5 Tricks Car Dealers Use to Take Your Money

On a TV commercial the dealer might use type that is 6.5 points—that's the smallest print they're allowed to use by law, and it's this small ! They can roll 400 words across the screen every four seconds. Just try keeping up. Moreover, monthly payment quotes exclude taxes, luxury taxes in the case of a car that costs more than $40,000, and what is called the acquisition fee. And ever try to understand the fast-talker on a radio commercial when he reads the disclaimer?

But it's even more serious than that. Weiss claims he knows car dealers that routinely use illegal advertising come-ons. How do they get away with it? Because the fines the dealer pays as a matter of course are a small inconvenience compared to the profits they earn from unsuspecting consumers who see the ads and come in ready to swallow the bait.

Weiss's book, Have I Got a Deal for You! How to Buy or Lease Any Car Without Getting Run Over, is a hard-hitting exposé on how car dealers take advantage of consumers and how consumers can fight back. The book is no longer in print, but we highly recommend you try to get a copy online or at your library and read it before your next trip to the car dealership.

Dealer Trick #5: Monkeying around with the monthly payment.

A salesman might tell you the monthly payment on your car is $250 when it should be $220. He may then try to sell you undercoating, rust-proofing, and an alarm system, which would normally be $30 a month extra, but "because you're my friend," he will throw them in for only $10 a month. You walk out happy—with a payment of $260, $10 a month more than the total package would have cost. You've just been ripped off almost $500 on a four-year loan.

One way around this is to get your own financing, through your bank or, better yet, pay cash!

Another scam: In undercover investigations Weiss has conducted for television news, he has found dealers packing life and disability insurance into the monthly car payments. This is an easy one: Don't! You should buy life and disability insurance on your own, never through a car dealer.

So there you have 5 ways dealers try to take money out of your pocket. For some strategies to take back control of the car-buying process, we recommend you check out our 10 Rules to Car Buying.