If you’re lucky enough to have purchased a new vehicle in your life, you’ve almost certainly come across the annoying reality of the “destination fee.” These fees are different between manufacturers and may even be called something else entirely, but the impact is always the same. You pay this fee on top of the selling price of the vehicle. If a dealer wants to throw you a bone, maybe you can get the fee waived. But the fee is always there.
Matt wrote a Morning Dump about the secret way automakers are making you pay for tariffs, and one of the stories was how destination fees are basically bogus ways to get more money from customers. I love V10omous’ alternative:
You should have the legal right to pick your car up at the factory or port of entry and pay $0 destination (if domestic) or reduced destination (if foreign).
The fact that no one allows this (Corvette museum delivery still requires destination for example) puts proof to the lie of what that fee really is.
Spikedlemon:
It’s time they learnt from cereal box companies.
Just make the box slightly smaller, depth-wise, and it doesn’t change the shelf-appeal despite having 20% less inside it.
Cut out some of that sound insulation for the passengers, have even-worse OEM tires, move the sunroof further up the option-chain, raise prices of higher volume trim models but leave the base (the sticker-model) lower…
What’s the automotive equivalent of adding sawdust to food?
Whatever Stellantis does.
The end-of-the-week Shitbox Showdown from Mark included a Nissan Altima, a Ford Ranger, a Kia Spectra, and a Chevrolet Aveo. StillNotATony has a wild idea:
Altima.
I’d like to conduct a science experiment: is the origin of Big Altima Energy car based or driver based?
Hardibro seems like a pretty even keeled type of guy. If, after say, six months of Matt driving the Altima, it’s riding on at least one space saver spare, the tags are expired, has one or more bumper caps hanging off or missing altogether, and is perpetually doing 90 while swerving across multiple lanes of traffic, we’ll know it’s the car.
However, if it’s in pretty much the same condition and Matt’s driving record is reasonably unblemished, we’ll know it’s the driver.
Yeah, science, bitch!!!
Grey alien in a beige sedan:
Much like hopping in a 1980s Camaro and instantly growing a mullet, hopping into any year Altima turns you into a police-fleeing heathen before you even turn the key.
Alpinab7:
Every time a mullet reaches shoulder length, an angel gets its jean jacket.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
(Top graphic: GM)
Do motorcycle or powersports dealers have this fee? I ask because I’ve never bought one, but have worked in the bicycle industry for decades and the shop pays the delivery fee and eats it. Pre-covid, if the shop ordered enough bikes then there was sometimes a deal where the distributor would split or waive the freight, but now that’s pretty much gone. Sometimes it’s $40-75 or more per bike box. Which really adds up when you need over 100 of them and your margins are already microscopic.
Yes, manufacturers post a destination fee on their websites. Many dealers then add hundreds of dollars in “set-up” fees to uncrate the bike. Then there are “doc fees” to do the registration paperwork, and then finally taxes and the actual cost of title, plate and registration. Some dealers might add $2k in fees.
Others sell on volume and change only a few hundred. My local dealer claims to be the highest volume Honda dealer in the USA and does a lot of internet sales. They charged me only the actual cost of taxes, title, and registration when I bought a bike from them.
Thanks, I was curious about that. I’ve unboxed and “set-up” thousands of bikes and never charged a fee at the shop. The bicycle industry seems to be all about who can lose money the least. It takes a good hour to 2 hours to properly set up a bike from the factory. The box stores pay the guy who assemble the BBQ a “per peice rate” so they do it in about 15 minutes. No safety checks there!
The dealers in my area LOVE to remove the destination fee from their MSRP calculation, and then add it back as a dealer fee. I walked out of multiple dealerships and have completely written off 2 dealership groups do to this. I feel lits always been a scam and then scammy dealers get their add on to it too.
Example of this is:
If you questioned them, they always loved saying “the MSRP doesn’t include the destination cost” and would be very bold in lying to you even if you pointed it out on the window sticker that it does….
