Please note this is canadian related but I thought I'd post it on the general board...

I asked about "extra fees" for an 8 at a dealership and they broke it down as follows:

"The fees would include $100 air conditioning tax, $20 tire tax and a documentation fee of $195, which come to a total of $315 on top of the selling price. If you are going to finance the vehicle there is also a lien registration fee of $33 which the bank charges."

Although $315 is chump change I'm just curious as to whether that's normal...

Thanks.

 

Are the air-conditioning tax and tire tax specific to Canada or your province? Haven't heard of them in the U.S., at least in Iowa. I had 5% sales tax, $59 administration fee, $15 title fee, and $5 lien filing fee. Hope that helps!

 

Tire Tax would be from your province Alberta?

Anyway, here's what I paid.

$100 Air tax
$75 Gas Tax
$55 Bank Transfer Fee
$20 Licensing fee (paid for any car you register)
$249 Processing fee.

It's "Normal" at least your processing fee is lower than mine was.

 

Air conditioning tax?
Tire tax?

Never heard of any such thing, but Canada is notorious for taxation, so I guess it's possible. Still, it's a good thing to check out.

Bank transfer fee?
Processing fee?
Documentation fee?

Pure BS. These are just sneaky ways for the dealership to add profit to their pockets. If somebody would pay me $249 (even in Canadian dollars) to fill out 10 minutes' worth of paperwork, I'd quit my computer consulting job today! :D

When buying my 2003 Tacoma, I asked my saleslady up front for a complete breakdown of all prices and fees, including the license and regustration charges and the sales tax. They tried to nail me with a $279 "doc fee" and some mysterious "security fee" which, when I asked what it was, I was told "oh, all our cars have it" (as if that was an explanation).

I insisted they remove the BS fees. The saleslady insisted that they could not be removed. My wife and I got up and headed for the door. The saleslady said "you aren't going to leave over a few hundred dollars, are you?"

"You aren't going to let me leave over a few hundred dollars, are you?" I replied, and continued to the door. We were half way through it when the saleslady came running after us, saying she would get the BS charges removed. She did, and we bought the truck.

When we got into the finance office, I noticed that the "doc fee" was pre-printed in boldface type on the forms - intended to reinforce the lie that the fee "cannot be waived." They worked around that little problem be reducing the selling price of the car by an additonal $279 to compensate.

The short answer is, filling out the paperwork is part of the dealer's costs of doing business, just like paying the electric bill. They have no business trying to charge you extra for those costs, much less charge you exhorbitant amounts which are many times greater than the dealership's actual costs (or, in the case of the "security fee," are nothing but pure profit). This is how a 2%-over-invoice deal becomes a 3% or 4% or 5%-over-invoice deal without the buyer even realizing it.