Is certification "really" extra?? Used car price negotiations..

If this is offered through a Brand dealer, then call the Area Manager and speak to him/her about the shenanigans that you've endured and ask that person to verify that the vehicle is able to be certified and that it actually IS certified. Scan and send copies of the internet listings and advertisements showing that it's being advertised as certified. And to address #4. YES. Don't do business with these clowns.

These people aren't honest, nor are they bargaining in good faith. I promise, this is NOT the only car in the world. I would ONLY consider purchasing this car if they certify it first and if bring it to YOU, along with all the paperwork to sign at your home. This is not a weird thing to request, I've done it. The more time and energy you put into trying to buy this car, the more attached you are to it. Make them work for your business. I think it's telling that no one has called you back to tell you of the price drop, or to try to woo you back to the dealer. In the end a car is an item. It's the people you do business with make or break the transaction. The fact that they're playing games with certification leads me to believe that the car CAN'T be certified. Did you get the Carfax? Before you think about this car for one minute longer, do that.

1. If the car is advertised as Brand Certified and we negotiate a certain price, doesn't that price *have to* include the certification, given that it is already certified? Can they list a car as certified but then try to sell me that same vehicle without the certification? Can certification be "un-done"? Can a car that was previously certified be sold as a car that is no longer certified but "can be certified for a hefty fee"? What would that even mean? They are probably required to sell the car for their advertised price with the certification but they don't have to honor any negotiated price ever for any reason (but neither do you). You can hold them to the advertised price with the advertised extras but if they just haven't had the chance to have their mechanics certify it yet they can certainly try to sell it without it as long as the buyer is aware and they're not trying to sell it for more. Once you start negotiating down from the ad price, all bets are off until you sign the buyer's contract (handshakes and signatures on a worksheet aren't binding). 2. Does the certification come from the Brand and not depend at all on the dealer? The first time around when I walked out, did I actually need them to put a stamp on the buyer's contract affirming that the car was Brand Certified? I suspect I did, but I want to be sure. Both sort of. The mechanics at the dealership (who don't typically care all that much about sales) inspect the car following the brand's guidelines and recondition or replace any part that needs it (again, according the brand's guidelines). Then the car get it's manufacturer warranty extended. I looked up Honda's program (since a lot Mefites buy them and my Dad currently sells them) and they extend the original powertrain warranty from 5yr/60,000mi to 7yr/100,000mi and the bumper-to-bumper warranty from 3yr/36,000mi to 4yr/48,000mi. I asked my dad (who sells Hondas) and he says that the dealership pays a fee to the brand to certify a used car. For Honda it's $1,000-$2,000 depending on the car (the Civic and Fit are going to be closer to $1,000, a loaded Pilot or Odyssey closer to $2,000). You can figure out an approximation of what the CPO warranty is worth to you by shopping around the internet for an extended warranty that will approximately match the CPO warranty. Since the CPO warranty comes with a thorough inspection (at the least) it might be the less expensive option. And, since it comes from the brand, you know that you can get work done at any of that brand's dealships. A service contract/extended warranty "might" have some restrictions on where you can get warranty work done (but I'm sure some of them have fewer restrictions on where you can work done too). If I was buying a CPO car, I would ABSOLUTELY get some kind of confirmation that the car was in the CPO program in writing before I signed the buyer's contract. 3. What kinds of questions do I need to ask (or what demands do I need to make) to make sure I don't get screwed over with the certification side of things? You might be able to call the brand and have them confirm that the car is in their CPO program but there is probably some delay between when the dealer certifies and when that information makes it to the brand so if they say, "Yes" you're good to go but them saying, "No" doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't certified. As long as you have something reasonably official looking from the dealership that says that the car in CPO, you should be fine. They can probably add a line item to the buyer's contract which should cover you. 4. Was the sales manager's tactic (of trying to tack on certification as an additional fee on top of the price we negotiated) normal in the world of used car buying, or in fact a shady business practice that should disqualify that dealership from doing business with me? It could be either. It might be that he ran the ad thinking that it would be certified by the time they sold it but then they negotiated the price based on a cost that did not include the certification so now they want to basically sell you the certification (and the extended manufacturer warranty that comes with it) at their cost. I remember selling a minivan where something similar happened. We negotiated the deal assuming that the car had heated seats and realized late in the process that it didn't so we offered to have them installed at cost. We couldn't just eat the cost because we were already close to losing money on the deal. 5. If I do decide to go back, how should I proceed with negotiations? The price they are now listing is lower than I would have paid before, even if they tack on a certification fee, it would be within my budget, but out of principle, I would simply want to pay the newly advertised low price, with no "extra certification fee", and take this car home. Is the car now advertised with the certification but at a lower price? Did they lower it by whatever amount they were going to charge you for the certification? If so and if the certification is important to you (and I think those programs are a decent deal in general) I would add the cost of that certification to the ad price and try to negotiate down from there. The magic words are, "If you will sell me that car for $X, with the certification, I will buy it right now." You don't need to justify anything, the only thing that matters to them is that if they can do what you want, they get to sell a car. As a salesperson, the few times when a customer phrased an offer like that, I could feel my pupils trying to turn into dollar signs. Not because I was going to make a lot of money on the deal, but because I was pretty sure I was going to sell a car at that point. On a used car, a $500 profit margin would be about the lowest margin I'd expect a dealer to accept. Even on a normal car, they "might" be willing to go lower but $500 is on the bottom end of fair. If they're having problem selling the car in a timely manner they might consider selling it below their cost (which is different than "below value") just to be rid of it since they are paying interest on the cost (which is why the average days to turn over inventory is a metric that managers pay attention to). Or they might advertise a car with a sales price near or below cost but that one specific Honda Accord (as an example) will be the only one available for that price and all the rest will be slightly more expensive (usually the one with the highest mileage or something). It's not bait-and-switch because they absolutely will sell that specific car for the advertised price. The problem is that, unless you buy the entire dealership, there really isn't any way for you to find out what they actually paid for the car. The sales manager will be working off of the book value which acts as a proxy for the cost (and likely is the real cost) but if they got an especially good deal at the auction where they bought the car, the book value might actually be higher than what they really paid for it. That said, if they show you the book value, that is about as close as you're ever going to get to seeing what the car actually cost them.

