This is illegal in many states because LOL CAR DEALERS
The real lol is for a system where terrible legislators and terrible legislation can be VERY obviously bought-and-paid-for and it’s just like “welp”.
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Dealerships are a ridiculous racket. I am sure they would still have their place but to have their entire business model protected by laws is just lol monopolistic bullshit. And of course car salesmen tend to skew hard to the political right. Everyone is a free market republican until the government stops protecting you from competition.
I just had to buy a used car. We had been a one car family for about the last 4 years, as I can usually get a company car from work for commuting if one is available. And that hasn’t been an issue since I"ve been working from home about 80% of the time since 2020. On the couple rare occasions I’ve had to go in and didn’t have access to a company car, my wife knows she has to drive me. But with her going back to work, and car usage being slightly more difficult to come by, I had to do something.
I just wanted the cheapest piece of shit I could find that I felt was reliable enough to make the 20 mile round trip approximately once per month. My wife wanted a minivan for the rare occasions we need a 6 seat vehicle. So I am now the proud owner of a 2014 Town & Country that I paid $3500 for. It has 192k miles on it, nearly bald tires, an airbag light and a brake light. It had a cracked windshield that was in pretty rough shape but I got that fixed for $250. It passed the initial smell test of not breaking down or making other objectionable noises. during a 15 minute test drive, so fingers crossed.
Buying a used car is a bit of crap shoot. There’s no way to inspect everything or ever be entirely sure it’s not going to explode in 5 days. As long as it rides OK, and doesn’t have any obvious noises coming from critical components like steering, brakes, engine, transmission, that’s probably as good as you’re going to get. Trust your gut, if something seems off, walk away.
That is what they ended up doing for no charge when I took it in for an oil change. It was gone when the service was done.
Did you buy this from a desperate and/or dumb seller? Assuming it doesn’t have much rust and the drivetrain seems solid, it sounds like the seller could’ve thrown a grand into the car and then sold it for more like 6K+.
Bought it from a dealer actually. I had previously called them about an equally shitty looking minivan but they decided that one wasn’t even roadworthy, but would call me if any more shitboxes showed up. One did. There’s a chunk of damage on the passenger side sliding door where it got sideswiped or something, but the door still works. The driver side slider door struggles to close on its own though.
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If there’s anything the SCOTUS thread on UP taught me, it’s at least take care of the tires.
200k miles on a minivan is worth $6k?
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Not pre-COVID, but now, the way new car prices have skyrocketed, why not?
Given that additional body damage, it sounds like it’s probably a fair deal.
Especially the drive tires. The front ones were in worse shape than the rears, so I wanted to rotate them, but it’s got those weird lugnuts that you need a special tool to take off so that people don’t steal your rims. I never got around to it and now the car is in the parking lot at work, hopefully not to be driven anytime soon, other than occasional start to keep the battery fresh.
The key should be in the vehicle. Either way though I’d recommend replacing these whenever you get a chance. The special tool you need to take them off is a hammer. It’s not stopping any thieves. 10 year old minivan wheels aren’t high theft items anyway I don’t think.
Yeah could be, just sounded high. But I haven’t bought a minivan post covid.
The used car market is coming down a bit I think. I believe there was a time a year or so ago when any car that ran and didn’t need major work was at least 5k.
I discovered I absolutely have to test drive now.
I swear the inside of cars are getting smaller and smaller every year. I literally couldnt fit properly in 80% of the new cars I test drove a couple of years back.
My theory is they are putting more care between driver and the outside for safety. That cuts the space.
Wheel locks are one of the common dealer scams.
I insisted on NOT taking the free locking lug nuts when I got my Subaru. “But they are already on the car!”, “Take em off”. Massive pain in the ass when I get a flat tire in a blizzrd, and can’t find my wheel key? No thanks. I’ll take my chances with these sweet sweet highly coveted wheels getting stolen.
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Yeah, that’s the scam. They preinstall this stuff and pretend to upsell you, then say too bad it’s already on the car when you decline it. The other scam that’s out of control are the escalating “dealer document fees” which is pure revenue for the dealership that they get to tack on at the end. It allows them to advertise falsely low prices and remove some revenue from the commission pool since doc fees don’t go to sales.
The fact that it’s tacked on at the end either as a line item next to or bundled with taxes, title, and registration gives the illusion that it’s somehow required by or collected by the state. If you ask questions, they’ll usually lie and say the state legally requires them to charge it. It has nothing to do with the state other than sometimes there’s a maximum set by law and a requirement that they charge every user the same amount if they decide to charge this fee. The thing to know is that you’ll never get the doc fee removed, so you have to negotiate it off the price of the car.
States vary significantly in maximum doc fee allowed, but accurate information is tricky to find. I was researching this a while back and noticed that most of the search hits are content farms repackaging outdated information. Most of the states closest to me geographically have higher doc fees than nearly all of these sites claim, but to give some indication of the spread, California seems to be among the lowest with maximum fees < $100 while Florida (no cap by law) is the highest with dealers often charging around $1,000.
Doc fee is older than I am and has always been a huge scam. I don’t think I’ve paid one in my last few car purchases. At least not directly (just checked my last one and it wasn’t even a line item). All my negotiating is done online and I just negotiate the out the door price. So even if they charged it, it would be irrelevant.
