A couple of weeks ago, I told the tale of an extremely profitable Soul sale. Some of you criticized me for implying that the “doc fee” was negotiable. I don’t know what kind of mindset you would have to possess in this world to think that a doc fee is not negotiable. Even if you can’t get the actual line item off your deal, you should be able to obtain a similar savings elsewhere. It’s such a scam that lately a few state courts have gotten involved in the discussion. The actual costs of “documenting” a sale don’t come close to what dealerships are trying to charge. It’s pure, raw profit.
Still, I wouldn’t expect my readers to do something I’m personally unwilling to do. So I will tell you the story of how I walked out of a dealership over a $300 doc fee. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal — but, in this case, the dealership was six hundred miles from my house, and I had no way to get home.
Eleven years and one month ago, I took delivery of a new 2005 Volkswagen Phaeton at my local dealer, Midwestern Auto Group. It was odd-duck combination of every option you could get on an eight-cylinder Phaeton and the poverty-spec 17-inch wheels that were a no-cost downgrade. Painted in a shimmering light grey and chock-full of California walnut trim, it was a lovely automobile and quite a step up from the 2003 Discovery 4.6 I’d been driving up to that point. Since MAG hadn’t stocked a Phaeton in quite some time, I’d had to request a dealer trade, which led to me paying nearly sticker: $78,000 against an MSRP of $81,595.
Mrs. Baruth (and by this I’m referring to my first wife, not Danger Girl) hadn’t been very enthusiastic about the Phaeton idea. She thought I should have gotten an Audi A8L like the car I was using as a company loaner at the time, or possibly a Mercedes-Benz S-Class. But once she got behind the wheel of the big VW, she was absolutely unwilling to let it go. And I mean absolutely unwilling. Day after day I woke up to find the driveway occupied by her tuned-up SRT-4, with my anonymous uber-sedan nowhere in sight.
Clearly the remedy was to get another Phaeton for myself. Once the snow cleared, I sold the SRT-4 and decided to go shopping for a 2006 model.
This was a bit of a problem, because VW had only brought three hundred ’06 Phaetons into the country as part of what they surely hoped would be a gradual and unnoticed retreat from the segment. The good-news side of the situation was a few dealers had been unable to sell their single-unit allocation and, with a Phaeton-free 2007 model year approaching, some of them were starting to feel a bit desperate.
The closest one of those dealers to me was in Virginia, about six hundred miles away. They had a black 2006, with Eucalyptus trim and no options, in stock. Sticker of $66,000. I told Mrs. Baruth that if she bought this one for me, I would let her keep the grey one. Two days later, she came back with the number: just a shade under $56,000. She handled financing and all the details, which was only fair because she’d spent half a year driving a car around that I was paying for and which had my name on the title. All we had to do was hop a plane to Norfolk on a Saturday morning and go get the car.
The salesman who picked us up from the airport was a cheerful if slightly confused fellow. To begin with, he hadn’t even understood that he was the salesman of record until that morning; my wife had worked the deal with his manager directly before being passed to a nice young woman who handled the F&I details with very little stress or difficulty. He also couldn’t understand why we would fly all the way from Ohio for a VW. I didn’t bother explaining to him that he was actually in possession of the East Coast’s last 2006 Phaeton.
The sales manager was a bull-necked, square-jawed fellow, about 5’11”, wearing a black leather jacket despite the warm weather and fairly gleaming with gel in his slicked-back black hair. I’ve often suspected dudes like this are actually grown from seeds planted out back behind the service building; you never meet them in real life but they are omnipresent in automotive sales, bristling with imperfectly suppressed menace and usually loaded to the brim with the most crass and depressing stock phrases known to man. I knew when I saw him that he would: over-squeeze my hand, call me “Buddy”, turn his shoulders instead of his head to look at something. I was not disappointed.
“Buddy, this is a hell of a car. A real shit-kicker,” he clarified. “Now, Candace (the F&I girl; not her real name) couldn’t make it in this morning, but she gave me all the paperwork, so just sign and you can be on your way for that long drive home.” I took a brief look. Everything looked about right. Except …
“What’s this $300 ‘doc fee’?” I inquired, holding up the paper and pointing to the line.
