FTC proposes rule to ban junk fees, bait-and-switch tactics plaguing car buyers | Hacker News Reader

FTC proposes rule to ban junk fees, bait-and-switch tactics plaguing car buyers

ftc.gov

198 pointsParksNet180 comments

I think there should be a generic rule for everything that the advertised price is something that you can actually pay and get the product. No $50 concert tickets with $75 of fees, advertising that for less than $125 should be illegal.

Of course I'm sure people will get creative with "optional" upsells, the $50 ticket is in the building but highly obstructed, but I think this is at least a huge step forward.

Nederlands has this rule in the law (as far as I know). You cannot sell a $50 ticket with a surprise $10 fee.

The product you sell must be fully usable at the advertised price.

I wonder how AirBnB gets around this. If you search for listings in The Netherlands you can see the service and cleaning fee not being added in on the map view, which seems like it’s a violation of the law you speak of.

They can apply it only for people either visiting from NL, or having their billing address in NL, or something like that.

I just went to airbnb.nl with my NL VPN active (I’m a US resident that was previously searching from airbnb.com) and sure enough the map prices show the actual price with all taxes and fees included when you visit airbnb.nl with a Dutch VPN active, unlike the American site. It also shows the price with all fees included if you visit airbnb.nl from the United States with no VPN active.

Interestingly, if you visit with the Dutch VPN active but instead on airbnb.com, you also see the price with everything included on the map regardless of whether the map search you are doing is in the NL or the USA. But if you visit airbnb.com from the USA without VPN and search for a destination in NL (or USA, but that might be obvious) you don’t get prices with fees included.

So it appears that AirBnB checks for either originating IP in NL or visiting via airbnb.nl to determine the behavior as of the time of this post. This is actually a great trick for me to learn as a States resident for when I want to browse AirBnB’s - I can just turn on my Dutch VPN for actual, non bullshit pricing on the map.

Isn’t this actually an EU wide regulation?

Hear hear, make it include tax and tip, too.

I live in Oregon (no sales tax), and it boggles my mind when travelling out of state that the $10 item at the store is suddenly $10.50 once tax is included. Why is it not included in the price?

State, County, and City taxes all vary wildly in different states. It's an annoyance for sure.

IIRC you don't have to pay that in Washington, so you should still be paying the listed price :). Bit of an edge case though

Though not exactly a [citation needed], but certainly [implementation details needed]. Like, what, you're in a Target in Vancouver, WA, you pull out your OR driver license, and now they wave the sales tax? Or save the receipt and take it off your OR taxes later? In the case of the former, okay, I'd do that. For the latter, no, I'm not adding a piece of paper to the pile to save $0.50.

This used to be the case, and Target was exactly one of the companies that made it exactly like this. You'd show your Oregon ID card and the sales tax would be removed (the seller could claim against their sales tax due for a non-resident sale).

However, this was intended to benefit border cities--Vancouver, WA in particular really liked it--but Washington State has no income tax and so is heavily reliant on sales tax. So, as of July 1 2019, the exemption (on state sales tax; local sales tax isn't covered here) may only be claimed post-transaction by the buyer: https://dor.wa.gov/taxes-rates/retail-sales-tax/sales-tax-ex...

Lived in WA for over 20 years, and TIL...thanks for a quick follow-up.

I believe the logic is that it makes taxation something explicit that you are forced to notice. The idea being that an included tax would be invisible and allow for hidden changes and less recognition of the government's role.

Exactly right. We should work to lessen the tax burden instead of incentivizing raising it by hiding the number.

> Exactly right. We should work to lessen the tax burden instead of incentivizing raising it by hiding the number.

This misses the point though. The problem exists at any tax rate greater than zero. Doesn't matter if it's a penny or 100% of the price, the issue is that the advertised price is not the monetary value that's expected to be exchanged for that product/service.

The point is that you shouldn’t _want_ it to include taxes, as that incentivizes worse behavior in governments. You should be reminded when you purchase something of how much is added on top by the locals.

That isn't a very compelling justification, since nothing stops businesses from continuing to include a tax estimate on the receipt even if it's included in the main price.

But you do include credit card fees, which is something that should be more explicit.

There’s lots of exceptions, and it’s easier to compute a tax rather than figure out what taxable category something is and backing it out for tax exempt purchase.

More importantly, retailers don’t want to waste money and sowing confusion by advertising products with differing prices across jurisdictions.

I would definitely try to include those.

Shouldn't the same reasoning apply to search results? It should be illegal to claim "500000 results" but require additional spending of time, attention, data, and AI training work for each additional 200.

Nathan is one step ahead of you

https://youtu.be/XbC0-tuYE2o?t=114

Australia has extremely strong consumer protections on things like this. It's really nice.

These are the kind of regulations that the government can introduce that actually help, not hurt markets.

When you take on a mortgage today, every mortgage has a standard coversheet that is identical between all lenders and lays out all the costs, interest rates and monthly payment in the exact same way.

That's a positive - increased transparency for consumers with minimal burden on businesses.

Charging customers for nitrogen filled tires that contain no more nitrogen than air (hey 78% is a lot!) reminds me of an idea I had to market regular salt as "ancient sea salt". I cracked myself up with this idea and thinking about the suckers in Whole Foods switching to it from their pink Himalayan or whatever regular sea salt.

Then I searched and discovered that of course some scumbag was actually doing it. Hehe

I mean Pink Himalayan Salt is funny marketing too. “Pink Pakistani Mine Salt” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Where I live, Costco sells potato chips with salt inspired by ancient Himalayan salt which cracks me up every time.

