10 Car Dealer Fees You Should NEVER Pay - Avoid These Rip Offs!

which car dealership fees should you be avoiding when buying a car that's what we're going to find out welcome to car health corner where we help you the consumer master the process of car buying and car ownership buying a car from a dealership can definitely be a pretty stressful experience and figuring out what fees you should or should not be paying when hammering down a deal with the dealer is definitely one of the more complicated parts of the process in my experience putting together deals on behalf of my clients it's not uncommon for a dealer to throw in around half a dozen or more various fees or charges figuring out what all these different dealer fees are for and whether you should even be paying for them or not can definitely be pretty complicated so in this video i'm going to go through the top 10 dealer fees that you should be avoiding when buying a car let's start with number 10 the dealer admin fee admin fees also known as administration or documentation fees are a very common charge that a lot of dealerships will include on a purchase agreement when buying a car admin fees can vary anywhere from 299 upwards of 999 depending on the dealership the reason the salesperson will give you as to why they need to charge you an admin fee can vary from dealer to dealer the bottom line though is that this is not a mandatory fee that every single dealership has to charge and you can find a lot of dealerships out there that don't have any kind of admin or documentation fee on their deals so if you're buying a car and you see an admin fee on your contract then just ask the dealership to remove it if they tell you that they can't remove it because it's standard policy or they give you some kind of excuse then tell them that you want an additional discount off the price of the car to offset the price of that admin fee let's move on to dealer fee number nine which is the etching fee now like admin fees etching fees also known as anti-theft fees are a very common charge that a lot of dealerships will try to include on a deal dealers can charge anywhere from 199 upwards of 499 depending on what they claim to be offering you i've seen all kinds of explanations from dealers as to what etching or anti-theft protection is but the gist of it is is that they etch the vin number of the car onto the glass all the way around the vehicle which serves as the anti-theft deterrent for thieves if the car ever gets stolen and it makes the car easier to retrieve now i honestly don't believe that etching does anything at all because number one thieves are always one step ahead they know that etching exists and they know what to do if they steal a car that has window etching and even if etching or anti-theft protection had value there's no reason to pay upwards of 500 for it from the dealership you could always just buy your own kit online and do it yourself for around 20 or 30 dollars so if a dealership tries to sell you on etching or you see it on the contract of the car just tell the dealership to remove that fee again if they tell you that they cannot remove it because the work has already been done or they automatically include included on every single car that they sell just tell the dealer to give you an additional discount to offset the price of that fee moving on to dealer fee number eight environmental fees now this is a fee that i come across in at least 90 percent of the deals that i look at and it has various different names including an environmental fee a tire stewardship fee or a tire tax the good thing about this fee is that it usually does not cost a lot of money most dealerships in my experience will charge anywhere from twenty dollars to fifty dollars for this fee but again it's a fee that you should not be paying for because it is not a mandatory charge in most areas some dealerships will tell you that this is a mandatory government charge that has to be paid and they cannot remove it from the deal but in many areas that is just not the case there is no such thing as a government environmental levy or tire levy so if they try to sell you on that just tell them you are not paying that fee and to remove it from the contract moving on to dealer fee number seven gap insurance now again gap insurance is another dealer charge that i often see on a lot of different car deals and dealers can charge upwards of a few hundred dollars for it what gap insurance basically is is protection against diminished value and negative equity on a car deal when you buy a car and it depreciates over time sometimes the value of the car can be lower than what you owe on the car so gap insurance is intended to compensate you for that price difference if you were to get into an accident or something were to happen to the car now although negative equity is definitely a real concern there are better ways to protect yourself from it when financing a car instead of getting an extended car loan for say a seven to eight year period and getting gap insurance it makes a lot more sense to pay off the car as quickly as possible try to get a car loan for a three to five year period at the most so that you can pay off the car and keep the value of the car higher than what you owe on the loan okay let's move on to dealer fee number six which is the financing fee now on some deals i prepared i've seen dealerships charge a standalone financing fee which can be anywhere from 100 to 300 now i'm not exactly sure why some dealerships charge this financing fee because the majority of car deals do not have any kind of a financing fee if you decide to take out a car loan in many cases it's actually in the best interest of the dealership for you to finance the car because the dealer is going to be compensated from the lender in the form of a kickback because you took out a car loan with them that's why in some cases you will see some used car dealerships that'll push financing on you even when you want to pay for a car in cash if you're financing a used car and you don't want to pay any unnecessary financing fees or rely on what the dealership is offering you it's a good idea to shop around and find your own financing through a bank ahead of time with the lowest interest rate and best offer that you can find next up let's move on to dealer fee number five which is the delivery or destination fee delivery and destination also known as freight and pdi is a standard charge that you typically see on every single new car deal delivery fees can range anywhere from fifteen hundred dollars upwards of twenty two hundred dollars depending on the new car that you're purchasing now it's important to understand that delivery fees are a standard mandatory charge that do come on the majority of new cars with a few small exceptions there are situations however where you should not be paying any kind