H is for Huh?

It seems like a lot of things today make me go "Huh??"  As in, "what the bloody hell?"

Yesterday was one of those days.  My 1995 Dodge Custom van is getting a long in the tooth. Milage is about 160K. Motor is solid. Rear end is noisy. Air conditioning is kaput. Lots of rust on roof and along the roof's gutters. Thus, I have been occasionally looking on the internet for a replacement, despite the fact that I am only two years away from being able to put a cheap antique tag on it.

It has to be cheap. My days of buying a new car every year or so ended back in the 1970s. In the past 20+ years, I've only bought three new vehicles. And can't afford today's prices for new. Not sure I can even afford old used cars either.

As I drove past a Clearwater Chevy dealer yesterday, I spotted a bright yellow SSR in their used car area. I knew I couldn't afford it, but I decided to see the details about it on their web site anyway.

As I started looking for it in their inventory, I spotted a used Chevy Cruze for $7,999.  I had recently seen an article on the net that said that was a good car, so I clicked on their details icon for it.

The specs were okay. But I noticed a "*" by the price and dropped down to read the fine print for that.  Oh, boy!  It was HUH? time.

The fine print said that was the discount price. $1,000 had been deducted as an incentive to use their financial partners' financing. In other words, if you were to pay cash, the price would be $1,000 more. Huh?

Then they went on to say they had deducted another $1,000 for you trade-in. And it had to be later than 1999 and have less than 100,000 miles on it. Since my van is a 1995, the price now went up another $1,000.  Huh?

Then they said to add $999 for dealer fees.  Huh?

They went on to add $399 for a private tag agency fee. What the hell is that? Huh?

They weren't done.  Now, add $1,253 in reconditioning costs on that particular car. I checked a couple of other used cars on their site and it was always exactly $1,253 for that car. Huh?

Of course, they added the standard bit about me paying the sales tax and license fees.

Therefore, if I wanted to pay their "no haggle" price for the $7,999 car, it would cost me $12,650 before sales tax and license.  Huh?  You gotta be kidding me! (Truth be told, I did not exclaim "You gotta be kidding me" out loud when I added it up. I said "You gotta be sh*ting me.")

The dealer's name is Dimmit. Methinks they think their potential customers are Dimwits.