Yesterday I bought some vegetable chips at the store. It contained one vegetable: potato.

don't forget about the beet juice used for coloring!

These ones didn’t even have that!

Most of the chips I've seen are guilty of this, from Trader Joe's to the popular Veggie Straws. They're essentially baked/popped chips with no extra nutritional content. "Veggie" is definitely deceptional to the average consumer, who expects vitamins and minerals.

I wouldn't call potatoes a vegetable, but they are nutrient dense. They are actually about the most well-rounded thing you can eat if you had to choose only one food to live off of. The only negative to them is the glucose spike, but if you have an active job, it's less of a problem

They are literally a vegetable

> Charging customers for nitrogen filled tires that contain no more nitrogen than air (hey 78% is a lot!)

Are dealerships claiming to use nitrogen and just pumping in regular air, or are you talking about the unnecessary upselling of it? It's common in racing to use nitrogen, but yea, totally unnecessary for a Camry or whatever. One of my cars displays a warning telling me to visit the dealer when the tire pressure is low because the manufacturer recommends using nitrogen. I laughed the first time I saw the message on my gauge cluster before I knew the reason...still a ridiculous thought going to the dealer to top off my tire pressure even for nitrogen.

> totally unnecessary for a Camry or whatever.

Forget the Camry, it's hard to construct a road use application that actually makes sense. I guess you can be a bit more relaxed about checking during seasonal changes....

> Forget the Camry, it's hard to construct a road use application that actually makes sense.

For daily driving, sure, but a lot of people track their cars. I don't care about nitrogen in my tires because I'm hardly a competitive racer or frequent track-goer, but for owners of "from the factory" track cars like the ZL1 1LE or GT3 RS I'm sure it matters more to them.

As I said, "road use". Applies to most track days too, really. Maybe if you are club racer with a dedicated (i.e. trailored) track vehicle.

Right, I meant that people often track their street cars. I've already said that I don't bother with nitrogen, but it takes a special kind of person to run R compound tires on the street...

Sure but people that track their street cars are rarely seeing any real benefit from nitrogen, either. It's a pretty marginal thing. Vast majority of people going to track days hit their own limits well before getting anywhere near the equipment limits.

The use case is that once given bigger air molecules, customers will come back to the shop to top off on said molecules.

That gives the parts guy the ability to peddle $75 windshield wipers and gives the sales manager an opportunity to pitch the customer to buy/sell the car.

For Costco, it’s perceived value. “Wow, I get my magic air and aren’t spending $300 every time it fill it!”

I had forgotten that this was done in racing but can't imagine why you would want this for a commuter vehicle. I assumed they were just adding a line item to the bill and nitrogen made it sound more legit. But now that you mention it maybe they were offering to fill the tires with nitrogen like in the race cars but then just using regular air because really how would the customer know?

The argument is that Nitrogen would have lower moisture content than air, and that allegedly reduces corrosion in the tires and wheels.

Also Nitrogen filled tires lose pressure more slowly, because Nitrogen molecules are larger. The difference is not significant.

> Nitrogen molecules are larger.

That's what they told me at the dealership too. I asked "larger than what? Air is a mixture that's already 78% nitrogen." Didn't get an answer.

As far as the lower moisture content, couldn't they pass the air through an air dryer before filling the tire if it was that much of an issue? Regardless, the outside of the tires & wheels are exposed to far more corrosive materials.

>That's what they told me at the dealership too. I asked "larger than what? Air is a mixture that's already 78% nitrogen." Didn't get an answer.

No idea about molecule size, but the reason for nitrogen is that it expands less than air when heated, so tire pressure doesn't change as much when driving hard on a track.

> As far as the lower moisture content, couldn't they pass the air through an air dryer before filling the tire if it was that much of an issue?

Yes, this point is some dealership BS. Pretty much every auto shop will have a dedicated air line for filling tires, if not the whole system with an air dryer.

When I was a pro mechanic, the whole compressed air system had moisture removal, because I don't want that shit in my air tools, either. I don't know about Costco, but of the shops I know of, it's one big compressor for tools, tires, etc.

> >That's what they told me at the dealership too. I asked "larger than what? Air is a mixture that's already 78% nitrogen." Didn't get an answer.

> No idea about molecule size, but the reason for nitrogen is that it expands less than air when heated, so tire pressure doesn't change as much when driving hard on a track.

Pressure/temperature/volume for any gas are governed by the ideal gas law, which doesn't care what your molecules are.

(Sure, it's an approximation, but certainly one that's imperceptibly reliable enough for car tyres).

Some bottled water brand had a tagline "no other water hydrates better"

in case anyone does want to use nitrogen in their tires, I think at least US Costcos with tire centers have free self-service nitrogen inflators for members.

Speaking of bottled water, guess what Evian is spelled backwards...

What?

Underrated joke

Nivea.

well, not all liquids hydrate the same. Some even de-hydrate (coffee, seltzer water etc.). The water you're drinking is not pure, it always has some impurities which affect how much you hydrate drinking it. Pure water (distilled) is "undrinkable" for humans. I can see how a water with ions and whatnot (like a gatorade) can hydrate and replenish your electrolytes better.

> Some even de-hydrate (coffee, seltzer water etc.)

This is mostly a myth. Water hydrates you regardless of whether it's mixed with CO2 or with coffee beans. The thing about caffeine is that it is also a diuretic, so some of that water will be quickly expelled.