of delivery or freight and pdi fee and this applies to demo cars and used cars both demos and used cars have already absorbed the delivery and destination fee so there's no reason that you should be paying for them a second time around when you are buying that car so if you're buying say a lightly used demo car from a new car dealership and you see that they're trying to charge you a delivery and destination fee tell the dealership that you want that fee removed from the deal okay let's move on to fee number four which is the nitrogen fee now this is one of my favorite fees that i see on a lot of new car deals because it just makes me laugh with how ridiculous it really is nitrogen fees also sometimes called nitro packages is when the dealer inflates the tires of the car with 100 nitrogen air the supposed claimed benefit of this is that it helps maintain the same consistent tire pressure in your car's tires even when you have huge temperature changes in the weather now i honestly don't buy that argument at all because regular air is already almost 80 percent nitrogen so i'm not really sure what you're getting by adding just a little bit more nitrogen in your tires i've seen some dealerships charge upwards of six hundred dollars for nitrogen packages which is absolutely ridiculous so if you see that fee on a dealer contract make sure you tell the dealership to remove it moving on to dealer fee number three wheel locks now wheel locks are very common on a lot of new car deals and dealers can charge upwards of a hundred and fifty dollars for them on the vehicle contract they basically act as a small theft of turns giving you a lockable nut on each one of your wheels and helping to prevent wheel theft now i honestly don't believe it's worth it to pay upwards of a hundred and fifty dollars for wheel locks for most regular cars because number one wheels don't often get stolen on cars so the risk is very low and number two wheel locks can be a total pain in the neck for both dealers and mechanics whenever you need to do wheel changes it's very common for the key to wheel locks to go missing if you don't store it in a safe place and if that happens taking the wheels off the car becomes a total pain in the neck it's honestly just one more thing to worry about and i'd rather not have them at all especially for a regular car with just normal wheels so if the dealership is trying to sell you on wheel locks and you see them on the purchase agreement for the car just tell the dealership no thanks if you decided that you see value in having wheel locks especially for higher end cars with more expensive wheels you could always buy a wheel lock kit yourself for only forty or fifty dollars let's move on to fee number two which is certification or inspection fees now certification fees are a common fee that i see on a lot of used car deals and i've seen some dealers charge upwards of eight hundred and ninety nine dollars for them when asked what this is many dealers will tell you that this is a fee to recondition the car to sell it to you in safe condition now in my mind the cost of reconditioning and safetying a car should already be included in the car's asking price i mean if i'm buying a used car i want to know that it's already in safe condition and you really shouldn't have to be paying extra for that in many locations used cars already need to be safetied and reconditioned in order to be sold so all the cost of that should already be included in the advertised price so if you're buying any kind of a used car and the dealership is advertising the car is already safetied or certified but then they go and try and charge you any kind of a reconditioning or certification fee later on just tell the dealership that you are not paying that and you want all that to already be included in the price okay and now we come to our final fee dealer fee number 10 which are protection fees now the term protection fee alone is pretty vague but this can include a number of different things depending on the dealership in the car and i've seen all kinds of various forms of protection charges that have been added to car deals some of the most common types of protection charges that i've seen on car deals include key fob protection wheel and tire protection interior or exterior paint protection depending on what the level of protection is or what the dealership claims to be offering you it's not uncommon for some of these packages to cost upwards of a thousand dollars or more depending on the car and the dealer now without doing any research or knowing more about these products i would not recommend spending over a thousand dollars on any of them instead tell the dealership that you would like to go home do some research and instead make an informed decision later on i have definitely seen some car buyers buy some of these protection fees including wheel and tire protection or key fob protection and then got no value out of it because they never made use of it during their ownership period so it's important that you do your own research on a lot of these protection products determine whether they're going to have value to you whether you're going to make use out of it and then make an informed decision later on sad to say the 10 dealer fees that i went through in this video are definitely not the only type of dealer fees that can exist out there and it's definitely possible for some dealerships to come up with other types of fees and charges in my experience doing car deals however these are the 10 most common fees that you're likely to encounter when buying a new car or a used car from a dealership so if you would come across any of these fees now you're going to know what to do let me know what you thought of this video and if you have any ideas or suggestions for future car advice videos or car comparisons please leave a comment below if you enjoyed this video make sure to like and subscribe and if you want to check out some of my similar car advice videos you can check out these links right over here and if you need any additional car advice recommendations or help with getting a great deal on your next new car purchase check out carhelpcanada.com thanks so much for watching and see you next time

Channel: Car Help Corner

Views: 25,051

Rating: 4.9659781 out of 5

Keywords: car dealer fees, car dealer fees to avoid, car dealer fees you should never pay, dealer fees, dealer fees you should never pay, dealer fees to avoid, dealer rip offs, car dealer rip offs, dealership rip offs, dealership scams, dealer scams, dealer scams when buying a car, car dealer scams, car dealership scams, car dealership fees you should never pay, how to buy a car, how not to buy a car, car buying tips, how to buy a car from a dealer, car dealer negotiation

Id: -jaXpC1Guh4

Length: 11min 31sec (691 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021