“Well,” he said, practically growling as he spat out the words, “that’s the doc fee.”
“I can see that. The price we were quoted didn’t include it.”
“Sure, it did.”
“No, it didn’t. I have everything written down, and the number is $300 off.”
“The doc fee is extra,” he said, as if to a child. “We can legally charge $300, and that’s what we charge.”
“I’m not going to pay anything that I didn’t agree to before I got on the plane.”
“Well,” our new friend shrugged, puffing up his neck to match the increasingly combative tone of his voice, “you gotta pay it.” The forty-five-year-old me would have laughed it off, but back then I was physically stronger than I am now, fifty pounds lighter, and perpetually pissed-off thanks to a day job in the, shall we say, pharmaceuticals industry in which my customers were both unpredictable and violent. Certainly. I was no self-conscious tough guy like our sales manager — then, as now, I resembled nothing so much in this world as an absent-minded professor of medieval literature — but, at the time, I very much believed in Macbeth’s creed that “the very firstlings of my heart shall be / The firstlings of my hand.”
“I’m not going to pay it,” I hissed. “Candace didn’t put it in the deal.” Now we were leaning over the table at each other.
“Candace told me she put it in the deal,” he replied. This seemed quite at odds with his previous statement about it being extra.
“She’s a fuckin’ liar,” I said. He stood up abruptly. So did I.
“Candace,” he sputtered, “is my wife.”
“Well, in that case, your wife,” I clarified, “is a fuckin’ liar.” And we stood there eye to eye for an unpleasant ten seconds or so. It was at that point that I remembered a few critical words from one of my favorite books, Winning Through Intimidation by Robert Ringer. In the book, Robert points out that wealthy people always have control in any deal they negotiate because they don’t need that particular deal to get by. They have staying power. So they can always walk away.
I wasn’t so sure I could walk away. I was not wealthy at the time. (Or now, I should add.) I’d already spent about six hundred dollars flying to Norfolk. It would cost me another thousand to go home via plane. And this guy had the only Phaeton out there. He didn’t know it, maybe, but I knew it. If I walked out, I’d be shopping for something else in a $56k sedan — a 530i, maybe, or a low-options Audi A6. Utter junk next to a Phaeton. So I did not have staying power, and I had no options other than just abandoning the deal.
But then I remembered another thing that Ringer wrote: “Guts can be a substitute for wealth.” In other words, if you’re willing to live with the consequences of your actions, you have just as much staying power as a rich guy. I might not like the idea of driving an A6 instead of a Phaeton just to save $300, but I was willing to do it on principle. So I smiled at this fellow and played the only card I had in my hand.
“That’s fine,” I said. “Keep your car. I’m calling a cab. We’ll fly back home.” And to my wife’s astonishment, I picked up my Franklin planner and stormed out. Called information and got the number of a cab company, called and requested a ride to the airport. And I was standing in the lot waiting for that cab when Mr. Leather Jacket sheepishly walked out, palms out in the universal monkey language of surrender.
“We’ll eat the three hundred bucks,” he said.
“Then have your fellow bring the car around,” I responded, “because we have a deal.” When the Phaeton arrived, I almost called the cabbie back. The paint was badly scratched, with most of the damage on the hood and front fenders. The grille was ruined, with deep cuts past the chrome into the plastic. One of the wheels was deeply curbed. But it was the only Phaeton they, or anybody else, had. So I signed the papers and drove it home through the Appalachians in what turned out to be a truly wonderful, memorable evening. Once I got settled back in Powell, I handed my list of complaints to Mrs. B, who contacted VW customer care and got me a replacement wheel, a full rub-out wax detail to fix the scratches, and my preferred Phaeton grill (the two-bar 2005 version instead of the six-bar 2006) as a cherry on top.
That big black VW and I had some great times together. We hit 130 mph on the back straight at VIR, won an SCCA autocross trophy, and traveled everywhere east of Mississippi, from Chicago to Orlando, in style. If I’d known how much I would come to love the Phaeton, I never would have quibbled about the $300 fee in the first place, but sometimes it’s better not to know what’s ahead. And I wish I had the car back sometimes, but I’ll tell you something that another one of my life coaches, the late Townes Van Zandt, once said, something that I occasionally find myself clinging to in the dead of the night like a lifebuoy in a nightmare storm: It don’t pay to think too much / on the things you leave behind.
