Car dealer admin fees

[twentyvalveturbo34]

Hello, I'm after a bit of advice and peoples opinions.

So found a car on autotrader, enquired at the dealer about service history, warranty etc and all seemed fine, so planned to go view and test drive tomorrow, and buy if all was fine.

Then asked if that was the best price they could do, quickly got a reply saying they couldn't move on price, and actually it's going to cost you £100 plus more because they charge an admin fee, which immediately wound me up.

So I went back and checked the advert, and no where did it mention additional fees, and I'm not taking out finance, or part exchanging, but still an admin fee.

Am I being irrational by telling them to stick it? The price is ok, and they have since come back saying they will reduce the price of the car by the admin fee amount, but purely out of principal I dont feel I want to buy from them, just seems dishonest, and they are a main dealer franchise.

If they had mentioned in the advert that there are admin fees, or just put an extra £150 on the car, I could live with it.

So what do you think? Am I just being a tart?

[Alex Z]

It’s a deliberately deceptive tactic and would put me off buying from them
Unless it’s something you’d struggle to find elsewhere, tell them to do one.

[SiT]

I viewed a car recently and they landed this on me at the negotiation stage, WTF - the price is the price, don’t start adding stuff on. I questioned what it was for and the dealer struggled to justify it.

I walked away in the end because I didn’t agree with it in principle, there is no need to add on an additional couple of hundred quid.

Your choice, if they have offered to refund it and deal is right then go for it but perhaps feedback your thoughts to Dealer Principal.

Si

[CoreyDog]

Last time I was car shopping I walked from a perfectly good car due to a £250 "admin fee".

Car was priced OK, not great but reasonable. Went to view, chatted about car, got to negotiation. No Part Ex, no finance just wanted to do a Bank Transfer.

Wouldn't move an inch on the price and insisted the £250 admin fee had to be paid. When pointed out only admin was to sign a V5, they then went into things like "Car will be cleaned" "Given a full health check" etc.. So basically the things that any reasonable dealer would do as a matter of course!

Not a chance I was buying from them, knew if any issues cropped up they would no doubt be a nightmare to deal with given the excuses used to extract more money from me than the car was advertised for!

Did me a favour in end, held out and found the car I really wanted all along at a decent price. Guess what? No admin fee, negotiated a fair discount, got a clean, a service and a free extended warranty.

[DoubleD]

What dealer is it? Can you post up the advert?

[twentyvalveturbo34]

Thanks for the replies everyone, it's made me feel better about my decision.

And the car itself isn't rare, plenty of others around at similar prices and spec, so shouldn't be hard to find another one.

[defblade]

I did a thread on this a few months back; it seems it's not legal, but no-one gives a damn.

The car I walked away from due to a £99 admin sucker fee they wouldn't budge on was up for £300 less a couple of weeks later...

[DoubleD]

defblade said:

I did a thread on this a few months back; it seems it's not legal, but no-one gives a damn.

The car I walked away from due to a £99 admin sucker fee they wouldn't budge on was up for £300 less a couple of weeks later...

Would you have bought it if it was £99 more expensive but no admin fee?

[cheeky_chops]

i bought a honda accord from car giant in London (a good few years ago now). All the signs/ads said, non negotiable and (iirc)£100 admin. Seemed reasonable as advertised and not underhand. It was a new shape model, there weren't many outside dealer franchise and was cheapest by a mile so bit the bullet

Edited by cheeky_chops on Saturday 23 November 11:46

[Camelot1971]

Everyone buying a car should draw up their own buyers admin fee contract (£100) to cover costs of coming to the dealership, arranging insurance etc. Can't expect a buyer to do doing these things for free if a dealer admin costs aren't free either!

[wiliferus]

I really dislike this practice. Unless the car was an absolute must have peach, I would walk away and make sure they knew damn well why I was.

[DoubleD]

wiliferus said:

I really dislike this practice. Unless the car was an absolute must have peach, I would walk away and make sure they knew damn well why I was.

So you would pay more for a car at another dealer just to avoid buying the cheaper car + admin fee?

[defblade]

DoubleD said:

defblade said:

I did a thread on this a few months back; it seems it's not legal, but no-one gives a damn.

The car I walked away from due to a £99 admin sucker fee they wouldn't budge on was up for £300 less a couple of weeks later...

Would you have bought it if it was £99 more expensive but no admin fee?

Quite possibly, yes. It depended more on the matter of the missing service history, which, being Skoda, would have been easily checkable on the dealer's system - at 3 years old, it would most likely have been entirely dealer serviced. The car I actually bought a couple of weeks later was a grand more, so definitely not a budget limitation my end!

