Advertising Fees
Usually when you buy through discount sites like from InvoiceDealers, Autoweb, Car.com, Autobytel, CarsDirect, AutoUSA you avoid ad fees. Car makers charge dealers for regional and national advertising campaigns. These charges are reflected on the invoice and are a legitimate cost of doing business. This is where opinions differ, as I feel it's their cost of doing business, not ours. Tell them to pay your fees like gas, wear and tear, and your time for driving all over town to shop for the car. Many dealers are sticklers about this fee, and it's difficult to get them to drop it, but some do waive the fee. If a dealer adds on their own advertising fee above and beyond this, they are out of bounds. Dealers try to charge $250 -$1000, but it should not be more than $250. You're not paying for their inability to find cost effective ads. $1000 ad fees allow the dealer to charge you a lower price on the car. You think you're saving money, but ad fees take it right back. This fee may also show up as "Sales Promotion Fund", or DAA, or ADA, or anything referring to ads. Edmund's says it's non-negotiable, but they are wrong. Anything in life is negotiable, and I don't give up that easily. What angers me the most is the cryptic way that dealers hide this fee from you by using huge acronyms, then playing stupid when you question it. "Duh, I don't know, we always charge this fee". A Nissan Dealer in Chicago told one of our visitors that they have to charge the Nissan advertisement fee and can't drop it or they can face a class action law suit. Nice scam. Where's my bull icon?
Ford dealers use the cryptic term "FDAF/LMDA" on their invoice. "FDAF" stands for "Ford Dealer Advertising Fund", and the "LMDA" stands for Lincoln Mercury Dealer Advertising. Why can't they just disclose it as "ad fee"? I didn't pay an ad fee for my Lexus in 1998 or the Mazda Millenia in 1999. Honda add fees are built into the invoice price, don't let them charge you extra. Other companies choose their own cryptic acronym, like DAA (Dealer Area Advertising), TDA (Toyota Dealer Advertising Fee), HDA, you get the picture. If it ends with an "A", it's most likely an advertising fee. Speaking of advertising, dealers are neither grateful nor shy about plastering their name on the trunk of your shiny new car at a cost of $0 to them. You then spend the next several years advertising their dealership free of charge with your moving billboard. You should charge them a $600 advertising fee for that.