I just got a car and the doc fee was $500 bucks for them to do next to nothing , it was a out of state transaction so I still have to go to my local DMV to do the paperwork, fee did not matter to me I was willing to pay x out the door and only x it they put the doc fee in the price goes down the same $500, really did not matter to me how they wrote the deal as long as we were at the same number I was willing to pay for the car. They took $500 off the price and then added it back in as a fee, it was the same for me regardless. When I went into the FI guy office there was a sign that said the Doc fee is negotiable, I assume it was there because it is some state law. I was out of the FI guys office in ten minutes , I had my own financed set up so there was not a lot to talk about.
Enjoyed the hell out of this story.
CE,
Your avatar and screen name made me LOL.
“By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
Paul Krugman
Former Enron Adviser
Gee, on one side, a renowned economist, a Nobel Prize Winner.
On the other side, three nobodies I never met and never will.
Thanks for the laughs, and Merry Christmas!
Ha. Krugman has become the Dr. Phil of economics.
“Clueless Economist”
Well said. When was in Japan in one of my business trips I stayed in Sheraton where I stuck with reading International Herald Tribune every morning after breakfast (I do not read newspapers, only Google News, unless I stay in hotel). And every day they published column by this idiot, like national debt does not matter. We will see how it does not matter when it reaches 30 trillion $$ and interest rates return to the historic normal 5%. I lived through financial collapse of 90s and know well from my experience how it matters and how people ended up losing all savings and have to start over even if retired. Americans need to wake up until it is too late.
Wait. You have 2 Porsches, a ‘Vette and a V6 MT Accord, and you keep thinking about the VW Phaeton and lime green Audi S5 that you sold? Maybe you’re a ‘buy and hold’ kind of guy.
All these cars and yet doesn’t consider himself rich. I can’t afford a Porsche, let alone two, or a Corvette!
He was buying it on _CREDIT_ ~ rich folks buy for ca$h .
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“Oh B&B you never disappoint”.
.
The flip side is : you never do Jack .
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Nate
I thought that was odd too. He’s definitely privileged as he said several times in the “You gotta be rich to own a cheap car” article.
It’s the classic narcissistic “downplay it so people made it a big deal and draw attention to it” tactic. See also: “humblebrag”
Jack would probably be rich if it wasn’t for his expensive toy habit but then we’d all be poorer for not hearing his stories. I’ll call it a wash.
If he were truly rich he’d be weighing the advantages of his cars vs. a train, which he could also afford.
Was it Greenbrier Volkswagen? That’s where I bought my 2004 Golf TDI!
My experience wasn’t anywhere near as bad as yours though. But I’ve had some doozies…
I don’t know if you got your from Greenbrier or not… but I remember the F&I girl from that sale back in ’04. Don’t remember the name, but damn…
F&I girls are ALWAYS hot. She was a light skinned black girl with green eyes like Smokey Robinson. I probably remember her so well because of her eyes. “Enhanced” breasts, but not overly large. Plenty of cleavage showing though.
I’m sure it’s a psychological thing to get men to sign whatever is on the sales order because they’re too busy staring at tits.
The finance girl from the motorcycle dealer I got my Yamaha from was absolutely gorgeous. Dark straight brunette hair, soul piercing green eyes, freckly complexion, very skinny, no tits (no problem). Kind of girl my Kim Kardashian loving friends would be “eh, she’s alright” about. She had no problem selling me the rim and tire warranty.
I’ve only had old dudes in the F&I office. Need to look for dealers with ladies I guess.
I’ve never encountered a female F&I person in any of my car purchases.
I have worked with a few female salespeople (most recently on our C-Max) and the experience has typically been better than with the male variety. None of them were hot, though.
Doc fee
Dealership fee
Sales Manager hair gel fee
Fee 3
Fee 4
…
I don’t care how many shady fees there are. Just give me an OTD price for the car. If it’s a nice price, we have a deal.
This. I want to know one number: the total amount I have to pay, minus tax and registration. I couldn’t care less if the price is $1000 and the rest is all fees.