But then why do they use saline instead of (relatively) pure water in IV bags? I would think it's fair to say there's some sweet spot when the goal is hydrating the body, though I doubt it's what the slimy advertiser above was intending to convey.

They use saline instead of pure water because it's isotonic with respect to serum/plasma. i.e. you're not going to go into electrolyte imbalance if a lot of it is put into your blood.

Normal saline is about one-quarter the concentration of sea water, by the way.

here I thought I was saving cash by injecting sea water

They use saline because it goes directly into your blood stream. If they used pure water, the osmotic pressure would force water into your cells, causing them to burst (hypotonic).

You can drink pure water because it "becomes" saline as it mixes with the food in your stomach.

Even unfiltered tap water doesn't have very many ions compared to blood or saline solution. Most of your ions come from your food.

Coffee will hydrate you. The amount that you expel from the caffeine is typically less than the amount you have taken in.

There is such a thing as osmolar pressure. Simply put, water wants to dissolve things and it goes wherever the solute is. High enough concentrations of solute in the intestines cause actually cause water to leave body instead of being absorbed, often causing diarrhea. Oral rehydration solutions consist of water with appropriate amounts of sugar and salts such as sodium and potassium.

There are very simple experiments you can perform to demonstrate this phenomena. Grab plants or something similar and put them inside three different solutions: hypertonic, isotonic and hypotonic. There will be interesting results.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmotic_concentration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmotic_pressure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis

I don't know where you're getting your science from, but seltzer water is not dehydrating, and distilled water is not undrinkable for humans.

At best you can say that if you consume exclusively distilled water for a long time, you might deplete your body of some minerals unless they are replenished another way.

I didn't mean it as a direct consequence. Seltzer water will de-hydrate people that have bladder sensitivity to acids (like myself).

Also, the purpose of the " in the "undrinkable" statement was to make it clearer that it's about people considering it "undrinkable", not that it's toxic or it doesn't hydrate. You just wouldn't drink distilled water unless you were dying of thirst in the desert.

AFAIK the only solution in water that actively dehydrates you is a strong salt water (roughly, sea water). Others (e.g. coffee) are just not as efficient at hydrating you due to diuretic effects or whatever.

it depends, if you irritate your bladder through the ingestion of coffee or acids(it's a thing for some people, including myself), it might actually de-hydrate.

My local Costco doesn't check for membership at the tire pumps. YMMV.

Sometimes you can also sneak in the exit and buy yourself a hot dog.

Don't know about the states, but in Canada, you don't have to be a member to use the pharmacy, that gets you in for samples and everything.

Plus, their pharmacy is a great deal.

This is true, but if you run into an officious gatekeeper, they will block you 'while they get the approval of the manager' before they will allow you to proceed. I hate going to Costco stores generally but their online operation is generally awesome, including prescriptions by mail.

I think this is true in the US as well. And possibly liquor in some states (meaning a subset of the states that offer it in the first place).

There's no sneaking, you can go buy a hot dog without a Costco membership.

(Vegetarian here, who also doesn't like cheap-ass pizza, so it is possible this has changed in the last few years without my knowledge.)

Just before the pandemic blew up in the US, Costco changed its rules to require showing a membership card to access the food court. (You still don't have to scan a membership card to use the food court kiosks, just show it to get in the door.)

https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2020-03-03/costco-food-co...

In locations with the food court outside, they generally scan it when ordering at the food court window or at the kiosks.

I think the point of “nitrogen” is more that it’s dry and impurity free, vs shop air that can have a lot of moisture and other junk in it. Ever drain an air compressor tank off the water that accumulated inside? They get filthy with rusty water.

That's not the pitch that is made for the stuff.

And I'm not sure that I've ever heard of rim failure due to filling air moisture being a widespread issue.

> That's not the pitch that is made for the stuff.

I mean, how often do salespeople understand the technical details of what they are selling?

True. But you almost never see any significant amount of that in tires.

That's true, although you should be draining them to remove water frequently enough (just to keep it in good health) that I wouldn't have thought it'd make much of a difference

Draining the water doesn't mean what comes out isn't at 100% humidity--and thus can condense out water if the temperature drops enough.

(Which doesn't mean that it isn't total overkill to use nitrogen rather than just dry air.)

"Nitrogen. It's what tires crave!"

There is a legitimate use case for dry nitrogen in tires, it just doesn't apply to the average person's situation.

When the interior of the tire can become very hot, such as due to compressive loading in heavy construction equipment, there is a risk of accelerated oxidation and weakening of the tire material. In more extreme cases, the oxygen can react with atomized tire bits inside the tire causing an explosion via the same mechanism by which a Diesel engine works. It is exceedingly unlikely that the tires on a normal road car will ever become hot enough for this to matter.

I thought it was also about removing the water vapor which could condense out in cold conditions.

My limited knowledge comes from a former life where I was trained diesel mechanic for heavy machinery, and this was a specific part of our education. Cold weather was never a concern related to nitrogen.

The scenario everyone worried about, and was beaten into our heads, was a bit of oil or grease leaking into the tires, which is pretty normal on heavy equipment. Under typical conditions, this is harmless. However, under high compression that oil can start to vaporize, which basically turns it into highly flammable fuel. Under the right conditions this fuel when mixed with the pressurized air can and will spontaneously combust. Failures can be pretty spectacular, and they had video to prove it. The nitrogen removes the oxygen from the equation so that the combustion can never occur.

