Why Dealers GHOST You When You Question Fees (The Real Reason) Kevin Hunter

Why calling out dealer fees is a negotiation mistake. Friends, we recently put up a post on Facebook. It reads, quick question for you car buyers. When was the last time a dealer added fees after you thought the total price was agreed? Never? Once? Every time? Now here's where it gets interesting. One of our viewers, Scott, shared his negotiation story, and it gives us a perfect teaching moment. Amazing Elizabeth jumps in here now to help me lay this out for you. Liz? Hello everyone. Scott received an out-the-door price by email, which, by the way, in California is already a sort of win. Many viewers report they have big struggles with California dealers. Scott cracked through, but still made a blunder that ultimately derailed his efforts. He didn't like the OTD he received because it included $500 for ceramic paint protection and an $85 dock fee. He asked for both to be removed before visiting the dealership. The salesperson said, well, we already cut the ceramic fee in half, and the dock fee is non-negotiable. He said, the vehicle price itself is a fair price. You see that? Fair. Not good or great. Without realizing it, the salesman is admitting there's room for negotiation. Scott replied that he knows all fees are negotiable and would consider coming in if they were removed. And then, he got total silence. What most buyers do wrong. Now listen carefully. Scott made one tactical mistake that you need to avoid. He singled out the line items he didn't like. Our car coaches never do this. But, no surprise here, because this is where most car buyers go sideways. When you call out individual fees, like ceramic coatings, nitrogen-filled tires, protection packages, vint etch, whatever it is that you don't like, you turn the conversation into a fight about products and policy. Dealers are trained to defend their line items. Salespeople are not trained to defend against a single number. So that's why you should never use more feedback than a single number. Just subtract the unwanted expenses and counter the offer with a new bottom line number. It's that simple. Does it make sense? That's the difference between a car buyer lacking dealership experience and our car coach who knows how they think and operate. Here's why line item negotiation fails. When you say, remove the ceramic, remove the dock fee, you're attacking their structure. It insults them, and like any human being, they don't like that. And then the attack on structure triggers resistance. The salesperson immediately shifts from, let's sell a car, to, let me defend our product or policy. Because you have to be honest, someone's getting a payday on that line item. Now you're negotiating pride and process and paycheck instead of negotiating the price. Now, in order to get the price you wanted, you have to convince the salesman that he is wrong. And that, my friend, is a losing battlefield. So here's what our coaches do instead. Our car coaches never argue about single line items. Never. If the vehicle price is fair, we simply subtract the junk fees out of the total and present one clean counter offer. Just one number. One bottom line number. No explanation. No debate. No breakdown. Just, here's my out-the-door offer for this amount of money. That's it. Nothing more. Because dealers sell cars based on numbers, not based on explanations. When you pick a fight with a dealer over line items, they just give you what this dealer gave Scott. Silence. Here's the psychology behind this. If you isolate a fee, they get mad and start defending it. If you present a total number, they have to sit back and evaluate it. Those are two completely different mental processes. Evaluation is calm and logical. Defense is emotional and done without a real reason. We want evaluation. You want evaluation if you're going to succeed with this on your own. So here's what Scott can still do. And this is the good news. It's not too late for Scott. Scott can go back to that dealership and say, I'm prepared to move forward at X number of dollars out the door. Let me know if that works. No mention of ceramic. No mention of dog fee. No debate. Just send one number. If they need the deal, especially as we approach month end, they will either take it or counter it. If they counter, which they might, you'll be much closer to the number you're looking for. If that doesn't satisfy you, counter their counter offer. As you get deeper into the negotiation, make it clear that you are ready to do business if they earn it by working with you. But now the conversation is about closing the car deal, not about defending their product and policy. Here's why the month end matters. As we move toward the end of the month, dealerships start looking at their volume bonuses. The manufacturer has stair-step incentives. The salesperson is counting how many units he sold. And the fact that this guy might be complaining to his management about not being able to get this deal done. It also impacts manager performance numbers. Sometimes one unit makes all the difference in the world. And when that happens, and it's your deal on the table, they take deals that they don't love. They make deals with customers they don't agree with. But only if you've presented it as cleanly as we've explained. Hi, Kevin Hunter here. Now listen, some of you actually enjoy the dealer process. You like negotiating. You like understanding dealer tactics. You're a do-it-yourselfer. And that's totally fine with us. For more than a decade, we've provided free tools, templates, and education. And we're not stopping anytime soon. But some of you, you don't enjoy it at all. You don't want to battle over OTD pricing. You don't want to structure a trade properly. You don't want to manage the finance office. If that's you, our car buying team handles this nationwide. New vehicles, used vehicles, leases, factory orders, and trade-ins. We obtain written out-the-door quotes. We structure and manage the negotiations. We oversee documentation from start to finish. And when you walk into a finance office, you're not