Now, I imagine your next point is that I should have just considered the price as a whole, and from a cold economical position you may well be right... but I also work in retail and so I know how dubious the legality of this practice (where the price advertised/marked is less than the actual price to buy) is, so the economic position was/is overruled by the moral one for me.
The same applies to the dealer, mind you - they should have waived the fee and they then might have sold it at £7500, rather than the £7200 (+£99 unmentioned fee) it was reduced to. Or maybe they knew full well no service history would be forthcoming...

It helps that I know the secret car dealers never want you to know - they made more than one of any given "normal" car! Lots and lots more.
It means I can walk away from any sale where I don't like the deal offered, for whatever reason. There'll always be another one to buy.

[ninjag]

DoubleD said:

wiliferus said:

I really dislike this practice. Unless the car was an absolute must have peach, I would walk away and make sure they knew damn well why I was.

So you would pay more for a car at another dealer just to avoid buying the cheaper car + admin fee?

Your question got me thinking as well and I suppose it would depend. Wouldn't the price of a car be expected to reflect its condition whereas an admin fee is just that and nothing to do with the actual car itself?

So in my mind could a £3000 listed car with a £150 admin fee could be considered in lesser condition than a £3150 listed car and no admin fee?

There's also the principle, to me an admin fee is for when a company is doing you a favour due to changing circumstances, such as arranging an overdraft or you wanting to change the terms of a contract.

[sjc]

I scroll straight past the advert as soon as I read it.

[wiliferus]

ninjag said:

DoubleD said:

wiliferus said:

I really dislike this practice. Unless the car was an absolute must have peach, I would walk away and make sure they knew damn well why I was.

So you would pay more for a car at another dealer just to avoid buying the cheaper car + admin fee?

Your question got me thinking as well and I suppose it would depend. Wouldn't the price of a car be expected to reflect its condition whereas an admin fee is just that and nothing to do with the actual car itself?

So in my mind could a £3000 listed car with a £150 admin fee could be considered in lesser condition than a £3150 listed car and no admin fee?

There's also the principle, to me an admin fee is for when a company is doing you a favour due to changing circumstances, such as arranging an overdraft or you wanting to change the terms of a contract.

You’ve pretty much posted what I was going to reply. Potentially, yes, to my own detriment I’d rather pay slightly more to take my business to an honest transparent dealer, than give my hard earned to one which charges admin fees. It’s a shyster practice just to make a quick buck. I have no doubt the second hand car industry is brutal, and every penny counts in a sale. But to charge admin for services which one would expect to be part of the deal (V5 paperwork, PDI and a valet) is just taking the piss, and I simply wouldn’t pay it.

[DoubleD]

ninjag said:

DoubleD said:

wiliferus said:

I really dislike this practice. Unless the car was an absolute must have peach, I would walk away and make sure they knew damn well why I was.

So you would pay more for a car at another dealer just to avoid buying the cheaper car + admin fee?

Your question got me thinking as well and I suppose it would depend. Wouldn't the price of a car be expected to reflect its condition whereas an admin fee is just that and nothing to do with the actual car itself?

So in my mind could a £3000 listed car with a £150 admin fee could be considered in lesser condition than a £3150 listed car and no admin fee?

There's also the principle, to me an admin fee is for when a company is doing you a favour due to changing circumstances, such as arranging an overdraft or you wanting to change the terms of a contract.

Its the deal that matters. If the car with an admin fee is cheaper than a very similar car without an admin fee then surely that's the one to get. Its just a car that the dealer has bought and is adding some profit to the price. Who cares how they come up with the overall price.

[Deerfoot]

DoubleD said:

... Who cares how they come up with the overall price.

Plenty of people if the recent threads on this subject are anything to go by.

A couple of dealers near me now display 'No Admin Fees' on their frontages so it's pretty obvious that the buying public as a whole are weary of this practice..

[eldar]

DoubleD said:

So you would pay more for a car at another dealer just to avoid buying the cheaper car + admin fee?

Yes. I rather not do business with an openly dishonest dealer. If they lie about price you can safely assume integrity is not their default position.

[DoubleD]

eldar said:

DoubleD said:

So you would pay more for a car at another dealer just to avoid buying the cheaper car + admin fee?

Yes. I rather not do business with an openly dishonest dealer. If they lie about price you can safely assume integrity is not their default position.

What about an admin fee that was clear from the start?