7 Reasons Not to Buy
Seven reasons why NOT
to buy a car from a dealership:
Who wants to spend four hours, on average, in the company of people who get a bonus when they take YOU for a ride?
Ever notice how much advertising dealers do in local newspapers? On TV? A single ad can cost over $50,000. Guess who ultimately pays for that.
You used to get some legal protection when you bought a car from a licensed dealer. But more dealers are slipping “arbitration” clauses into the fine print. This means you end up surrendering your constitutional rights when you buy a car from them. If they don’t honor the warranty, or you discover you were cheated, you may have to submit any dispute to the dealer’s own little private kangaroo court. This makes many consumer protection laws meaningless.
When you test drive a car, the dealer may insist on taking your license to “examine.” What he isn’t telling you is that he swipes it and extracts the personal information, then sells your personal profile to third-party marketers.
You used to get a better selection of cars at dealerships. That was before the internet. (But beware: some dealers advertise there too, and some sellers are unloading junkers).
Dealer licensing is unreliable for policing dealers, who are extremely aggressive and politically connected. When was the last time your state’s DMV revoked a big dealer’s license for ripping off the car-buying public?
Bottom line: if you shop carefully, you can usually get a much better deal when you buy from another consumer. If you buy a car that is already used, you also save on depreciation. Make sure they have proper title to the car, and get it inspected by your own trusted technician before you reach any agreement. Today’s cars require sophisticated electronic gear to analyze the trouble codes and other indicators of the car’s condition.
By the way, when a leading newspaper ran an article slightly critical of car dealers, they pulled approximately $1,000,000 worth of advertising from the paper in retaliation. Not that they would resort to heavy-handed tactics to control the news and information you receive about them…
Like to read about someone who is becoming famous for developing an alternative to getting financing from car dealers? Check out Time Magazine’s report about “A Car Salesman You Can Trust”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1218057,00.html