My Buying A Car Experience: Normal or Not?

[Philly Brian]

Friday, I bought my 2020 FFE from a major new/used car dealership with many locations and many brands of cars. None of them Fords.  I'll register it here soon. All of my prior purchases were from private sellers or small corner-lot dealers. I was happy to learn that the big guys can handle all of the registration and sales tax stuff and I'd have a license tag before leaving the lot. A huge surprise came when the salesman placed the final numbers in front of me. It was over $10K greater than the list price! Ok let's see. Sales tax, document fee and other small fees - these are all OK. But a warranty I never asked for? Plus two other who-knows-what-they-were charges and 'dealer prep'?  I explained I was looking to buy the car and pay any associated costs but was not interested in any extras. So the warranty and the two 'who-knows' charges came off. This affected the overall sales price, so the sales tax got lowered too. I thought I was in good shape. FYI - they include a no-cost 6-month warranty and there are 5 months left on Ford's bumper-to-bumper so I guess the dealer's warranty is really only a month. I wonder what the other warranty they expected me to pay for covered. 

 

That leaves the dealer prep fee of $1,450. After trimming the other costs off the bill I guess I felt I'd done all that could be done. But $1,450 began to weigh on me.  I went to the web and some sites seemed to feel that this cost can be negotiable too. Too late for me now I guess. 

 

So my regrets are as follows: (1) Not challenging the dealer prep amount.  (2) Not downloading the CarFax report from the dealer's website while I had a chance. (3) Ditto for the Window Sticker. 

 

Anyone have any thoughts on Dealer Prep and what it might have entailed to justify charging ne $1,450? Or is it just and Add-On that dealers add based on, i don't know, what type of watch the buyer is wearing?