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Rants: Freight, Or, How the Auto Dealers Trim the Marks
Mon, 02 Oct 2006

With a little one on the way, it is time to upgrade from my twelve year old beater of a car; while I love that old go-kart, we need more space and a little more safety, but after talking to a dealership I think I've narrowed in on at least one of the thirty-seven ways they attempt rip you off.

But first, a piece of wisdom that cannot be left unspoken: 

A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?

        And the Master answered:

        It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.

        It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City
to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns
have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.

        And that is Fate?  said the priest.

        Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.

        That's all right, said the priest.  I wanted to know
what Freight was too.

                -- Kehlog Albran

Looking at the feature-sheet taped into a cars window you will notice the list of details on the left, and the list of pricing information on the right. Naturally our eyes will drift to the larger and bolder font in the bottom right, the one that says, as luck would have it, "Price." However, this is where the sleight of hand begins.

Above that is the actual MSRP price, followed by the word "Freight" and some value, and then the above so-called "Price." The trick is that you remember the "Price", instead of the MSRP. When you go to bargain with the salesman (why is this only done for cars? Why can't I barter down the price of software? Really, none of us would like to barter at all -- give us the darned price would you?) you're talking against the MSRP, but you think you're talking about the "Price." ie: You are talking relative to one value, and the salesman is talking about some other value, at his leisure.

Hence, you barter him down a couple thousand in price, and you get that "it was all too easy..." spider-sense. Well, it was -- he decided to give you that agreed upon price by writing it up relative to a different price. So where you think you knocked off (say) $2000 or more, you've actually knocked off only a few hundred, and then he will try to slide in the mandatory freight charge again. ie: so you bargain off a chunk, then he adds it right back on, as if nothing ever happened.

My friends .. be wary of the auto salesman; they go to a special kind of hell, reserved for those who talk during the cinema.

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