r/FuckDealerships

I know a few mechanics making 6 figures but most of them are working 12 hours 6 days a week and have no lives. Almost all the warranty Admins I know make 6 figures. I know two that make over 150k. The job is basically data input. They get a percentage of all the work done. Sometimes the percentage is more than what the mechanic is making on the work. Why is this? They're also called "The money makers " and they get invited out to all the special managers lunches. Why?

Hey everyone,

I really need some honest advice because I’m honestly frustrated and confused right now.

I recently went to a dealership (Mazda in Bayswater), and initially everything seemed fine. I showed interest in a car and even made an offer. When they came back with their counter-offer, I just asked for one day to think about it — pretty normal, right?

That’s when things went downhill.

The manager suddenly became aggressive and disrespectful. He raised his voice, showed zero customer respect, and at one point even removed his shoe and said something like “Do you want the car for free?” in a very mocking way. I’ve never experienced anything like this before at a dealership. I walked out feeling really bad.

I do enjoy helping people get their dream car if you need advice or help feel free to message me. I’ve been in industry for over three years. I know all the pressure points. I get frustrated with the process to buy one also.

https://preview.redd.it/0k3pbhrebewg1.png?width=1417&format=png&auto=webp&s=5e16ea73678886441152f0e6b965dd6bc428b82c

So I'm currently leasing and just trying to get dealerships to tell me what payments look look out the door. This new sales tactic must work on someone, right?

red flag for a shitty dealership - hard avoid

I sold 5 used-cars to a dealership and came out break-even. I don't owe the dealership anything and and they don't have to pay me anything. They didn't pay the off the loans in time for my next due date so I had to fork out $2100. They finally paid the loans but the payoff amount was the amount after the last payments so they owe me $2100. Now they are telling me to write a check for them for $5000 and will me a check for $9000. Have anyone ever heard of something like this?

Kim Muratori did not buy a luxury vehicle to watch it collect dust in a dealership's lot for more than two years. But that is exactly what happened. Her 2018 Mercedes-Benz E-400 sat completely motionless for 25 months before a tow truck finally came to haul it away, a moment she made sure to capture on video. It was not a joyful occasion. It was the end of a grueling legal fight that cost her far more than she ever anticipated.

What This Case Reveals About Consumer Protections in Florida

Attorney Eduardo Ayala, who represented Muratori, was candid about the structural problem this case exposed. Even when consumers win, the process can drain them financially and emotionally. Florida's arbitration and contract laws create a landscape where smaller cases can feel unwinnable before they even begin, not because the facts are unclear, but because the cost of pursuing justice can outpace the value of what is being fought over.

Muratori racked up $17,000 in attorney's fees that are simply not recoverable under the terms of how the case resolved. She also had to purchase a second vehicle during the entire ordeal just to get around. She was fortunate enough to have the financial cushion to absorb those costs and keep fighting. Her own words on that point are worth sitting with: "Other people may not have that luxury."

That is not a small observation. It is a quiet indictment of a system where doing the right thing and winning your case can still leave you thousands of dollars in the hole.

What Drivers Can Learn From Kim Muratori's Story

There are real, practical takeaways here for anyone who buys or leases a vehicle.

First, always request an independent inspection before taking delivery of a car, especially a used or certified pre-owned model. An odometer reading that does not match the vehicle's internal computer is the kind of discrepancy that a dealer walkthrough will never catch.

Second, document everything from the very beginning. Muratori filmed the tow truck taking her car away, and that kind of paper trail matters.

Third, understand what arbitration actually means before you sign a contract with a clause requiring it. Arbitration is often framed as a consumer-friendly alternative to litigation, but as Ayala pointed out, the way it interacts with Florida contract law can leave buyers with very limited options if they do not have the resources to go the distance. Finally, do not assume that a dealership will do the right thing on its own timeline. Muratori said it plainly: they thought she would walk away. She did not. Most people, unfortunately, would have had to.

Muratori has said she plans to write directly to the CEO of AutoNation. Whether or not that letter changes anything, her story already has.