Apparently it happened often enough historically that it is mandatory practice in many domains. For me, this was received wisdom because I've never seen this kind of explosive failure in real life, which is a great thing. But if I put my chemical engineer hat on it also is eminently plausible, so I put it in the category of "lessons they learned the hard way".

I didn't know that scenario but I certainly could see it happening. Oxygen under enough pressure becomes a pretty nasty oxidizer. Especially when it happens suddenly. (Open the valve on a high pressure oxygen tank, pressurizing a system that wasn't previously pressurized.) By the time you add enough heat to the mix--rocket engines always run fuel-rich because at those temperatures an engine that runs oxygen rich probably then runs engine-rich. If you burn an engine to fuel exhaustion you likely destroy it.

I once saw a big display in my local grocery for "organic salt" a few years ago. Which struck me as just fundamentally wrong. We are talking about non-organic material. Of course they meant "organic certified" which just meant they didn't includes additives. But still ... it seems so misleading.

We've been selling nutritional supplements online for over a decade and I remember reading once about how some dirt on food really helps the microbiome. I considered selling dirt pills for a while. I think we'd have some success.

Excellent news; the nonsense that car dealers have been able to get away with since the start of the pandemic is simply ridiculous.

Perhaps most frustrating is the complete uselessness of posted prices, as many dealerships note in very fine print that their advertised prices are only valid for purchases financed through the dealership (no doubt at ridiculous APRs.) "Doc fees" are also something I would love to see eliminated—sometimes upwards of $500 for the dealer to submit some online forms to the DMV...

I'm not going to defend deceptive dealership sales practices, but as long as you have a good credit rating they often offer very good APRs. Most manufacturers have captive finance arms to juice their sales numbers and the financing terms can be better than what you would get from an independent lender. For example, Toyota is offering 2.49% on a 4-year loan which is lower than the US Treasury yield so if you do have to buy a car then you can literally make a profit by borrowing from them.

There are still a number of 0% financing deals out there, if you can find the cars they're offered on.

With the exclusion of the recent unprecedented times, that brand new car would depreciate far more rapidly than your perceived profit hedging against inflation.

I mean, USUALLY sure. There are exceptions to some extent and I've been lucky in this regard [0], but in general I'd say the problem is people just don't care. I -do- tend to shop on overall depreciation/resale value and try to order my cars in a way that while I completely intend to drive it into the ground, I will avoid any creature features that don't help with long term value or are too rich for my blood. [1]

Also while GP is somewhat overstating their case, that depreciation hit is gonna happen if you pay cash anyway. It's not 'hedging against inflation' so much as 'minimizing interest paid on depreciation'.

I will also say there are cases where perhaps it could make some level of sense. I'm kinda an odd duck and fell into this boat; My 10 year old car with age and a bad^bad oil change gets 18-24MPG for a good part of the year now, and only takes 91+. I switched to a Hybrid and the gas savings alone covers the majority of my payment.

[0] 3 of the 4 new cars I've bought fell into this range. The first was a Saturn I flew to Texas to grab, it had no A/C so I got it for a steal. The second was A car I bought 10 years ago with ~10% down was only 'underwater' for about 6 months of a 72 month loan. The latest was the start of this year, but I'm confident that even after things subside it will still hold value fairly well.

[1] Special infotainment systems, upgraded audio and remote start come to mind. People don't particularly shop for most infotainment systems on used cars. Upgraded audio is likely better handled by a trustworthy local shop if you really want it. Remote start just seems overpriced by most manufacturers, and IMO for most people (barring a medical need for the climate to be in a certain state immediately) another sign of society's environmental disregard.

I generally hate treating anyone like a bad person but I figured out about 15 years ago that car dealers are only in it to extract as much money out of you as possible and there's no need to treat them as nice people. I've had success with my last few trucks emailing a dealer when I see the truck in stock that I want, saying "Attached please see pictures of my trade in, here's the VIN, here's the mileage. Please tell me the exact amount I will need to bring with me to your dealership in a cashier's check to get the new truck. I will only reply to one more email with a yes / no response. I will also not do any sort of credit check at your dealership so know that going in. I will walk away if your finance person claims that I have to do one."

Hopefully they are on their last hurrah after exploiting current customers with their nasty markups, including for pre-orders, due to the current shortages. Looking forward to seeing how Ford executes on its plans to get them out of the loop: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/06/ford-wants-to-sell-evs-... .

Submitting forms to the DMV is a separate line item (Title and Registration). Doc fee is just profit in disguise.

I was looking at purchasing a newer, used Land Rover a few months back from a Land Rover dealership (one that had a sterling reputation prior to a buy out). The sheet of non-negotiable fees was rolled out, which raised the price nearly $5,000. The $1895 for "Executive Concierge Fee" blew my mind, consisting of your basic $150 detail and a slew of additional items that one could buy and apply from any Pep Boys for under $100. Funny enough, when I got up to walk away I was asked if I would buy the vehicle that day if some of those $5,000 of "non-negotiable" fees were removed.

I contacted the sales manager to tell him why I'd never be back. They couldn't care less. It must mean that enough people fall for these scam fees or don't pay attention to the line items that they can afford to not care.

It looks like that rule would address this, and I'm for it.

You were interested in buying a used Land Rover, of course they’re going to try and soak you. People that are good with money generally don’t buy used Land Rovers.

I have a used Land Rover, got a great price on it, and it's been a very solid vehicle for my needs. Your assertion is dripping with bias, overly generalized, stereotyping, and is incredibly ignorant.

When I was an intern a fellow intern got a 4 year old Land Rover.

