Documentation fee new car

[Mark Rainey]

Buying a new car, got what I think is a decent deal at $49,000, and then dealer adds PA state tax ( $2940 ), new plate and registration costs ( about $100 ) AND thens want to add $500 documentation fee. I say no, and he says I can take care of the registration with the Department of Motor Vehicle myself, but it is a pain in the butt. Does this make sense? It is worth saving $500 to do it myself? Thanks Mark

[Mark Wedel]

This will vary state by state. For some locations (even within a state it can vary), you may end up waiting 2 hours in line to take care of this, in addition to your travel time to/from the location. so if someone is spending $50K+, they may be happy to have the dealer take care of that for them. Some places let you make appointments, so you can at least avoid that 2 hour waiting, and you can probably get the forms on-line to see how complicated they are (the times in past when I dealt with buying a used car, it wasn't hard at all)

But almost certainly it is a money maker for them. At least in CA, I suspect any dealer of reasonable size doesn't even need to leave the office and probably takes them 5 minutes. Now that I think about it, in CA, it might be required they do this because all cars sold are required to have temporary paper plates with unique numbers because too many folks with new cars (and no plates) were in toll lanes or other places. So I'd think to take care of that temp plate, the dealer is already having to provide all the info for registration. No idea if they charge for that, even though one can not opt out of it, or they just include it in the price of the car.

[Thomas McCurnin]

Some vendors will register a car for you for a nominal fee. AAA Auto Club, by way of example, will register your car for free as part of your membership.

[Brian Runau]

Buying a new car, got what I think is a decent deal at $49,000, and then dealer adds PA state tax ( $2940 ), new plate and registration costs ( about $100 ) AND thens want to add $500 documentation fee. I say no, and he says I can take care of the registration with the Department of Motor Vehicle myself, but it is a pain in the butt. Does this make sense? It is worth saving $500 to do it myself? Thanks Mark

Registration is $100 per your statement, I have always thought document fee was just a profit add on? I always negotiate a price that is "all in." No extras or surprises.

[Lisa Starr]

Yep. Just purchased a new car yesterday. We negotiated an "out the door" price, so no surprises, but one of the line items on the paper work is "Documents Fee $465".

[Stephen Tashiro]

Yep. Just purchased a new car yesterday. We negotiated an "out the door" price, so no surprises, but one of the line items on the paper work is "Documents Fee $465".

The topic of documentation in the thread doesn't refer to a service manual for the car, but it's interesting to contemplate what that would cost. I haven't seen hard copy service manuals for cars of recent vintage. I think you'd have to subscribe to an online service. I wonder what that costs.

[Alan Rutherford]

... Some places let you make appointments....

And some places require them, which can be a real surprise if you show up without one like you could just a few years ago.

[Bill Dufour]

I sold my old car to a neighbor girl before covid. The DMV paperwork was done online. I Did not go in. I do not think she did either.
Bill D

[Jim Becker]

Many dealers tag on "Documentation Fees" these days and that's beyond the fees for the registration, etc. They are essentially profit boosters. You can certainly try to refuse them; some will play ball if they want to keep the deal and others will not. In states, these fees are not kosher, AFAIK. Unfortunately, PA is not one of them. BTW, I do all my independent registration work, etc., via AAA. They are an authorized agent and can deal directly with the state on your behalf if you are a member...and there's no fee for members.

[Jerry Bruette]

I was told the "documentation fee" came about after 9/11. Has to do with dealer retaining documentation of the sale because of the Homeland Security Act. For all I know they were blowing smoke somewhere I didn't want it, but I couldn't make the fee go away. And yeah, it's a huge profit as far as I'm concerned.

[Curt Harms]

One of the things Pennsylvania has done well - and there aren't a lot - is design a web site for handling motor vehicle matters. I'd spend a few minutes on https://www.dmv.pa.gov/VEHICLE-SERVICES/Title-Registration/pages/default.aspx to see if you can accomplish what you need there. It might even be cheaper to go to an auto tags place.

[Lee Schierer]

You should be able to do it on line yourself or go to a notary, they ch a rge much less. You do have to pay the tax, even if you are out of state.

[roger wiegand]

if you negotiate the document fee to zero you should have no surprise when some other line in the bill increases by that ~$500. What both you and the dealer should actually care about is the total that you end up paying. How that gets carved up into the various fees and such is really irrelevant-- that part is all just a game.

It's much the same as the endless discussions of people working with contractors who get all bent out of shape because one guy's overhead number is large while another's profit number seems excessive to them, while a third is outraged at paying profit and OH on materials. None of it matters if you can agree on the sum total at the end.

[Brian Elfert]

I am shocked the dealer would even offer to let you register the vehicle yourself to save the $500. Most of the $500 is either profit, or it covers administrative costs for a lot more than just registering the car. The computer systems, labor, and overhead to register a car probably cost the dealer $50 to $100, if that. Maybe even less if they do the registrations online. They are unlikely to make a trip to the DMV more than once or twice a week if they have to actually go in person. The person going to DMV would almost certainly do multiple cars per trip.