Why do you exclude tax and license? I always negotiate the bottom line. Sure they don’t have control over the license fee and tax but to me it all the cost of acquisition.
Because, as a rule, research and price comparisons are leading you to a number before tax and license. And, like you said, tax and license actually is out of the dealer’s control.
I’ll do the math about the effect of tax and license and be aware of it, but the number I want to focus negotiations on is the price before tax and license.
That’s what I did when they tried to lay their “non-negotiable” doc fee on me. Who cares about their stupid fees? (unless they use an inflated doc fee to disguise the true purchase price and cheat the tax man).
The only price worth discussing is the on the road price.
Flying somewhere to buy a car certainly makes you vulnerable to this.
PUDDY: Let’s finish this up.
JERRY: Did you two break up?
PUDDY: (While punching up numbers on a calculator) That chick’s whacked. We’re history. (Back to the transaction) I just left out a couple of things: rust-proofing…
JERRY: “Rust-proofing”?
PUDDY: (Reading off what he’s adding up on the calculator) Transport charge, storage surcharge, additional overcharge, finder’s fee
JERRY: “Finder’s fee”? It was on the lot!
PUDDY: Yeah, that’s right. (Continues reading off) Floor mats, keys..
JERRY: “Keys”?!
PUDDY: How ya gonna start it?
Wait, your first wife drove a hot-rodded SRT4?
She did. Ordered it from the factory so her name would be on the sticker. Stage 2 Mopar tune, Stage 3 Mopar coilovers, poly bushings, milled adjustable rear control arms, Koseis with Hoosiers.
Some idiot broke into the car at work, stole the stereo we’d put in, kicked the dash off the car.
I’m going to repost the story of how State Farm basically destroyed the car after we gave it to them for repair.
Found the story on srtforums. Wish I hadn’t.
I know that one. When I went to the yard that State Farm “asked permission” to store my car at to get my ham radio out, they brought me the car on a FORKLIFT. I’d just done rear shocks and brakes on all four wheels. I was stunned. The car had 7k front end damage but the frame wasn’t bent and the car was fixable. It was pretty much perfect until the accident.
It took me six phone calls, three hours, half of which was “on hold”, to get elevated beyond script readers to an actual adjuster with some authority. After a heated conversation (I was nice the first five calls) with a “special adjuster” where I demanded to to know exactly to whom my certified mail letter on my attorney letterhead goes advising them of the damages while the car was bailed to them and how they didn’t take reasonable (or any) care of my property while bailed to them, I got a phone call ten minutes later about how “they’d looked at the car again” and “it isn’t fixable”.
Well, it was before you fork lifted it….and had I been a “normal” I’d be wondering why my tire wear funny and the car “doesn’t handle anymore”.
At least VW would have taken it back bent…it was a TDI and I’m now just waiting on the check :) My ladies still miss the TDI, but we are nearing car replacement time for the 300k BMW, and I think a nice mk7 GTi (leased) will replace it…so mama will be happy !
I didn’t know you could Forklift a car…the only place I was able to find anything after a google was a contract from an dealer trade only auction house where they disclaim any damages to cars marked “non runners” and moved by forklift. The guys at the yard were surprised I was surprised, they said “oh. all the totaled cars are moved this way”. I pointed out this car was not (yet) totaled….
Copart, one of the biggest salvage auctions on the planet, forklifts everything except extremely high-dollar vehicles with special instructions not to.
with a filthy mouth like yours, the dealer should have kicked you out the door.
how does reminding us , again, that the author is a former drug dealer add value to the story? I get it, you poisoned people for a living and still refer to cops as “pigs”. Which I suppose you might think is fair since most cops and honest society have much worse terms for drug dealers. Please just stick to the cars.
So do you want this eightball or not
Think of the children!
(Sees there’s no longer a Town Car in the driveway)
Oh, you have. Well then!
Cops are pigs. Ever hear the unions whimper and wail when someone says cops shouldn’t get multi-million dollar pensions?
A good drug dealer benefits society more than an average cop, in my experience.