I was at a local Nissan dealership yesterday wanting to test drive a new 2026 Nissan Sentra (most likely my first mistake). I was torn between getting a higher trim SR or a lower trim SV with convenience package. A salesman approaches me and I tell him I’m looking at two cars on the lot and want to test drive both with the difference coming down to the features, particularly safety features and some interior features like ambient lighting.

We get into one of the cars, and I realized there were a few features missing in the SR but wanted to confirm. For one of the features, I ask the salesman where I can find it on the dash. He couldn’t find it, so I was mindlessly scrolling around trying to find it myself. We concluded we couldn’t find it, so we went inside and sat back in his cubicle area. He didn’t even know the name of the actual feature itself, I had to tell him the wording they used while he looked it up on his computer. Then, we eventually found out the car didn’t have that specific feature after all and I asked him to drive the lower trim with the premium package. We tried to find and we eventually find it, which made me question whether we could find it on the higher trim. Any feature I asked about was met with “I don’t know let’s find it”. It absolutely drove me nuts and made for an awkward experience. I wish I just drove the damn car myself, because that’s what I felt like.

I understand if I was at some independent used car lot because there’s just so many used cars, but knowing nothing about a NEW car at a dealership for a make YOU represent is fucking crazy. And this Nissan dealership is a smaller dealership which only sells new cars, so it’s just unacceptable to not know about the car you’re selling. Being a car salesman must be so easy though, because you can know nothing and still make money. Must be great to have a job where you’re a sack of shit and you still make money.

I've been watching post after post on this sub about elderly parents, grieving spouses, first-time buyers, and people under stress walking out of dealerships with $15k, $20k, $25k in garbage add-ons they didn't understand and payments that bear no resemblance to what they came in for. It's not random. It's a process. The F&I office runs a playbook, and once you see the moves, you can't unsee them.

1. The payment is the weapon, not the price. They don't sell cars — they sell monthly payments. Once they have your target biweekly, they have infinite room to add term, rate, and product. A $35,000 vehicle at 7 years becomes a $55,000 financed balance at 9 years with the same biweekly, and the customer thinks they got what they wanted. If the dealer won't put the selling price, the interest rate, the term, and the total financed amount on one sheet in front of you, you're being worked.

2. Rate markup is silent and legal. The bank approves you at one rate (the "buy rate"). The dealer sells you a higher one (the "sell rate") and pockets the spread. You will never see this on any document. It's pure profit to them and a four- or five-figure cost to you over the life of the loan. Ask directly: "What rate did the bank approve me at?" Watch the room change.

3. Menu selling is designed to overwhelm. The F&I guy hits you with five or six products in ten minutes — extended warranty, GAP, tire and rim, life/disability, appearance protection, key replacement. Half of them are cheap. Half of them are $2k–$5k each. By the time you've said yes to the $300 ones, you're numb to the $4,000 one. That's the design.

4. "It won't change your payment" is the biggest lie in the building. Yes it will. Anything they add to your financed amount costs you principal + interest over the full term. When they say it doesn't, they're telling you they've already padded the payment to absorb it, and they're betting you won't ask where the pad came from.

5. The signed quote doesn't match the signed contract. Happens constantly. Customer initials a financing worksheet with 3 products and a lower payment. Final contract has 6 products and a higher payment. Somewhere in the signing ceremony, the numbers moved, and nobody pointed at the change. Always — always — compare the preliminary quote to the final contract line by line before signing. They are counting on you not doing this.

6. Add-ons you can cancel. In most of Canada and the US, credit life and disability have a 10-day free-look with full refund. Extended warranty, GAP, tire-and-rim, asset protection are pro-rata cancellable. The newer the car and the sooner you cancel, the closer to full refund you get. Cancellations go to the actual product provider, not the dealership's internal desk. Get it in writing, get the refund applied to principal, get a new amortization schedule.

7. The vulnerable get worked harder, not softer. Recently widowed. Grieving. First-time buyer. Elderly. Language barrier. Traveled hours to get there and mentally committed. These are not accidents in the F&I chair — they're the profile. A good store trains against it. Most don't.