Bomnin dealerships here in South FL love to advertise the absolute lowest possible price and then tack on all the fees. And then when you reach a deal, you agree to it, only to have the finance office add on a $1k fee for something else and may or may not tell you about it. If they do tell you or you notice, they state that sales must have just forgotten it.
I bought a 1974 Honda CB200 motorcycle off of ebay for $600, and I didn’t realize it was from a sleazy car dealer. They tried to add a $600 “dealer fee” to a $600 motorcycle with no title. Like fuck all the way off with that shit.
If only America would adopt a full price model.
So that a $5 product actually can be purchased for $5. Not $5 plus tax, fees, and such.
Way back when I was a kid,, my mom had a Florist that did that. Sort of. I remember that we sold a rose in a small vase for $5 after tax.
Only in the first week, we got tax guys raising hell about us not collecting sales taxes because the way we say “$5 after tax” and they went through our store with a microscope looking for things they could ding us for.
So, we changed the price to $4.81. We got people asking every day “Why are your prices so weird?”
It was amazing how the tax people couldn’t understand “it’s actually $4.81 and you get 19 cents so the customer pays $5” and the costumers would say “I don’t want to pay $4.81 why don’t you charge $5 like a normal business?”
This tax after the price is so built into our culture. Nobody could figure out how cooking the tax into the final price was done.
Yet another think to like about Europe.
Maths is hard!
It’s not really the math, its a culture thing. We are so used to thinking “+ tax” it feels weird to not think that. “Daddy can I get a $1 for a candy bar?” “Ok, but you need a $1.10 to cover the tax.” I’ve said that to a 3 year old and now that my son is over 30, the idea that you need extra cash to get something is the way he’s thought for 27 years. Just like it’s been the way I think for 50+. When I’ve been in Europe, I automatically will pull out 60 Euros to pay for something that is marked 50 because I just don’t think that the price includes tax.
For many it is – which is one more reason to require companies to advertise the complete price including all taxes and fees. It is the norm around the world and works just fine. If you want to know how much the tax was it is right there on the receipt.
Where the hell were you that there was a 25% tax on florists?
Maths is hard
Yep, it was 4% then it went up to 5.5% or something and we had to cut prices on our bud vases.
Humans can be so stupid…
Yes, the only thing that matters is OTD price and anything else is besides state required taxes is just an opportunity for dealers to profit off of your confusion.
Make offers that include EVERYTHING but taxes and refuse their attempts to add fees later. WALK OUT if they screw around. The power of leaving is always underestimated.
Being from the UK, and having worked and travelled all over the world, the one constant thing of being in the US is that every single purchase feels like I’m being ripped off.
The price you see isn’t the price you pay, not just for complex things like a house or a car, but for every tiny little thing.
No one else does it like that.
Peak capitalism.
Just watch out for the car makers changing the “destination fee” to a “final destination fee”. You don’t want to pay that one.
I assume this involves your new car being delivered on a logging truck.
Oh, you can evade it once, but for the next two hours you really gotta watch your back.
“You should have the legal right to pick your car up at the factory or port of entry and pay $0 destination (if domestic) or reduced destination (if foreign).”
For imports there is more to putting it on the boat and bringing it halfway across the planet.
When it arrives, the importer removes exterior protective coatings, styrofoam shipping bumpers, etc from the exterior and adds equipment which was not installed at the factory – such as spoilers, hubcaps, floor mats, front license plate frames – before the cars are put on trucks and rail cars to be delivered to your local dealer.
It’s a fascinating process.
Which would make for a great article.
Or Three.
Someone should set up an appointment to meet the nice folks at Mercedes-Benz Predelivery/Technical Center/Classic Center in Long Beach – or Porsche’s VPC/Delivery Experience Center at LAX on Century Blvd – or BMW’s VPC center in Port Hueneme near Oxnard…
Don’t the European manufacturers still offer factory delivery? My uncle picked up a 944 turbo in Stuttgart, and a Mercedes diesel in Sindelfingen back in the 70s.
Mercedes-Benz eliminated European delivery in 2020.
Audi eliminated European delivery in 2018.
Porsche charges $2000 for factory delivery in Europe or for delivery to one of their US delivery/experience centers in LA or Atlanta.
