That $595 document fee is outrageous (it's $100 in MN). Also, there's no mention of a Federal Excise Tax for tires anywhere on my bill of sale here in MN.

 

Wisconsin was $69.50 for title fee when I bought, now its raised to $164.50, yup all states going fee nuts! No tire fee here either.

 

If you think $595 is bad in NJ, you should see dealer doc fees in Florida!

Also, as of Jan 1 2020, PA dealer doc fees are no longer limited at $134. The new regulation is $324 if processed manually and $385 if processed on-line.

 

Document fees are a charge by the dealership, it changes depending on the dealership. Some states limit the amount they can charge. Several states will allow a charge of over $1000.00. You can negotiate that fee with the dealership as that goes to them for taking care of your paper work, title, registration, etc. Good luck with trying to lower it.
Here in Arizona we also have to pay a tire disposal fee of $4.00

 

If that $595 also includes the vehicle registration fee, it may not be as bad -- but still sounds high. In NY, I paid $75 doc fee and $150 or so for vehicle registration

 

$595 is typical for NJ dealers and does not include registration

 

As a resident in NJ, I hate buying vehicles here. Every major brand dealership charges a minimum of $400 dollars for the doc fees. I think the last two vehicles it was $495 each vehicle. Each time I tried to haggle the fee out, the dealer would not budge. The wife's car, they snuck in the fee. I didn't notice it until after we signed the papers. However we got a very excellent deal on the vehicle. It was several thousand under invoice and invoice on what I could find on the vehicle with the small amount of miles. I feel we walked in at the right time on that purchase. On my truck, the salesman knock the price down another $500 but said they had to charge the fee in accordance to dealership policy. Nothing on the dealer's web site about that one. That was a line of BS.

The smaller independent used car dealerships, will generally charge a bit less. I purchased a vehicle from a place like that in cash, I want to say the dealer fee was around 150 bucks. My father in law purchased a Subaru from a used car lot attached to a local Dodge dealer, he said it was a $295 plus TTL. If you are close to PA, I would hop over the river and deal in PA. I bought a truck in PA, it was much cheaper for the all the fees and they charged everything correctly like sales tax.

However I have seen a couple of dealers in New Jersey now include the document fee with the on line price. It clearly states the vehicle is $29,500 with X rebates plus $395 doc fee, tax, title,and tags. At least the dealer is upfront about it.

Tire tax is everywhere. When you purchase a vehicle. Replace tires on a vehicle. Dispose of tires at tire center. Same thing you are charged. When you buy tires there is a $1.50 tax for the new ones and and another $1.50 to dispose of the old ones. It's a pretty nice racket by the government. It is suppose to put funds in place for proper disposal of the tires.

Also the best ones I have seen in NJ, are the advertising or dealer prep fees. I have seen those on some of on line searches. Small print or on the window sticker. I have seen a dealer offer a $2000 dealer prep fee. It includes a free tank of gas, wash and wax of the vehicle, complete interior and exterior treatments, tire check, oil check and some other BS. The gas was the funny part since it is also listed the Window sticker for the vehicle. Then add more salt to the wound, try an advertising fee on top cause it cost money to sell on the web and list in the papers. Others will do some bogus $500 advertising fee for listing the vehicle on the web or in the paper.

 

As a resident in NJ, I hate buying vehicles here. Every major brand dealership charges a minimum of $400 dollars for the doc fees. I think the last two vehicles it was $495 each vehicle. Each time I tried to haggle the fee out, the dealer would not budge. The wife's car, they snuck in the fee. I didn't notice it until after we signed the papers. However we got a very excellent deal on the vehicle. It was several thousand under invoice and invoice on what I could find on the vehicle with the small amount of miles. I feel we walked in at the right time on that purchase. On my truck, the salesman knock the price down another $500 but said they had to charge the fee in accordance to dealership policy. Nothing on the dealer's web site about that one. That was a line of BS.

