When you buy a car watch
out for Doc Fees, Acquisition Fees, Document Fees, Dealer fees, and
any other creative name for an added fee the dealer tries to charge
you.
You could end up paying an additional $500 without even realizing
it! Compare out the door prices at
Edmunds
What is a Doc Fee? It's any kind of bogus added fee that a
dealer tries to add on after you have already agreed to a price.
Note: Taxes, title fees, license and registration are not Doc
Fees. These are legitimate fees charged by state and local
governments for registering your car. The dealer doesn't profit from
these fees, and is prohibited by law from charging you more than the
official government mandated fee.
Doc Fees, by whatever name you find them, are simply a money
grab. The dealer is trying for several hundred dollars in extra
profits after you have already agreed to a price.
How to car dealers get away with this? This fee is normally
pre-printed on all the dealers paperwork. From the time they start
writing up your new vehicle the Doc Fee is on all the paperwork.
This is a way for a dealers to cover themselves.
Some dealers do not charge Doc Fees, and usually advertise the
fact. Most dealers will try to gouge you for the extra money, which
typically ranges from $200 to $500.
The sad part is that most people pay it without ever even knowing
it. They never even read the paperwork before signing it. The extra
fee becomes buried in the payment, or in the tax and license fees.
Read all paperwork carefully before signing anything, and ask
about any added fees up front before you start negotiating.
Dealers are not prohibited by law from charging a Doc Fee, but
they must charge an equal amount to all customers. So don't expect
the dealer to just waive the fee if you ask about it at the last
minute before signing the final paperwork. However, there is nothing
to say that the fee can't be absorbed by reducing the price of the
car by a few hundred dollars.
If you know about the Doc Fee up front you can compare prices
from different dealers on an equitable basis. Don't wait until the
final stages of your purchase to ask about any extra fees. If you
feel that the Doc Fee is unreasonable, or if the Doc fee drives the
final price too high, then just walk away.
Always ask for an out the door price including all extra fees and
taxes, this way you can make an intelligent comparison of all offers
from all dealers. Start at
Edmunds to get competitive quotes.