In the next 6 months he had to

  - Check engine light on. Checked multiple time. Never went away
  - Replace engine gasket
  - replace rear diff
  - replace rear axle (did the dealership broke this?)

The forth one happened while he was returning from the manufacturer dealership for the 3rd issue, about half way to our town (about 90km left)

The worst thing was, he actually bought warranty from the car dealership, but they managed to weasel out every single item.

Pardon me if I am on the grandparent's side.

I've had worse happen on a corolla not much older than that. Sadly in my experience if you buy used, it usually means someone leaked the fuck out of the oil / coolant or grinded the fuck out of the gears, trashed the differential or other bullshit and they performed some trick to make it undiscoverable for the next 500 miles and during the mechanical check. I've bought probably half a dozen "gently used low mileage" "reliable brand" (toyota/honda) and something critical has shit the bricks within a few months every single time.

As the ol saying goes, nobody sells a vehicle they're happy with (of course people do, but they're predisposed to pawn off a dumpster fire by concealing the smoke with bags of tricks). With the used market such a shit-show right now it's almost no point to buy used anyway -- I finally just bought a new Toyota because the used ones with 100k+ miles were selling a few grand under MSRP.

Yes but your Collora's rear diff(heh) doesn't cost $7500 to replace.

Also, morality aside, the resale-ability of your Collora is on the exact opposite end versus a used Land Rover.

This is something I don't think people understand about "luxury" cars. You may find a good deal on the sale price, but you're still paying the inflated repair bills.

A $30k BMW is way more expensive than a $30k Toyota.

This is a lesson learned again and again buy 20-somethings who find a "great" deal on a luxury sedan the same age as they are....

Luxury make Lexus consistently ranks as one of the most reliable vehicle manufacturers. Are you sure luxury means you're going to end up with large repair bills?

In general relative to a similarly aged reliable economy car? Absolutely. All older cars require work, and the work on luxury brands typically is systemically more expensive.

With Lexus you are cherry picking a bit though, their maintenance costs tend to be in line with other Toyota's, among the cheapest of all.

They are an exception though, for luxury badges. The germans are mostly terrible for this, and the "premium" american badges are pretty bad too.

You mean the brand specifically, or used cars at all? I'd always heard (and acted on) the advice that the sweet spot when buying a car is a few years in, when you're no longer paying the shiny-and-new premium but it's otherwise reliable -- i.e. someone else has eaten the bulk of the depreciation.

They generally segment out the bad-with-money crowd by the ridiculous financing/lease surcharges, not new vs used, right? (If anything, I'd say the bad-with-money people will unnecessarily prefer new over used.)

The sweet spot is a few years in, but also not a luxury badge. Reliability and service cost is a significant factor too.

Landrover is a double whammy here, as it is a luxury badge (which typically puts you firmly in the overpriced parts and labor category) and has middling-to-poor reliability...

Reliable information on future maintenance costs is hard to find, but https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/the-most-and-least-expe... is a 2016 article which might help.

Per model costs can only be reliably measured for old models. New models are usually difficult to predict. I think more generally product brands are becoming harder to use as predictors of good reliability.

Disclaimer: I now avoid anything except 2nd hand Toyota - but New Zealand car market is weird due to 2nd hand imports from Japan

A used Toyota or Honda was typically a smart purchase before the recent used car shortage, and still sometimes a good deal even during the last two years.

Used luxury cars in general aren’t a great deal, since you typically pay higher maintenance costs on a luxury car. They’re lower volume cars, so there are fewer parts made, leading to more expensive parts. Replacing the airbag suspension compressor in a Land Rover costs $5k+, each of the (four) suspension airbag costs a few thousand dollars to replace and they usually need replacing after 100k miles.

Financing rates are how people who are bad with money with bad credit get fleeced, 17% 7 year loans for instance. There are people that are bad with money but have good credit, you fleece them by flattering their ego with an $1895 ‘executive concierge service’.

Luxury car prices have luxury prices on maintenance & repairs. Used luxury cars are not a good deal.

Japanese luxury cars tend to be the exception.

My Lexus tends to be cheaper to run than my Nissan. But it is also old enough that it is mostly interchangeable with a Camry for parts

My guess is that they don't expect you back since no one is masochist enough to buy a Land Rover twice...

Similar story here attempting to buy new. I went to a Toyota dealership that had the model I wanted to buy in stock. I looked up the price online first and it all looked good.

Got in there and they tacked on a bunch of junk that wasn't listed. I asked them if they could do anything to get the price back to the online price, and they said they couldn't. They did suggest that they had a used car on the lot - which came in at the same price the new one did on the website, all told. I walked away.

Never heard back. I assume that somebody probably came in the same week and gladly opened up the wallet.

The experience in general suggested to me that I should hold onto my 15 y.o. car as long as it still rolls, rather than trying to buy a new one right now. Hopefully it outlasts this insanity.

Most car dealers don't care about establishing a long-term relationship so their level of "give a shit" varies dramatically with the state of the market.

I bought a new car at a low point of the 200x financial crisis in the worst month for new car sales (population adjusted) in decades. The sales manager tried the "go to another room to run numbers and come back" strategy but while he was gone the sales guy told me to stand firm and they'd meet my price. I bought a really hot vehicle for $7k off MSRP, something completely impossible 6-12 months prior to that - the best you could hope for at that time was $2k over MSRP. The discount was so good I wasn't even underwater on the loan when I drove it off the lot.

By contrast you see what dealers are doing right now with low used and new car inventory.

