You know how when you go to buy a bed, the list price is never what you pay? There’s always all of those “extras”, many of which aren’t negotiable – their specific mattress pad cover that is extremely expensive and required in order to maintain their warranty, the extra mattress pad, delivery, hauling fees, expediting fees so it arrives before a month from now.

There are also junk fees built into the car buying experience. This summer when my family was replacing our 1999 (not a typo) Ford Taurus with a new vehicle that due to the current supply chain we’d special ordered exactly to our desired specifications, the “signing” process took a couple of hours, included multiple additional sales people, and they tried to talk us into extra products and warranties.

Thankfully there’s now the FTC’s CARS Rule, also known as the “Combating Auto Retail Scams” trade regulation rule. This rule will require dealers to post the “offering price”, the cost anyone can pay to drive a car off the lot as their own.

“When Americans set out to buy a car, they’re routinely hit with unexpected and unnecessary fees that dealers extract just because they can,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The CARS Rule will prohibit exploitative junk fees in the car-buying process, saving people time and money and protecting honest dealers.”

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/12/ftc-announces-cars-rule-fight-scams-vehicle-shopping

It will also prohibit bait-and-switch tactics.

The new CARS rule will go into effect July 30, 2024.