If you're about to buy or lease, bring a second person. Not for moral support — for the F&I office specifically. Someone to say "hold on, let me read that" when you're tired. Someone to catch the thing you'd miss alone. If you're reading this after the fact and realize you got worked — you probably have more time and more options than the dealership told you. Free-look periods, pro-rata cancellations, and in serious cases provincial or state consumer protection offices are all real leverage.

Disclosure, because I'm not going to hide it: I do this for a living. Flat-fee, buyer-side only, never paid by dealers or on back-end products. I'm posting this here because this sub exists for a reason and I'd rather people not need me than get worked by someone wearing the F&I badge. If you've got a specific situation or a contract you want a second pair of eyes on, drop it in the comments — public, free, no DMs needed.

I worked at a "Family Owned Dealership" that prided itself on doing what's right for 2 years but I went from naïve 19 year old to back to school at 21. Family Owned doesn't mean shit tbh.

I have literally all the ins and outs of the tricks they do and such because its all fake. I thought what I was doing was right and such because "they're doing it to themselves" but its all bs. Fuck em, what do you guys wanna know bc I realized too late that all ts was scummy.

Ugh. Withhold judgement if you can.

I purchased a CPO XC40 from a local Volvo dealership. I purchased an extended warranty for peace of mind as they can be costly to fix.

After some time and research, I do feel as though I could’ve got a cheaper warranty and that wasn’t the best option, so I chose to cancel it. Subject to a $50.00 admin fee as it was past 30 days - completely fine.

I check my Capital One app and there appeared to be a payment for $2,393.00. I contacted the warranty servicer and my lien-holder - the dealership had the price paid at $2,443.00. So I’m now missing about $1,600.00 from the refund as it was sold to me for $4K. My retail installment contract shows $4K paid to Volvo and my lien-holder has that amount as well.

How would you even begin to go about the significant discrepancy. I HATE DEALERSHIPS. Honestly just stressed out at this point and looking for any helpful ways to approach this not looking for judgement. Thanks in advance

Bought a Volvo XC60 from McGrath Volvo Cars Barrington (IL) and was pushed to enroll in a payment program during financing.

Was explicitly told it would reduce my loan from 72 months to ~65 months and lower the overall cost. That’s why I agreed to it.

After the purchase, I received a letter from my lender that stated very different loan terms so I verified directly with the party I had signed up for the autopay and my lender. Turns out that the link they sent me during financing to do my autopay with is a third party that does not work with my lender. The lender had never heard of this company too. After soooo much back and forth via email and phone I figured out what this third party does and..... what the dealer had me sign up for with this third party

• does not reduce the loan term as the dealership said
• It’s just a third-party payment service, not part of Volvo Financial like it was presented because throughout the entire time, not once did they say that it was a third party.

So what was sold vs. how it actually works don’t match.

When I first saw that letter from the lender I tried to get clarification from the finance manager, he obviously ignored me and I had no response.

The third party had already debited money from me and said they'd send to my lender by the due date, which they did not and payment was late so I had to pay out of pocket to prevent it from affecting my credit. Meanwhile, the dealership couldn't even bother to answer my emails.

Now that I’ve escalated with the dealership, they’re pointing to a finance office video and saying I need to come in to watch it...but:

• I live 1+ hours away from the dealership and so I asked for a copy to save us both time and gas and they refuse to send a copy and when I ask for a reason as to why they can't share it I got ghosted.

If you’re going to rely on a video to defend what was said, why not let the customer actually review it independently? I am a reasonable person and can be okay with being wrong, but If they’re confident in what was said, they shouldn’t have a problem sharing the video they’re now relying on. It all feels fishy here.

At this point, I have already canceled that third party service and have escalated to Volvo corporate and preparing formal complaints.

But sharing here so you all double check anything a dealership presents as “part of your financing" and make sure to get everything documented. I would hate to see anyone else have to deal with what I've dealt with.

EDIT: I am just here to share my story so others can keep out for similar practices at dealerships and stay away from these things. I'm not asking for advice or explanations on what might have happened. Trust me I have gone through all documentation with a magnifying glass and know whats missing and what I have, and have also spent countless hours with this third party emailing and phone calls as well as with the actual lender.