Car dealers in the New York City area are the sleaziest. I know as I lived there for many years. And Kia dealers seem to be the sleaziest. No doubt there are some good ones, but in the New York area the typical Kia salesperson was selling door to door driveway sealing last week. I'm currently trying to help my sister buy a Niro EV. and I'm seeing two new dealer scams. Dealers are trying to mark up Motor Vehicle Commission fees hundreds of dealers. This is in addition to Doc Fees, which are nothing more than pure profit for the dealer (the next thing we are going to see is a fee for using the toilet at the dealer). It takes minutes to make sure the dealer is charging you the correct MVC fees as they are posted on the MVC website. Guess a lot of folks don't bother. An even bigger scam (thousands of dollars) is New Jersey Kia dealers charging sales tax on EV's. New Jersey waives the sales tax on EV's. But some New Jersey Kia dealers don't disclose that until you tell them you know better. When quoting a price they will list the sales tax as a separate fee, but when they present you with a sales contract the sales tax is baked into the price of the car (and not shown on the sales tax line), so if you later discover you have been ripped off, their response will be you agreed to pay thousands over MSRP and did not pay sales tax.
All you need to do is have Tony Soprano pay them a visit and "collect" the amount you were overcharged. Doing business in New Jersey is unlike anywhere else
Try a service like Costco Auto...you get a no-haggle quote that the dealership has to honor. In my case, a non-participating dealer matched the quote to get the sale.
Costco's Auto Program is not bad. It runs off True Car's platform. But I have repeatedly found it's easy to do better if you are a reasonably good negotiator or better. IMO Costco and True Car are good for establishing a "benchmark" and/or good for someone who hates or is just not confident in negotiating with dealers. I actually enjoy helping friends and family negotiate with dealers. To me it's sort of a "sport". While I'm tempted to say after doing this for decades I'm familiar with all their tricks, I still occasionally see a new one. I generally hold car dealers in very low esteem, although there are some occasional exceptions. I know this is stereotyping and there are exceptions, but my experience is that Kia dealers are generally among the sleaziest.
well, yeah, I actually did better than the Costco $; but having the base line was good. Costco Auto also lets you see the invoice cost for the car and all options. Good stuff to know. In terms of bargaining, end of month and, especially, end of quarter are good times to make a deal. Dealers often get extra from the car company if they meet monthly and quarterly benchmarks.