BMW offers delivery in South Carolina or Germany – depending on where the car is built – for @$900
Volvo still offers free European Delivery and factory tours for cars built in Sweden.
Porsche has jacked the price to $2500 as of last year. Wankers. It was free when I almost ordered a Cayman in 2019.
BMW also nuked European Delivery in 2020, and as far as I know, and I am pretty confident I would know as BMWCCA would be shouting it from the rafters, it has not come back in any way for Americans. Performance Center Delivery in SC is still available for all vehicles, and it is *free*. It has always been free.
https://bmwperformancecenter.com/deliveryfaq
I did European Delivery twice, in 2011 for my 328i wagon I still have, and in 2015 for a 2016 M235i, and I was supposed to pick up the M235i in SC when it got to the US. They were perfectly happy to combine both on the same car. I had to cancel that because my car was delayed being re-delivered while they fixed some minor damage I did to it while I had it in Europe (chipped the air damn on a rock in Rome, and it got door dinged in the Porsche Museum parking garage – go figure). By the time the car was ready, work had gotten too busy for me to take the time off to go down to SC and drive it home to Maine in the timeframe they required me to do it. So I just had it delivered to my local dealership.
The BEST thing about Performance Center Delivery is that you can buy the car from ANY dealer in the country, no matter where you live. I had my tiny local dealer in Maine competing for the order with high-volume dealers in Texas and California – and got a fantastic price on it as a result between the lower MSRP for ED and really good dealer discount. About $6K off the wagon and a whopping $12K off the coupe including some additional BMW incentives.
Being from Maine, an extra benefit of Euro Delivery was that you didn’t get a discount on the car from BMW, it actually had a lower MSRP and corresponding lower invoice price to your dealer. So that means I have paid slightly less excise tax in Maine on those cars every year. Maine excise tax being based on the full original MSRP – discounts don’t count, though markups get charged tax. Got the BMW Club rebate on both of them too. And two trips of a lifetime.
This is really good to know. I live in Maine and have always been curious about driving a BMW. I love that the excise tax is lower, hah! Brilliant. I’m just not that interested in the current or future BMW offerings. If only I knew about this and had the money 15 years ago…Hello M3.
What about Saab…. Oh never mind
The corvette museum delivery experience is an additional fee above the MSRP (which already includes a delivery fee). To be fair, a nice gentleman spends at least an hour showing you all the features that can be demonstrated w/o moving the car. For even more money, a tech will hold your hand while your screw together the engine that will go in your car.
That seems silly. We just bought a 20 year old C6 a month ago and didn’t need an hour to learn much of anything about it. I’m confident I won’t need a museum tech to hold my hand in my garage as I work on the motor either. They should offer a HDPE session so owners can learn what their cars can really do. After all the appropriate waivers and disclaimers are signed of course.
Heck, VW did that in the 90’s and 2000 when my parents bought their GTI.
Didn’t Jason do a whole tour of Volkswagen’s new port facility in Texas?
A really neat thing was that BMW would fix any damage that happened during your Euro Delivery trip at the port. Though that delayed redelivery of my M235i by about five weeks. And once the car arrives in port, it disappears into a black hole until you suddenly get a call from the dealer that it’s arrived. Took four weeks for my 328i, but nine for my M235i. Both crossed the pond in four weeks from the time I dropped them off in Amsterdam and Paris, respectively. But they replaced the front air damn I chipped on a rock parking in Rome, and the door dings I got on day 2 in the Porsche Museum parking garage. Was just like new when I got it back in Maine.
Of course, they supposedly didn’t do this out of the goodness of their heart, they claimed any repair work done against the insurance you buy as part of the Euro Delivery, which had zero deductible. You got two weeks included with the car, then could buy up to six months in one month increments. Second time I bought an extra month – it wasn’t cheap, something like $400. But getting that stuff fixed made it worth it – and I had to as I had the car in Europe for five weeks. Nine countries and almost 5000 miles. With my mother in tow… First time I dropped the car off after the two weeks, then stayed another week travelling with friends.