You deal the right drugs and cops aren’t necessary…. VALIUM FOR EVERYONE ;)
“I’ve often suspected dudes like this are actually grown from seeds planted out back behind the service building; you never meet them in real life but they are omnipresent in automotive sales, bristling with imperfectly suppressed menace and usually loaded to the brim with the most crass and depressing stock phrases known to man.”
You never meet them in real because they never leave the store. They are, as a rule, either already divorced or about to be, and for some reason the ever-present kid in the story is never their own genetic offspring, whether they know it or not.
“I was not wealthy at the time.”
Says the guy buying a second $56k automobile to supplement a $78k one. Just another middle class schmuck. After this year, I just can’t tell when people are being serious or not anymore.
Hey, our illustrious POTUS-E himself started out with a ‘very, very small’ loan!
Jealousy and anger will get you nowhere.
So will lying as he started out with his Father’s money .
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Truth is the right way to go, always .
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-Nate
“Jealousy and anger will get you nowhere.”
I didn’t read any jealousy or anger in his statement.
See Nate’s comment.
This is probably true – what he didn’t mention is that his Dad was wealthy at the time. The most probable way to get rich in America is to have a rich father.
Then there is the old joke of how a millionare became a millionaire.
He used to be a billionaire, then he got married.
Q: How do you make a small fortune in aviation?
A: Start with a big fortune.
*rimshot*
*gunshot*
You flew someplace to buy an about to be discontinued Phaeton for near MSRP? Please surrender your license at the door.
56K vs 66K, invoice of $62k — “near MSRP”
Oh B&B you never disappoint
Just about all of that was factory to dealer cash. (Edit: totally made up fact, but still possibly true at the time) The dealer made out just fine. The green Audi was a smarter buy.
Ironically, VW refused to support the 2006 Phaeton with dealer cash. Every dealer that sold theirs cheap (and many did) lost money. I had a lot of numbers on that car before I made the deal, believe me.
That’s not irony.
Which would explain the sales manager’s bad temper – and his generally-oily way of doing business.
When the manufacturer routinely misjudges the market (or has alienated buyers who otherwise would be in the market for such vehicles), as VW has, and then wants to push their red ink onto their dealers…for someone living in that world, every day is gonna start with a growl.
Imagine how much better it would go, for factory and agency, had the Front Office adopted, and kept, a How-Can-We-Help-You attitude towards customers, and a consideration for the genuine needs of dealers.
While cutting these Mafia wannabees out of the franchise.
“How I nearly queered a very expensive deal over a relatively insignificant amount of money.”
“How I demonstrated that principles matter, regardless of the dollar value, and that the customer holds ultimate power in any transaction for any reason. Even (especially?) very expensive ones.”
OR… “How I proved the only way to ‘queer’ a deal on a Phaeton is to actually buy it.”
LOL
I bought a used IS300 Sportcross in need of a reasonable restoration last year for my mom. When buying it I was talking to the salesguy about the doc fee ($499) and one of the excuses he gave for the fee was that they have to maintain a file for the sale for ten years. 10 years! Or in other words, they have to put a piece of paper into a drawer.
I’m still a bit upset about how I didn’t demand an OTD price before agreeing to buy it. It cost more than I probably would have been willing to pay in the condition it was in had I known the real total before agreeing. However I’m glad I didn’t know because I would have walked away from what I have now determined to be one of the best cars ever built. Today I would gladly pay more than I did then.
This was the story of my most recent used car purchase, although without the flying part. I was looking for a Dart GT with a specific set of options within a certain price point and mileage. There are rarely manual transmission cars available in my area so I knew I would be driving to PA, NJ, or upstate NY to get it. I drove 3+ hours one direction one day to look at one that was “perfect” with a check for the dealer in hand and my car trailer in tow, only to find it had all sorts of scratches, dents, and curbing on a car with only 12k miles. I walked. This happened quite a few times.
The dealers I spoke to NJ and CT all had a $4-500 doc fee. This to me was utter BS and not something I have dealt with buying cars from NY and PA. What I realized is the doc fee is just another component of the total selling price much like destination fees, and just negotiated as such. I always asked up front to confirm their specific fee and I only negotiated on the price of the car with the doc fee included. When I finally chose my car, which ended up being a Chevy Sonic from a dealer in CT, when they did the paperwork, they offset the selling price of the car taking off the amount of the doc fee then added the doc fee on the invoice, bringing it to the number we agreed on. On paper it appears that I paid it, but in reality I didnt. Funny thing is that this actually helped me out, because you dont pay state sales tax on the doc fee, so in reality it allowed me to knock down the reported cost of the car for tax purposes by $500 saving me a little bit more money.