No, you're not crazy, what they did was like saying "new tires" in the listing, then saying, "we'll have to charge you for new tires if you want 'em." I'd do #5, but I'd be hesitant to go back to the same shifty place. If 'certification' is simply a fee they add so you can feel covered if something goes wrong, it's just an extended warranty -- they're not actually making the car better before certifying it -- so negotiate with that context in mind, "certified" doesn't mean much if they didn't do anything before putting it on the lot.

Should I just swallow my pride and offer to buy it at the advertised cost, given that it meets my budget and is less than what I would have paid? At some point, it won't be worth it to not buy the otherwise-perfect car just to avoid the sense of being taken advantage of by the dealership. I've been there. I've bought two certified pre-owned cars in my life: a Volvo and a VW. The Volvo was advertised as certified and purchased as such w/o any additional fee. I don't remember if the VW was advertised as "certified" or "pre-certified," but the conversations I had with the salesman were all about the out-the-door price for a certified car. In the financing office, they pulled the same shit with the additional fee for it to be certified. It felt really sleazy, and I still felt like I should have walked to teach them a lesson. But there wasn't another one of these VWs for sale for a comparable price anywhere nearby, and like you, I was exhausted and I needed a car, so paid the $800 certification fee. It was still a good price, and several years later, I'm happy I got that car. (By the way, if you go this way, look up the brand's requirements for a car to be certified and make sure you're getting everything out of the deal that you can. VW requires cars sold as certified to have all three keys, and I only got two when I bought the car. I contacted VW of America about this and compelled the dealership to produce a new key (which ain't cheap), so that felt like a minor victory.)

But don't dealers actually sell cars under value every day? Dealers make money in a variety of ways: 1. The difference in price between what they bought the car for, and what the market rate is. 2. Acquiring your trade-in for less than what they can sell it for. 3. The finders fees associated with getting you financing. 4. Upcharges on things like undercoating, vehicle service contracts, etch, gap insurance, pin-striping, etc. 5. Goofy surcharges like Dealer Prep, Certification and any other bullshit a dealer thinks might fly. So, if you're wanting to pay less for the car than it cost them, aren't trading something in they can resell to some sucker for more than they're giving you for it, you're not financing with them, and you refuse to pay for anything over and above the car price....they'd just as soon wait for someone who will, because that's a lot of work to do for no profit.

5. If I do decide to go back, how should I proceed with negotiations? The price they are now listing is lower than I would have paid before, even if they tack on a certification fee, it would be within my budget, but out of principle, I would simply want to pay the newly advertised low price, with no "extra certification fee", and take this car home. Look, do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? Buy the car for the current $600 cheaper price and pay for the certification fee if they still want to tack that on. You'll still be better off than you would have been 2 weeks ago, and you'll have the car you want.

Show up with cash in hundred dollar bills. But 500 less than the current internet price. Spread it out on the table, start an egg timer at 30 minutes. Walk out when the timer goes off.

Do they have your phone number? If they have your phone number, and they are legitimately interested in selling it as a certified car and at the advertised price, then they would have called you. The fact that they haven't says volumes. In my experience, if a potential buyer walks out over something the dealership is willing to negotiate on, the dealer will go after them or call them. I suspect the advertised price here relies on "popular car fees" and "computer-generated interest rates" and similar shenanigans. If they don't have your number, it might be worth following up -- maybe -- but as said above, do you really want to buy a used car from these people?