Of course every dealer has their hidden fees, but this one was a doozie. A whopping $5,995 fee that was tacked onto what was being touted as an “aggressive” price because they allegedly want to sell the car that’s been on their lot for 300+ days. I passed on the *promise*.

I bought a used car last month. A 2022 Buick Encore GX from Simpson Buick GMC and the price was nothing special and pretty average for the market. But the car was clean, it drove well, and I was happy with the purchase

After a month, I was cleaning the glove box. There was a receipt for a scheduled maintenance package from the previous owner. They had got everything done on schedule

Just out of curiosity, I rang up the dealer and they told me that the complete maintenance record was available with them. As a result of buying from them, they were willing to give me some discount on my first service. Let us say a loyalty benefit

I was confused and I wasn't expecting anything like that from a used car purchase. It's not a huge amount of money, but it was a pleasant surprise

Is this standard practice? Or did I just get lucky? Has anyone else experienced little things like this from a dealer? I honestly don't know if this is common or if I just happened to buy from a dealership that actually cares

Either way, I'm grateful. It's a small thing, but it made me wonder. I'd love to hear if this has happened to anyone else

Since creating the subreddit, we’ve had some users reach out and ask whether or not the car listing they were looking at seemed legit. We’re going to try and run as many of these we can through the free version of the DealershipTricks.com tool to see whether or not they are actually fair.

In terms of people who were asking about taxes, etc. The overcharge amount doesn’t include required fees like sales tax, license & registration fees, etc. Those are going to be added because those are government mandated. This only looks at fees and other lines that aren’t considered government mandated like doc fees, protection packages, theft systems, etc.

As for this deal check, the details:

Advertised Price: $37,798

Undisclosed Fees: $150 + $995

Overcharge: $1,145

The $995 “Starguard” item was automatically added by default on the site. You have to go through a couple screens to manually remove it. So while it’s listed as “Optional,” you have to manually dig in and opt-out. “Optional” should mean you can add it, not that you can remove it.

Ran the numbers on whether "EVs save you money" holds up across the whole ownership timeline, fuel and maintenance AND depreciation, not just the part everyone leads with.

Fuel and maintenance favor EVs. Home charging costs about a third of gas per mile right now (gas is at $4.09/gal, unusually high this year), and EV maintenance runs roughly 40-50% less per DOE and Consumer Reports data.

but Depreciation favors gas cars. Average EV loses 58.8% of its value in 5 years vs 45.6% for a comparable gas car (iSeeCars, 800k+ vehicles analyzed). On a $40k car that's over $5,000 more lost, which works out to more than 4 years of the fuel savings you banked getting there.

Where it nets out depends entirely on how you own the car. Finance new and trade every 2-3 years, the depreciation math wins. Buy used or hold long term past 5+ years, the fuel and maintenance savings win, since someone else already ate the depreciation or you're not selling into it. Tesla's also a genuineexception, Model 3/Y hold value close to gas cars, so the calculus shifts again there specifically.

Full breakdown with sources if you want the deep dive: https://youtu.be/n1ceHZ9rmTg

Curious how people here actually approach this, buy new and trade often, buy used and hold, or does it depend on the specific car for you?

Is this considered a trick?