant buying experiences following this model.

What is really nice about Car Max is their offer is good for a week.
So, if you're thinking of trading your car in, take it there first and get their offer.
When we bought our CR-V, the manager asked if we were trading in my Accord. My wife asked how much will you give us for it? Manager said $X, and my wife quickly says 'Sorry, he just got an offer from Car Max for $2k more than that.'
The manager was disheartened to say the least as she really wanted that car on her lot, not in my garage.

Sorry Matt, I have to disagree.
If I can sit down with my knowledge of cars and figure out a price that they are going to offer me for my car, I don't think I got ripped off.
Same as when I traded in our Transport. I knew what I wanted and I told my wife how much they would ask for it once it was on their lot. I got what I wanted for it and was within $100 of their asking price when it hit their lot 2 days after we completed our deal.

When we bought our used minivan back in June the dealership was almost 4 hours away but it was hard to find the one we wanted in an actual color.

It actually went pretty well and the had a couple things to fix so they delivered it to us. They even gave us better financing than our credit union would give us. Though the CU is now saying they can do .5% better. We told them what we were willing to pay though and we specified the loan length and told them what we had available to us.

A friend of mine went to a dealer when he was pretty young looking at some VW Golf GTI, Acura Integra and so on. The first one he went to they wouldn't even let him test drive a car. On his way home he stopped back at that dealership with his new Integra. It was a 5 speed and black with gold trim instead of chrome.

In upstate New York, the Credit Union offered a service for buying a car. I think it was contracted out, but what ever.

I wanted a Honda Accord. LX level. Color not too important, but not RED.

I ended up with a "Sandlewood Brown", which looked like a slightly reddish tinted silver metallic. Price was very good and the loan was handled by the Credit Union. Drove the CRAP outta that car. I think it had 275K on the clock when I let it go.

Least hassle ever buying a car.

Something like this:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1606855502.jpg