I’ve been subjected to dealers adding a ‘doc fee’ since 1994 in the Boston area, and except in two cases, the dealer scratched off the fee (usually in the $200-300 range). In one case, I was advising my nephew who moved from the midwest to closeby to accept a job just days after we went shopping for his car. The fee wasn’t disclosed until the salesman handed him the sales agreement, and I told my nephew this was likely to happen, my nephew was willing to pay the posted price on the car, and still the salesman and sales manager imposed the doc fee at the last minute. My nephew needed the car real fast, reasoning that arguing about the fee would jeopardize his taking the job, and against my advice-paid the full fee. I think it strained my relations with my nephew, the lying coming from the lying sack of …sales manager (“we have to charge the fee or we’d have to reimburse everyone elses fee”)certainly forced me to publicly tell associates and friends never to go near their dealerships( and the offending dealer group owns over 60 New England dealerships, so it easy to guess who). The only other time I was personally charged the fee, it was disclosed by the dealer, and because of that, I lowered my successful offer to account for the fee. In two other cases, the fee didn’t appear on the sales agreement, the salesman didn’t mention it at all, and I didn’t pay any doc fee. In the last two transactions, again, it was hidden completely until the salesman brought out the sales agreement, and in both of those cases, I threatened to walk unless the complete fee was removed, it was, and I bought both of those cars without paying a doc fee at the price I had originally agreed to. First, as Jack has said, the doc fee is 100 percent profit – the salesman and sales manager are doing the doc work, and they’re both earning a sales commission percentage from the sale. I tell people from out of state to research through their state department of consumer affairs website what the laws are, if any, about doc fees. It’s in the top five complaints being dealt with at any consumer affairs office, nationwide. The two things to remember about doc fees? It’s pure profit for the dealer-the car buyer gets nothing for it they didn’t get before shady dealers thought up this scam. And two, in 90 percent of the states, there’s absolutely no law mandating doc fees must be paid if the car buyer chooses not to pay them.
I’ve often suspected dudes like this are actually grown from seeds planted out back behind the service building…
They do. Just keep the ground slick with a little waste oil and guys like that spring up out of the ground fully formed with their hair pre-oiled.
Yeah, when I boight my last car they bought in the “sales manager\'” who was fairly close to what you described. Lots of greased hair, brusque manner, trying to intimidate you on your trade.
I had seen it all before so me and my dad pretty much just laughed at him.
I met that guy after test driving a Focus ST.
“Oh, you’re going to drive the GTI? It’s the same car. So you can buy this one.”
And he was trying to keep most of the rebate cash for himself, like I didn’t know about it.
“turn his shoulders instead of his head to look at something”
My favorite line.
Gotta love those “no neck” types.
Very similar to the way an orc is birthed from the mud!
1. I enjoy your writing here more than in the print magazines. Seems a little coarser here, which is entertaining.
2. When I was a kid, I remember my dad walking away from a deal on a new Turbo R because the dealer Dimmitt refused to remove its logo sticker on the back. He loves telling that story.
I witnessed a dealer do that here on a motorcycle trade. They were getting a sweet deal on a used bike with about 4k of aftermarket parts. The deal was to trade square but at the time of signing, there was a balance owing on the paperwork. The dreaded admin fee. A fee tacked on to every single new or used motorcycle the shop sold. “You have to pay the admin fee.” the salesmen stated. Pretty sure it was around three to five hundred dollars. Not an insignificant fee when considering it’s over 5% of msrp. So they walked. And the dealer didn’t come chasing him out the door.
The next dealer over made the same deal. Square trade. No surprises upon signing. The cost to drive there one way is three times the first dealer. It might have been a $100 cheaper after travel and expenses. They even had the decency to realize the sweet deal they were getting and threw in a nice helmet and goggles.