alone. You have a quarterback guiding you through the process. You remain the decision maker. We handle the structure and eliminate the headaches for you. If that sounds like the kind of car buying that you prefer, you can learn more about our hassle-free car buying service at thehomeworkguy.com. Now, let's get back to the show. The bigger lesson to be learned here, this is bigger than ceramic coating. This is about negotiation discipline. Most buyers negotiate emotionally. They react to what they see. But professionals negotiate structurally. We don't react to line items. We control the total. And that is the shift. So here's a summary of common mistakes. The pattern that I see over and over, even with my texting clients, buyers see junk fees. The buyer calls out that junk fee. The dealer defends the junk fee. The buyer digs in. The dealer just disengages. It's a dead deal. All because the negotiation battlefield was poorly chosen. What's funny is that many of you focus so much on the fee details that sometimes when one of our car coaches negotiates a deal for one of our clients, we will hear the customer say, wait a minute, I see that I'm still paying for that fake fee. But when we ask them to send the OTD in question, the discount is many times larger than the fee listed. For example, I received one that showed that their coach had negotiated $5,500 off and their OTD had a line item of a dock fee for $7.99. You don't have to be a math genius to see that it's just been subtracted out and this is exactly how you get it done. When the coach saw the fee on the OTD, he just pushed back with a reduced bottom line number for a better discount and let the dealer present it however they wanted. If you choose to work with us, you might see that too. The dealer wanted to show the $7.99 fee in the deal, but at that point, it didn't matter much in the end. The overall price was correct. The clean method. I want to make sure you don't get confused about this, so let me outline the clean method again. Step number one, first determine whether the vehicle price itself is competitive using third party valuation. If it's good, go to step number two. Step two is subtract any unwanted add-ons from your calculation privately. Keep your math to yourself. Don't share it with the dealership. Step three, send one single out-the-door counter offer number, just a bottom line out-the-door number. Step number four, say we are ready to move forward at that number. That's it. No lectures, no moral arguments, no debate about fairness, just simple math and then let them figure it out on their end. Here's why this works. Dealers are structured around a few things. Gross profit, volume targets, monthly metrics. They do not sit around arguing about ceramic coating. They sit around asking, does this deal work or not? If your number works within their structure, it gets approved. If it doesn't and they see you are in a reasonable ballpark, they counter you. That's how negotiation works, but your counter offer does have to be a reasonable number that they will accept. If you are way off, they might pass on you and ignore you. And I think Scott's experience is something a lot of buyers have gone through. How many of you have called out a fee and then just hit a brick wall with the dealer? If you have, drop it in the comments down below. And Scott, if you try the one number method we are talking about here, I genuinely want to hear what happens. You can even shoot a text to Liz at 701-441-3399 and don't be surprised if I call you afterwards because I would love to hear this story. By now, you should understand that there is a reason our coaches don't negotiate line items. We have tested this across thousands of transactions nationwide. When we get stonewalled, we rethink it and try again. That's what all of you should do if you are doing it on your own. As you now know, when you fight line items directly, you fight policy and ego. When you present that one number, you just negotiate the outcome. You don't win car deals by winning arguments. You win car deals by controlling the structure. So again, send just one number. Make it clear that it's an out-the-door number and then let them decide. And if they need the deal, they're going to take it. If you found this video helpful, give us that thumbs up, share it with your friends and drop a comment below. We love to hear your car buying success stories because they don't just help you, they protect the entire Homework Guy community. Now let me say something clearly. Some of you enjoy the process of contacting dealers. You enjoy getting down and dirty with a car salesman. Others do not. High demand vehicles in today's car market make this even more complex. If you want written out-the-door quotes, professionally handled negotiations, documentation oversight, and a walkaway strategy in place, that's exactly what our team does nationwide on both new and used cars. It's hassle-free car buying at its finest. You remain the decision maker. We handle the negotiations and the structure. Nobody ever overpays on a car with us. And finally, if you prefer more short, direct car buying insights, make sure you follow us on our other platforms like TikTok, Facebook Reels, X, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram, where we break down dealer tactics in quick, easy-to-use segments. And if you prefer shorter shows right here on YouTube, check out our other channel, Car Buying Fast Tips. Those episodes usually run three to six minutes and get straight to the point. Because the best deal out there isn't the one you plow through the fastest. It's the one you get done on your own terms. To all of you long-term viewers and subscribers out there, you guys rock. God bless you all. I'm Kevin Hunter, the Homework Guy, signing off on behalf of Alex Stevens, our auto expert, the amazing Elizabeth, our master negotiator, and the entire hassle-free Homework Guy car buying team. Stick around a moment as we scroll through some of our recent five-star Google reviews. And there are some great ones out there, so make sure you check them out. Thanks for watching.