The dealership is telling me there is a $495 dealer prep fee they have to charge me. Its non-negotiable.

I told the salesman that was way too high of a charge just to process some paperwork, have a high school kid wipe the car off, and a technician check the oil level.

He said again its non-negotiable, he HAS to charge it.

Thoughts?

Mike

 

Thoughts on what? IT'S NON NEGOTIABLE.....

 

Yeah that's one the dealerships have not been willing to negotiate for a few years on because of the internet revolution and edmunds.com and similar sites with invoice pricing. Just negotiate on purchase price before that. I buy a car a year and don't bother to negotiate on that.

 

Everything is negotiable, Especially this year.

 

Are you serious?

 

Some dealers spring a dealer prep fee on you. But you should have known about this and factored it into your offer.

BTW, the salesman might be telling you he has to charge you the fee cause that's his commission.

Salesman can't accept your offer only the salesmanager can. All the salesman can do is reject your offer (which he may do if your offer is low enough it cuts into his commission) without even bothering taking to his salesmanager.

If you want the car then drop your offer by the dealer prep amount and see if the salesmanager will accept it. Be sure the salesmanager actually is given your offer. Ask to walk over to the salesmanager with the salesman and let the salesmanager tell you directly you can't buy the car for you offer.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

Same advice, Knowing this. Make you offer less that and then work from there.

 

The dealer prep fee is just an added profit to the dealer ,there is also PDI ,(pre delivery inspection) .These cars do not come detailed with a good coat of wax from the factory so the dealer is basically charging for the wax job .
Something he is probally paying a minimum wage worker to do.
so just imagine if you pack each car with $495.00 dealer prep fee and you sell 100 cars a month its 50K profit .I know some dealerships owners that use the monthly net dealer prep fee to pay the general manager.Thats his salary per month or GM and sales managers base salary .thats why they wont remove it .it pays their salary . The less amount of cars the dealer sells the higher the dealer prep fee is .I worked at a Honda dealer in so cal and the dealer prep fee was $199.00 ,not so noticable as the $495.00 and we would waive it iof it came down to losing the deal ,but we sold 800 to 1000 cars a month .Thats some serious dough !

 

You guys are too funny........now days it takes a little more than "checking the oil" and getting a "wax job" for a PDI. Maybe 20 years ago this might be the case but not now with all the programming involved. Comparing a Honda/Honda dealership to a Porsche is apples to oranges. The dealer prep fee has nothing to do with the sales persons commission.

 

tell them you want they to do an extra good prep so you'll pay $1000 for it, but that you also just lowered your offer on the car by $1000.

 

Being that I am an auto dealer, i can tell you that the dealer prep fee is simply a fee that is charged to keep some profit from the money that is negotiated off the price of the vehicle. Dealers cannot negotiate this price, as it is illegal to charge one customer a 500 dollar dealer prep fee and another no fee, it has to be uniform and unchanged for every customer that purchases a vehicle from a dealer. (I do find a $495 dealer prep fee preposterous though)

 

Bottom line ,the dealer prep fee is just an added $$ making profit to the dealer .
The PDI is everything that needs to be done to make the car saleable and the Manufacturer re-imburses the dealer for this cost (a flat fee per car)
No the Salesman does not get paid off of it ,the managers and owners do .in fact if the salesman has to get it waived it is deducted from the gross profit of the total profit on the deal and the salespersons comission is lower.




There are some good and bad places to go to buy a car these days ,if i saw a dealer prep fee i would hit the road
Buy a car through the internet department ,I have done this the last 5 or 6 times ,they sent me an invoice with the OTD price and there was no surprises.

NCMAVRO is RIGHT ON ! my guess is he is one of the good places to buy a car from

 

When you say prep fee do you mean dealer fee ? If your already paying a dealer fee and they want you to pay a prep fee on top of that its pure madness.