The smaller independent used car dealerships, will generally charge a bit less. I purchased a vehicle from a place like that in cash, I want to say the dealer fee was around 150 bucks. My father in law purchased a Subaru from a used car lot attached to a local Dodge dealer, he said it was a $295 plus TTL. If you are close to PA, I would hop over the river and deal in PA. I bought a truck in PA, it was much cheaper for the all the fees and they charged everything correctly like sales tax.

However I have seen a couple of dealers in New Jersey now include the document fee with the on line price. It clearly states the vehicle is $29,500 with X rebates plus $395 doc fee, tax, title,and tags. At least the dealer is upfront about it.

Tire tax is everywhere. When you purchase a vehicle. Replace tires on a vehicle. Dispose of tires at tire center. Same thing you are charged. When you buy tires there is a $1.50 tax for the new ones and and another $1.50 to dispose of the old ones. It's a pretty nice racket by the government. It is suppose to put funds in place for proper disposal of the tires.

Also the best ones I have seen in NJ, are the advertising or dealer prep fees. I have seen those on some of on line searches. Small print or on the window sticker. I have seen a dealer offer a $2000 dealer prep fee. It includes a free tank of gas, wash and wax of the vehicle, complete interior and exterior treatments, tire check, oil check and some other BS. The gas was the funny part since it is also listed the Window sticker for the vehicle. Then add more salt to the wound, try an advertising fee on top cause it cost money to sell on the web and list in the papers. Others will do some bogus $500 advertising fee for listing the vehicle on the web or in the paper.

I would expect that when you go to buy replacement tires you pay all the taxes including the Federal Excise Tax. But when you buy a car and the tires are already on it, you have to pay that tax as well? I never heard of that in my life.
Now in NJ. Sales tax is 6.625%, however, I am told since the Pali is over 45K, I pay tax of 6.625 + .4 + 7.025% even on the dealer doc fees.

 

Every time I purchase a car, I feel like they are trying to rape me. You spend 10's of thousands of dollars on something, when you're done, it should be a good feeling. Never is. I've found the best way for me so as to compare apples to apples is to always negotiate an "out the door" price; everything included. I don't care how they shuffle the deck and work the numbers. The total is the total. Then I can legitimately compare which dealer is giving me the best price.
Rusty

 

That's exactly the way I handle it. I do my research, figure out a price for my trade, figure out what I'd like them to come down to on their vehicle so that the prices are fair for them and me, estimate LEGITIMATE fees (license, title, sales tax) and say this is the out the door price I'd like, I'm not here to haggle. Work the numbers how you want on my trade, on your vehicle.

I did that with my recent Palisade purchase at my local dealership. They tried their best to get me to come up from the price I gave them, first, by countering $800 higher, then, the next day, they said they would agree to my out the door price, but by "out the door" they didn't mean it would include taxes. (LOL -- you're a car dealer and you don't know what "out the door" means?!?) So in the next text they said they would "split the taxes" with me, making my price $1100 higher or something like that, in other words, even higher than their first counter of $800. I'm not sure if they're that stupid or if they thought I was that stupid. Anyway, I let a few more days pass and figured I should just show up at their dealership with the title for my trade and my payment, and I came up $250 from the initial price I gave them, just to throw them a bone, because you got to make them feel like they "won" something, for their ego. I said we either do this deal now or I'm going to XXX dealership 50 miles away and presenting them with the same offer (fortunately that dealer had an identical Palisade Limited, except it was $500 more with the $250 price increase and a couple options like mudguards). It wasn't 1 minute later they came back and shook my hand and said "congrats on your new car, thanks for being patient with us." In other words, "thanks for not leaving even though we did our best to take advantage of you."

This was actually the first time I felt better about purchasing a car. I felt "better," not "good," because how can you feel good when someone is your best friend one minute, and then when it comes to talking price they turn into total jack$ss and lie to your face? For me, car buying is one of those experiences that makes you want to keep your car a long, long time, so that you can delay going through the whole process again.