The best strategy is not to be in a position where you must get a vehicle. If you can afford to downsize (eg 2 -> 1) then do that while used car prices are high. If you can avoid buying a new vehicle do so. Inventory will recover and dealers will eventually get desperate to make sales again.

How we handled this for the last couple of purchases was to ignore all that stuff--we made it clear from the start we were asking for the out-the-door price. Whatever it's labeled on the page is irrelevant, all that counts is the final number.

Some carmakers are dealing with this directly. Subaru, for example, requires dealers to sell cars at MSRP...and does not allow dealers to mandate "mandatory" add-ons like extended warranties or "paint protection packages." Dealers which violate these rules get their dealer allotments reduced for desirable models/trims. (In the LA area, a dealer that was adding a mandatory $3000 protection package to certain 2022 Outback trims saw its dealer allotments quartered for those trims for the 2023 model year.)

> Subaru, for example, requires dealers to sell cars at MSRP

I'm glad they do that now. I know one dealer local to me tried to pull a markup on me... 10 years ago (when it was easy to find another dealer that was able to give me invoice due to a TrueCar thing.)

I will say, one of the best things about Saturn was No-Haggle, consistent pricing. As relatively pleasant as the dealer I bought my WRX from was, it was still a pretty big 'jolt' compared to my previous experiences with Saturn.

None of these proposed bans or guidelines seem specific to cars, so why are they being narrowly targetted at them? Bans on bait-and-switch, fraudulent fees, junk fees, and requiring upfront disclosure of costs and conditions should apply to anything that you buy.

As I understand, many of these practices are generally illegal, but this is more of a targeted refinement to address a topical pain point.

It's just like privacy and VCR rentals.

The car dealers in particular lost the "lobbying vs. public opinion" battle, but the other constituent business lobbies remain protected.

What the junk fees actually are must be specifically stated. That's why it won't work for all types of products

For the last couple of new cars that I bought, I emailed the "internet sales manager" at three local dealers and asked for a quote. I bought the car from the dealer with the lowest quote. I paid the quoted amount. This has been the suggested way to buy cars for like 20 years. I've not bought a new car in a while. Would this approach somehow break down now?

I think it depends on the state you're in and the inventory of the car you're buying. Some states have already implemented strong consumer protections that would have encouraged this style of transaction and eliminate many of the mechanisms where it could go wrong.

Further, in the last two years there have been a strong demand and low supply for vehicles. Many dealerships were selling out of cars months before they were even delivered - meaning they're bought sight unseen. Finally they get marked-up 10% or more. So even the cheapest bid is still well over the sales price established by the manufacturer.

Source: Bought a car in 2021, did a lot of research.

Supply is low. Why would the dealer even reply to you when they sell their entire allotment instantly and for way over book?

Well, why wouldn’t they reply with $(way over book)+1?

Because they are people with high cognitive load in their day jobs, not automated auctioning algorithms.

I've done the same in the past certainly. With the relative paucity of new cars available on the market due to supply chain issues, getting an actual out the door quote with real numbers without being in the dealership has been a lot harder for the past year. It's easing up a little bit as demand softens and more supply becomes available.

I'll try to keep my 2004 on the road for a couple more years, and cross my fingers that this supply crunch gets resolved soon.

That's where I'm at. Was thinking about buying a new car in 2020, and then... yeah. Just riding it out until late 2023 or early 2024 in my projections.

It doesn't look like things will improve markedly in 2023.

On the upside, maybe my next vehicle will indeed be an EV.

That approach would break down now if none of the local dealers has the car you want in stock and has already pre-sold all of the inventory they ordered. It really depends on where you're located and which model you want to buy. Good luck getting something like a Bronco.

I was indeed informed that they didn't have my car in stock.

I bought a car in-person in 2020, and tried a "get a quote emailed" search earlier this year. 100% prefer the in-person experience.

Response to my online quote request came back with "we don't have any of that model/year in stock" and then thus far, 15-20 marketing follow-up emails trying to sell me other cars, following up on my experience, etc, in addition of course to the modern marketing "guilt trip" emails ("Hi chucksmash, I sent you an email the other day with a few other models you might be interested in but never heard back, hope everything is okay, please let me know" 3x times). When all I did was click an "email me a quote" button because the web page didn't show a price.

Adding insult to injury, the page for unsubscribing cannot process a "+" in an email address.

At least when I walk into a showroom I can also walk out. Giving anybody your email address in 2022 is basically subscribing to CatFacts.

I did indeed get both emails and calls about other models available. Still better than wasting time driving to dealerships.

Put your state's AG's email address in the form :-)

I'm sure the SQL query that sees it will be shocked and immediately change its ways.

I'm a developer who works on that (type of) system for a living.

If you receive an automated marketing email from a dealership, they are _legally obligated_ to provide an unsubscribe button. We use SendGrid for that purpose, but I'm not sure who other companies use.

If there isn't an unsubscribe button, or you continue receiving emails after unsubscribing, you should be able to file a complaint with the FTC.

> should be able to file a complaint with the FTC

"should" is the key word. The FTC does not have a complaint form for spam, nor have I been able to find any other published reporting mechanism.

If you do know of such way to report it, please let me know.

I know. I am poking fun at the suggestion that putting someone else’s email in the unsubscribe form would accomplish anything helpful. Obviously, you’d need to contact a human to get a response.

