Can the registration fee, DOC fee, and taxes on a new car be negotiated with the dealer as part of the total offer. I offered a flat amount in cash as my final offer and for the dealer to work the numbers on the contract to include the above. Is this reasonable?
Registration, no, the state sets that price but you can certainly check that feewith the state to make sure the dealer’s not spoofing you. The sales taxes, no, the state sets that number, the dealer has no choice. The DOC fee? Since I don’t really know what that means, I’d say, Yes, since it sounds like a junk fee the dealer charges.
As for the final offer, flat amount, boom, here’s my money and there’s my truck, sure. That just tells the dealer he needs to figure in all those costs to the final number and meet it or you walk out the door and find another dealer and another truck. Play hardball, there are lots of dealers and lots of trucks out there. Good Luck!
After a few trips to the dealer I got a call from the sales manager who said he’d sell the vehicle for $xxx and I said OK to that price and I’d be there tomorrow. Now I assumed I’d pay sales tax on top of that price, but nothing more. (Now, older and wiser, I will say “Taxes and fees included.”) When we sat down at the table with the keys lying there in the middle, I looked over the paperwork and saw some document preparation fee or the like. (They really want you to pick up the keys and smile. I did not.) I said I would pay the price I had been quoted plus sales tax, but no additional fees or charges. They had some explanation but I politely restated I would pay the price I had been quoted, plus sales tax, and that was it. It took a few minutes for the documents to be retyped, I wrote the check, and out the door.
DOC fee is a document fee, basically what they charge you to have their office minions that take care of all the paperwork
The good old “Drive it off the lot offer”
Yes
I assumed that in my answer but the OP didn’t spell it out.
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Yes, everything is open to negotiation. America after all. Possible in theory anyway. It’s your money driving the deal. You walk away, no deal. So you make the rules, the dealer either accepts them or not. That’s called an “out the door” offer, where you pay a certain amount and that’s enough for you to drive the car away, no other money required. No harm done to ask for that kind of deal anyway. Many dealerships I expect won’t agree to that kind of deal unless the amount you offer is very much above the dealer’s price for the vehicle, b/c they need to know what all the costs are going to be prior to committing. Keep asking until the sales-person gives you a list of all the fees and taxes involved in your area upon buying a new car, including the state mandated fees, like sales tax and licensing fees. Then you have something to work with during the bargaining.
The last time I bought a car, there was a line item for ADP. ADP? I wondered what that was, so I asked. Additional Dealer Profit … lol … well, like I say, it’s America.
That is a misnomer, the purpose of ADP is dealer profit but ADP stands for Added Dealer Package. The labels placed next to the Monroney label with the low value add-ons are referred to as “Pack” labels.
There are a lot of tricks to add fees to the list. So when I get quotes from dealers, I always get the OTD (out the door) price with all the fees. I don’t care who charges what, as long as I am buying from the dealer that is costing me less.
There was an episode of Seinfeld, where Jerry was buying a car from Elaine’s boyfriend at a discount, but as the deal was being worked on, they broke up, so the guy starts adding random fees to the price. It feels pretty similar to what some dealers do.
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