How To Navigate Dealer Quotes When Buying a Car

Tips for Looking at Dealer Quotes on Vehicle Purchases

As a reminder, we have seen actual pricing quotes from other dealers with documentation fees as high as $999 added on top of the pricing advertised. Our documentation fee is $199. Some dealers have $0 document fees. Adjust your comparison of pricing accordingly against our price when comparing against $0 dealer fees as you would adjust positive for us when another dealer has a document fee higher than our $199. We will not remove our document fee so simple roll it into any price comparisons. You would be shocked at how high the average dealer fee is in states like Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida. At etags.com, they estimate the average processing fee in Florida is $607.

The MSRP is made up of a Chevrolet price for the vehicle plus a destination charge to ship to the dealership. When you see the MSRP on a Chevrolet website, the base MSRP of the model trim, the MSRP of the options, and the destination charge to the dealer are added together to get the price. For example, the Silverado 1500 has a destination charge of $1,695. We have seen actual pricing quotes where a dealer is separately charging on a quote a customer a destination charge. So, you will see an MSRP, a discount from MSRP to get to a sales price, then later a destination charge added back to the price. There are no extra charges to a Chevy dealer to receive the vehicle other than the destination charge in the MSRP that we also pay GM. You should question a quote with a separate quote for a destination charge or transport fee to you.

Another charge would be a delivery charge. We will only provide a delivery charge or fee when we have to transport the vehicle a long enough distance to warrant it. If you are picking up at the dealer, and they are charging you a delivery fee, ask why.

There are dealer prep fees, and those can exist in addition to documentation fees. We have no other dealer fee other than the $199 document fee.

When you trade a vehicle, most Southern states allow a trade credit against taxes for the trade value, but you must trade the value. If you sell your vehicle separately from the transaction of buying another vehicle, you do not qualify for a trade credit on your new purchase. It needs to be part of the purchase transaction. If your trade is worth $30,000 and you have a 6% rate in your state, trading that vehicle to us is worth $1,800 more in a tax benefit. So, to sell on your own, you need to sell the vehicle for $31,800 to achieve the same money as trading on the purchase instead.

We don’t mind competing for business, but we want our customers to be educated about how to read a quote so they make the right decisions for themselves, even if we happen to lose occasionally.

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