Internet sales is a low-touch, low-margin business. It made sense because the internet sales manager could move higher volume and still make the dealership money. Now that supply is constrained and the dealership has people beating down the doors to buy every can they can get their hands on, they don’t have much reason to play ball. It’s a waste of inventory.

I tried to do the same a year ago. None of the dealers responded with a quote. All of them required me to come in before they would even consider discussing a price.

Dealers have gotten savvy to internet pricing so there isn't as much haggling on price as there used to be. You occassionally find a good deal online only to find out it was a ruse to get you to come in.

Yeah I bought during the covid rush. Every vehicle I wanted was sold the next day after it listed. Finally I just found one I wanted, brought a certified check to the dealership for the exact asking price, and paid them on the spot It was the only way I could get anything at all. Even had one dealership refuse my check ready to hand over because "some other guy was already on the way to look at it."

Dealership literally gave no fucks, if you didn't buy it someone else would hours later. If you brought the full amount in cash you'd probably barely get a 'meh' out of a salesman. They could literally sleep all day, wait for a bundle of cash on their lap and wake up at the end of the day with big commission, and still make out like a bandit.

They don't even want the cash anymore. I spotted a SUV at a good discount. Called in to verify the price, "yes, thats the price." Went to the dealership and hello that price is only available with dealer financing. The car was $1000 more if you came with check in hand. So I played their game, I financed it to keep the discount. Then I payed the balance a week later.

My credit score dropped 60 points because of it! LOL.

> My credit score dropped 60 points because of it! LOL.

Sorry, not sure I understand. Does that mean your score got worse because you paid early?

Yes, when you pay off a car loan the bank closes the account and your available credit line goes down as well. So your drop in credit age and credit line makes your credit score to go down.

I did this in 2017 and it worked great, but the pandemic broke this for many dealerships. With both new and used inventory being so tight they can often sell the car the day it rolls off the truck for MSRP or even more with zero effort. The US is still at least 1-2 million vehicles per year behind replacement and population growth, let alone the backlog from the past two years. The knock-on effect has also dramatically shrunk the used market which causes a feedback loop with the new car market.

Parts shortages are just now clearing up so even in a recession situation it may take a year or two to clear up the backlog and get back to stable inventory levels. As that happens dealerships will go back to being flexible and working to make their sales.

FWIW: our current vehicle is a Tesla. I put an order in on the website, got a simple quote with about 5 optional extras I could click on or not. Waited 3-4 months and the vehicle arrived as described for the quoted price. In other words a completely normal buying experience with no stress or question marks. The one time I needed service I scheduled it in the app with pictures, they quoted me, then a tech showed up and did the work at my house for the price quoted.

I will NEVER EVER go back to the dealership "experience".

One of the chair dissented on these rules: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/P204800MotorVeh...

Says these rules will stifle innovation and some car makers are doing direct sales so rule is not really needed.

"Some people are not doing it anymore" is a ridiculous reason to not-ban something that absolutely should be banned.

We don't need to make murder illegal anymore because some people are not doing it.

No surprise based on the bio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_S._Wilson

It's unclear to me as to whether "Require full upfront disclosure of costs and conditions" also applies to subscription services, which is something that I'd really like transparency in.

Yes. See § 463.5(b)(3)

Today, car ownership is a horrible value proposition. The car lobby has been all too successful in making America car-centric, which is a shame, because cars are great, but they aren't the only form of transportation out there.

I've been car-free for at least five years. To be fair, I live in a city that is friendly towards alternate transportation. I bike or use my own electric scooter. I plan ahead and book a rental when I know I'll need a car. So far it's been cheaper than owning, and has saved me thousands of dollars.

It's these sorts of shenanigans that I'm glad I don't have to deal with. Paying outrageous amounts for insurance is another. Not to mention parking headaches, the constant threat of high-speed, potentially fatal, accidents, or expensive maintenance.

> I live in a city that is friendly towards alternate transportation

Good for you. Most of us don't; that's why we buy cars.

>Today, car ownership is a horrible value proposition

Owning a car was literally the only asset I had that appreciated from 2020-2022. Everything else got inflated to hell or burst in the stock crash. My new vehicle was worth more with 20k on the dash than before I drove it off the lot.

it's completely worthless value though, you can sell the car now... and then what? buy a car that's also appreciated a similar amount

if you continue using the car, the price will come back down before end of life

I could say that about literally anything. A house, a shoe, a radio, a soldering iron, a phone. Everything goes to zero sooner or later. My retirement plan includes selling off the car and moving to south east asia where I'll buy a 125cc moped, so I definitely plan to "cash out" sooner or later and not for another car.

I'm guessing you don't have a family? I easily went without a car when single living in SF. Now with a house and kids, two cars are used daily.

hoo boy if you car owners think youre getting screwed in the recession, its been like this for motorcycles for about 30 years. "oh we just sold it" "oh that ones not on our lot" "the price is only for financing."

I once had a dealer advertise a two year old but new Yamaha, on paper, for six grand less than the wheelbarrow of fees that showed up after I asked for a quote in person. The "documentation" meeting was nearly an hour of upsells for special wax, special accessories, "racing nitrogen" in the tires on a touring bike, a 3000 mile care package, you name it. and each "document" was literally trying to get me to sign an agreement to purchase until the very end where I signed the receipt and state title forms.

> "oh we just sold it"

Damn. This is exactly what happened to me when I bought my current car a few years ago. I found it used on the dealer website, it had everything I wanted and had <20k miles. I setup an appointment to see it on a friday, called thursday night just to make sure, "oh we just sold it, but we have a new one you can look at." I never even considered that they could just be lying.