 

Out the door is good strategy, along with knowing discounted prices, dealer cost, etc.

I only shop by Phone/Internet when haggling at least before final steps.

I actually went to NJ from NY 42 miles, MISTAKE. Never again. Only travel if everything is in your favor. Price was supposed to be 1100 to 1500 under sticker. I had tried Costo but at the time the car was too popular. Also even then Costo sometimes wants to send you 50 miles away when their are dealers 2 miles away.

 

If you are a 100% disabled veteran receiving disability payments from VA. You don't pay licensing on your vehicle only a $25.00 fee for the disabled veteran plate and a couple of dollars tax, under $5.00.
However if you are not the above the State of Arizona sticks it right to you on a car license
$ 32.00 Public Safety Fee
$ 1.50 air quality research fee
$ 4.00 title fee
$ 8.00 Registration fee
VLT ( vehicle license tax) which is ,on new car, $2.80 per $ 100.00 of assessed valve.
For a new $48000.00 vehicle that is $ 1344.00 first year, and it decreases 16.25% every year after that.
Yes you have to pay this tax every year. The second year it would be $ 1125.60
And you thought your auto fees were high

 

i agree the vlt is high in az. your numbers below are a bit off. my new palisade limited awd plates were a total of 850 bucks. no where near the 1344 you show below. still expensive by any measure though....

AZ VLT Calculator

VLT ( vehicle license tax) which is ,on new car, $2.80 per $ 100.00 of assessed valve.
For a new $48000.00 vehicle that is $ 1344.00 first year, and it decreases 16.25% every year after that.
Yes you have to pay this tax every year. The second year it would be $ 1125.60
And you thought your auto fees were high
[/QUOTE]

 

i agree the vlt is high in az. your numbers below are a bit off. my new palisade limited awd plates were a total of 850 bucks. no where near the 1344 you show below. still expensive by any measure though....

AZ VLT Calculator

VLT ( vehicle license tax) which is ,on new car, $2.80 per $ 100.00 of assessed valve.
For a new $48000.00 vehicle that is $ 1344.00 first year, and it decreases 16.25% every year after that.
Yes you have to pay this tax every year. The second year it would be $ 1125.60
And you thought your auto fees were high

[/QUOTE]
Which Palisade do you have?
Your right the vlt was $806.40 I was looking at the other fees that had been added in

 

Additional light reading for the residents of New Jersey

NJ Treasury Luxury vehicle Tax

Another NJ LFIS document

Depending on the one that you read, it can be pretty confusing. The interesting part is this charge appears to have been around for quite some time. like 2006! There is a number of extra documents in the second link that provide more information. So @Mark600 it was well before the gas tax hike that took place back in 2016 of 23 cents a gallon. Still don't see that money in the roads though as expected in NJ. Imagine if we had that gas tax now. Our gas cost for regular would be around $2.00/ gallon!

 

The dealer admin fees are really nothng more than added profit for the dealers. Here in NC, there is no limit on what dealers can charge for admin fees. My new Palisade had a $799 dealer admin fee that was absolutely NOT negotiable. I did negotiate some discount off the MSRP on the new Palisade and a somewhat higher trade-in value to partially cover that fee. I wish NC would regulate these fees like some other states do.

 

Tires are always taxed upon purchase. I think it's OK.

 

Many taxes seem illogical. I think Hyundai wouldn't have paid the tire tax anyway because it's a replacement part of your car. In addition, you should also not forget about the luxury car taxes. Actually, any extra addition and tuning can be considered a luxury and should be taxed. I hope you've dealt with this for a long time. I'm just wondering what you did in this situation. If I were you, I would first make the necessary stub through the pay stub generator. Then you could trace all the taxes paid and would notice possible inconsistencies. And don't forget to share the news here.