Dealer Prep

I was curious, just what exactly entails, "dealer prep" My GTI arrives on July 5th at the port here in San Diego, but the car won't be ready until July 12th. My sales guy said in an email to me; "The port gets the cars and test drives them and installs some equipment on the vehicle. It does take a little time before they put them on the truck to come here."

So I am also curious as to what "equipment" they install while the car is at the port, prior to delivery to the dealer. Thanks ! :iono:

I don't think the port test drives and installs anything. I think that's a load of crap. Get ready to hear about the "port of whatever fee" though. It's gonna be around $370.

trick000 said:

I don't think the port test drives and installs anything. I think that's a load of crap. Get ready to hear about the "port of whatever fee" though. It's gonna be around $370.

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Wrong.

I'm no VWOA employee, but I spent 3 months researching vehicles and questioning dealers before getting serious about buying. Most vehicles are PDI'd at the port of entry. I have been down to the Houston facility and have seen it myself. However, just last week I saw a GLI at a Houston dealer that had not been PDI'd. Special order maybe?:iono:

There are some options that are installed at the port. Mainly 18" Huffs, Monster Mats.

Now for the fees. Yes there are $367 worth of extra fees on the invoice and they are legit. VWOA charges these fees on every vehicle sold in the US and the dealer will pass them on to you. Some car makers bury these fees in the vehicle price on the invoice. VWOA lists them as separate charges. Here is what they are:

$200 Regional Dealers Advertising
$142 Floorplan Interest
$ 25 Port Prep Fee

That being said. Not every dealer pays the RDA. I think the RDA is charged to dealers in large metro areas. The dealer where I bought my car was not in a large metro and did not carge me the $200. Even showed me the invoice and the $200 was not there but the $167 ($142 floorplan, $25 port prep) was. Hope this helps.

It seems like you did your research. Thanks for breaking it down for me. The reason why I thought the $370 port fee was bogus was because I asked several dealerships about it and some of them said that they didn't have that fee. They then proceeded to give me other fees which surprisingly equalled $370 or close to it. I assumed that they were just making up these fees. Hopefully you got this info from somewhere else besides the dealer.

Dealers try to find more and more fee to add in... It used to be the price of the car that was it... then delivery, advertising, dealer prep, port prep... the list seems to go on and on

Yeah port fees are not bogus, some places install things like Spoilers, body cladding and some even do stereo installs at port depending on the model.

Fuzzbear said:

Yeah port fees are not bogus, some places install things like Spoilers, body cladding and some even do stereo installs at port depending on the model.

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I see them as bogus... I don;t pay an install fee for getting package 1, 2 or any factory option but on certain items there is an install fee (port prep)... If there is an additional fee for a certain option we should be told about that. Sounds like two bites out of the cherry...

damn stealers...

trick000 said:

It seems like you did your research. Thanks for breaking it down for me. The reason why I thought the $370 port fee was bogus was because I asked several dealerships about it and some of them said that they didn't have that fee. They then proceeded to give me other fees which surprisingly equalled $370 or close to it. I assumed that they were just making up these fees. Hopefully you got this info from somewhere else besides the dealer.

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Out of the almost 30 VW stores I contacted, I would say 3 of them were totally honest with me from the beginning. However, every dealer told me my Edmund's numbers were wrong. I told them tell me how they were wrong. Almost everyone (with the exception of the ones outside metro areas) told me to add $367 to the Edmund's numbers. However, when we began talking about out the door price, a majority of them wanted to tack on a "dealer prep fee" ranging from $250-$600. I told those folks they would not get my business if they insisted on those fees.

However, the sales manager from the dealer I bought from was the only one who would put his offer in writing and sent me a nice little fax. He itemized everything including the VWOA fees and estimated TTL. His estimate was very close to my estimate and the actual TTL was close to both our numbers. Therefore, I knew he was not trying to squeeze me on the back end. We were both happy with the outcome and he turned the last 2006 GTI on his lot. He admitted to me that he does maybe 4 deals like mine a year. He said he knew I was hip to all of the tricks and if he tried to pull one I would walk.

Now the finance guy was a different story. He tried to get me on the interest rate until I told him to call my credit union. I was already pre-approved there. He then got me on VW credit at 3.9%.

Dealer prep includes taking the plastic off the mats and putting them in place, taking that mileage sticker off the window (canada anyway) and filling up your wiper fluid. If they are nice, they might rip around the block a couple of times with the stereo blasting, just to make sure everything works.....:bonk:

Just kidding. They do have to unwrap the mats, but usually they wash the car, run a diagnostic check real quick (mine did) blah, blah, blah. Check it out:

The sheet says they put about 30kms on it but it was delivered with 20, so there is some kind of diagnostic/check setting for the car before delivery.

Most of the fees other than freight are something the dealer has the latitude to include/omit. They may have some admin fee that is a cushion, if you bitch they say "we'll do you a favour and waive (insert name of fee)".
Or they just add it in if you don't. Also, as stated previously, they may just bury it in the price and you will never see it as an extra.

The long and short is that there is some time spent on your car before delivery and they have to do a dollar cost average per unit to recoup the time they have to pay an employee to do this prep.

excellent info thanks !!

bigdyno said:

The long and short is that there is some time spent on your car before delivery and they have to do a dollar cost average per unit to recoup the time they have to pay an employee to do this prep.

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Its called operating costs and should be included in the profit from the sales of the car, or at least that's how I see it. Stealers have not been adding it in for that long, maybe 5-10 years... It started out with a few stealer's and Edmunds even warned about these additional fees and advised not to pay them... but now it has become commonplace and is a negotiating factor...

The way I think it should be is the negotiated price of the car is the price of the car and the car comes delivered, clean and with a full tank of gas... If there are any associated cost to doing this add them into your bottom line and don't sell the car so cheap...

I think its a little deceitful and deceptive to say here is what we will sell the car for, will you accept? Oh then there is this fee, that fee and this charge...

This helps me... I am taking delivery of my CW, DSG, Pkg 1, 17" today after work.

good luck..

If you walked in to a VW dealer and they told you your car was $38xxx, how quick would you be to sign a deal?

VW's port prep people do alot for the $25 a car fee they charge. they print the window stickers, out them on the cars, make sure all of the stuff is in the car. they isntall spoilers, optional wheels, body kits, monstermatts, ect and also make sure you car get loaded and get sready for transport