We require inspections, the second dealer, located out of state, doesn’t. Needless to say there was no hiding the smug grin upon inspection of the bike back at the first dealer.
I once walked on an Aurora over $20.
Although percentage-wise, when looking at the total price, my $20 was a bigger hit than your $300.
My dad once walked over a tank full of gas, at the time it was likely $12 worth.
Side note: while in Germany on business last week I saw a Phaeton. I think its only the third one I have ever seen. Imagine an Audi A8 but with a huge back seat area (limo like) and a VW logo. Its also one of the most seemless cars as it appears to be modeled out of a solid block of steel. Its amazingly low key with no cladding, badges, trim, surface details or extra bits. It reminded me of my Passat B5 just bigger and smoother. I was traveling with two coworkers one of which is a big Audi fan who stopped dead in his tracks to marvel at it. The other coworker couldn’t figure out why we were awestruck at a VW.
Having only seen Phaetons from the outside (some parents in my sons daycare actually own one, but yesterday I saw them in a model X, so maybe it’s gone) they look exeptionally well built up close, although they are easily mistaken for a larger Passat from a distance. I’d say even the A8 of the same age looks kinda mediocre in comparison, so you can tell VW spent some money on them.
A friend of mine helped a friend of his pick up a used v10 diesel in Germany, and he claimed it’s as quiet inside at 120mph as it is at 60mph on the autobahn.
I’m a fairly libertarian type of guy, but I can’t help but be judgemental about Jack being a drug dealer. Kind of disappointing.
Not as disappointing as being one, believe me.
Has the ‘from drug dealer to automotive writer’ transition story been told online? I’m sure it’d be a helluva read, especially so if there was any overlap.
Was this before or after Jack found God?
I hasten to add here that I wasn’t standing on a corner in Baltimore selling rocks. I’m saving the story for my book.
I’ll pay extra for a signed first printing.
No kidding… I’d probably drive to Ohio for an autograph.
P.S. Either tomorrow or Saturday I’ll be in touch via email. Have yer headphones at the ready.. ;)
As an actual libertarian kinda guy, are you sure you know what that means?
Amazing that I’m apparently the only one here who gets that Jack learned from that job and moved onwards, forwards and upwards….
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I didn’t see him bragging about it, it was just another stop on his road of life .
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Nothing to be proud of but should be proud to have moved on and likely making more $ now than most of his detractors here .
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-Nate
Who cares if he was a drug dealer? Purdue pharma has made billions peddling legal heroin to millions and killed millions, yet they’re still on business. Alcoholism kills hundreds of thousands a year, yet no one seriously aays the brewers and distilleries are drug dealers.
I have nothing against a dude that wants to make some scratch selling things that people want. He’s taking a lot of risk for it.
+1. The more time I spend living a (relatively) honest life, the more I grudgingly respect those willing and able to skirt some rules to make their way in this world.
…and Jack’s not saying whether his gig was to sell pharmaceuticals to doctors….
+1
My wife has a friend whose young adult daughter is a Big Pharma sales rep. She’s ambitious, hardworking, easily attractive enough to play dirty old man doctors like violins, and still has to cut all sorts of shady corners to make a living.
The majority of Pharmaceutical Reps I’ve encountered are female. The only dude I ever encountered reminded me of Jack’s story sales manager but this guy had a neck. That was odd since he was an invertebrate slug.
“I have nothing against a dude that wants to make some scratch selling things that people want…”
As long as it isn’t in my backyard.
There, fixed it for you.
I walked away from a Corvette deal over $100. The guy called me as soon as I was home (a 10 minute drive) and said he’d do the deal. What the hell, it was cash he didn’t have an hour earlier.
For a lousy $100, I was willing to look elsewhere for a car. It wasn’t even a doc fee; I never pay those, at least not when that’s what they’re called heh heh. In my neck of the woods they are always negotiable.
I think a lot of college kids in the 70s can make a claim to being a drug dealer at some level. You’re a few more than 10 years behind me, Jack, so I don’t even have to ask what your main trade was. :)
And the car dealership industry wonders why the public doesn’t respect them.