Oh well, lesson learned I guess. It's paid off now, but I am looking at upgrading, and I'm gonna assume everything anyone at the dealership says is a lie until I see paperwork.

Get back at them by going through the whole process, but right when they want to sign the actual paperwork, get up and leave. Tease them by getting so close to a deal, and then just bounce. Tell them you've changed your mind, fake a text/call requiring you now, etc. The will fall over themselves to not let the sale slip away with the price of the car suddenly able to come down to make it happen.

FTC document: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/07/13/2022-14...

One thing that still confuses me is that brokers/agents are very common, or practically a requirement, in other areas but not at all in vehicle shopping. I would definitely pay a handsome fee to a broker to just absorb all the shopping/haggling pain, to cut through all the BS, on my behalf.

I have tried this once with one of the very few brokers I could find, and it was definitely better but it was obvious there were several areas of the experience that could be massively improved. I chalked it up at the time to a lack of competition between brokers, since there really aren’t many.

Rather then adding brokers, wouldn't it make more sense to just get rid of dealers and have cars sold at fixed prices?

If we could redirect our populism away from aggressive handouts and towards consumer protections, that could be a party I'd consider supporting. This is a great move.

A common complaint is that these (U.S) regulatory agencies are too removed from the legislative/democratic process.

But a quick search for “FTC” suggests this might be an agency I’m interested in supporting.

But how does one go about doing so? How does one go about providing some sort of support to a one-or-more level removed regulatory agency?

When I first came to America, I realized the biggest myth is that people believe it is a capitalist nation with free markets.

It is not. Not by a long shot.

From buying a car to getting medical treatment, America has a very UNIQUE template of the way people think, talk, behave and deal with each industry that is radically different from the rest of the world.

“Healthcare”?: They actually mean “Insurance”. The term has nothing to do with medicine, treatment, personal care or well being, but simply refers to this massive series of legislation over the decades that has enshrined government protection against competition in free markets leading to the extreme inefficiencies driving up prices.

“Dealerships”?: They mean Govt protected localized monopolies with the mandate to abuse said market power against any known free market ideal.

Energy Markets: Same story. Try building a transmission line, nuclear plant or any energy infrastructure in America and you’ll be lucky if you only go bankrupt and lose everything financially. Entities with the innovative courage to attempt such projects have terrible outcomes.

“Housing”: This continues to amaze me with how selective, arbitrary, corrupt and inefficient permits, zoning and all the other functions run by local governments actually are. Take a region as prominent as the SF Bay Area and regardless of your position, everyone likely has a strong opinion on inefficiencies in the market and how they don’t really need to persist in a free market.

In short, the biggest opportunity right now is a technological revolution in government and a challenge to the traditional form of local government that has proven so ineffective in a highly networked society.

This will never happen though because of the inherent self interest of the present structure in keeping things the way they are.

How about ban mandatory arbitration when buying a new car. Now that would actually cause dealerships to think twice before screwing over customers.

I'm having our third kid in December and we need a bigger car.

No idea what to do. Wait? Used are the same price as new.

I bought a new car recently that there was very little haggle room on but at least no markup (other than the doc fee, etc.) Also took 6 weeks. But I did get a $15K trade-in on a 75K mile, 11 yo car with visible body damage. I was shocked. That must suggest something about used car prices.

The dealer I bought my 2018 Toyota from has been hassling me for the last couple of years trying to buy it back. Only recently have they backed off.

Is there a reasonable chance that the vehicle you want will be ready by then? In your shoes I'd try to place the order. Otherwise I'd get something a few years old (2018+). In 24 months it'll be ridiculously messy anyways, and I think a 20k mile difference is negligible these days.

> In 24 months it'll be ridiculously messy anyways, and I think a 20k mile difference is negligible these days.

Is something predicted to happen in 24 months, or do you just mean that we don't know and can't reasonably predict it?

I'm saying that children are very messy, so no need to worry about a car looking new.

> I'm saying that children are very messy, so no need to worry about a car looking new.

Oh, that makes more sense. I thought that, in "In 24 months it will be ridiculously messy", 'it' referred to the state of the car-buying market, rather than to a car itself.

I think they're referring to 3 kids making a mess of any car given 24 months.

If you can afford to risk $250 (non-refundable order fee), then put in an order for a Model Y. At least to have the option. Then go test drive one. Don’t brush this idea off without doing an actual test drive. Not a ride. A drive. Orders put in now have delivery as soon as December.

Cast a wide net using the dealerships' Internet Sales desk ONLY and expect your search to take longer than pre-COVID times. You might be able to find the car you want at a reasonable price... a few hundred miles away. And don't be afraid to walk if the dealership tries any shenanigans when you show up. If they know you drove X hours to get there, they may try to leverage that information.

Be patient. There's about to be a glut of available vehicles [1] in the near future. The boat market is also showing the same signs.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/gen-z-millennials-...

Another article about glut of available boats.

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2022/09/worlds-largest-cruise-shi...

US new car sales are still more than 2,000,000 fewer per year than pre-pandemic (about a 12% drop) [1], mostly because of restricted supply. A less than .5 percentage point change in default rates is not nearly enough to close this gap.

[1] https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/usa-auto-industry-total-sales-...

Used car prices have been dropping a lot recently. Like almost 1% each week in the wholesale market over the last 6-8 weeks.

This YouTube channel discusses it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb8H8sTNiRc

Prices are still too expensive on used cars, but the prices are getting better and likely will continue.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com