One time an attractive female friend of mine asked me to come along to help negotiate her buying a Mercedes sedan. She found that they wouldn’t negotiate with her in good faith. Took all damn day. But end the end the manager walked over to where we were sitting and threw the keys (overhand) at me with the statement “Fine! Here’s the f**king keys asshole. We have a deal”.
Yea. A Mercedes dealer acting like that.
The last car I bought was a VW, and I we had to get the dealership owner in on the sales contract negotiation for a cash sale. The F&I guy who I had to sign with just couldn’t comprehend that I would refuse to agree to two of the terms on their sales contract. Damn process took 4 hours longer than it should have. All the stupid F&I guy had to do was be reasonable and listen to me.
This of course varies state to state, but I believe the rule in Ohio is that a dealer can select whatever doc fee it wants to charge (generally about $250 I’ve seen) but they have to charge the same amount to each customer. So when the sleezeballs says “we have to charge that by law”, it’s only half bullshit.
As others said, if they need to leave the damn line on the paperwork, fine. Just find $250 to minus out elsewhere.
crunch crunch crunch
good popcorn
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didn’t expect such good popcorn from this story
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privilege, drug dealing, Trump, what is rich, humblebrag
crunch crunch crunch
gooooood popcorn
Nice – I had a similar issue on my last VW Phaeton Purchase…(What? You think only JB can buy more than 1 Phaeton?) I sold my ’05 Phaeton in 2012 and bought a ’06 in 2014. Can’t find a better sedan. Period.
I found the ’06 at an independent dealer, so I brought my own financing, the dealer said he could match my financing, or do it better (they did) but they charged me $350 for it… I cried fault…ultimately I paid $180 only after a small argument on the charges.
Other factoid where me and Jack have nearly crossed lines – The guy that bought my 05 Phaeton was the SAME guy that bought Jack’s lime green Audi s5 once upon a time.
We need to talk to this guy!
Jack, I like your writing more every time I read it. Thanks again. A simple tale told so compellingly I want to share it with friends to show them what writing looks like.
Doc fee: they may as well call it a “customer too stupid to not F over fee”. If it’s not compensated for in the price and is actually added on to an agreed upon price as a re-negotiation additional sum, I don’t care if it’s $10. I don’t do business that way and it may get uglier than just not closing the deal. Lessons learned in the same industry. If someone tries to steal from me and it doesn’t go their way, not taking my valuables isn’t the end of the deal. I’ll take something to make sure it’s not profitable to try again next time. “Why’d you take his cheap sunglasses and knife?” “Because he F’ing tried to rob me.”
Love the story, and the book recommendation.
I had no idea the doc fee was negotiable, though it makes sense now. I recently bought a new car, and was about to walk out over $200, until the salesman said “Here’s what I’ll do for you…” and crossed out the $80 doc fee, among other things.
I didn’t have a major problem with the docs fees when I leased my 2015 Crosstour for the capitalized bargain price of $28,000, ($7,500 below the sticker price) a 3 year lease at $318 a month with tax. (.09% financing)
I told the female F & I person that I didn’t want anything else. She wouldn’t take no for an answer so I counted how many times I said no during a wasted 20 minutes of my life. It was 17.
I just spotted this listed on Cars.com for a local Chevy dealer’s used inventory:
**All prices do not include registering state TT&L, processing fee of $599 and P.D.I. Fee of $895**
PDI? Pre delivery inspection?
That’s $1,500 on top of the listed price for nothing!
I first noticed it on a $41k 2016 SS then looked for it on their cheaper cars, and yup, a $7,700 Sonic LT has the same warning. That’s nearly 20% guaranteed profit before negotiating the price. Outrageous.
The real mystery in this story: Where does the SCCA class a Phaeton for autocross competition? And how could it be competitive? The Phaeton is a nice car to drive in a straight line, but I would think a W220 S-class or an E65 7-series would wipe the walls with it on-course.
In 2006? F stock, my friend.
“Then your wife is a Fucking Liar”–that made my night, well done!
The doc fee is absolutely negotiable. Everything is negotiable. The doc fee is often the last thing to get backed out because that’s the dealer principal’s boat money. That, and the lot pack or the pack on the extended warranty that the greasy 3rd party company puts conveniently in an overseas account for them.
“A real shit kicker”. That is car sales gold.