76 Percent Of Americans Think Dealerships Are Lying About Car Prices

Photo: skynesher (Getty Images)

As it turns out, the vast majority of Americans think car dealerships are out to rip them off. The new KPA 2024 Dealership Trust Survey shows some fairly extreme gaps between perception and reality when it comes to pricing and financing.

Ford Wants to Sell EVs Online

The survey revealed that only about one-third of Americans have actually experienced things like deceptive selling, hidden fees and dishonest salespeople at dealerships. However, 76 percent of us still don’t trust that dealerships are actually being honest about pricing.

Here are the survey’s results when it comes to experiences with dealerships, from KPA:

34 percent have felt pressure to purchase “add-ons”30 percent agreed on a price and found hidden fees when they went to sign28 percent felt like the salesperson was trying to “trick” them into a deal28 percent left the dealership and went to another because they thought they were being lied to

And here’s how the survey found buyers’ perceptions of dealerships, from KPA:

86 percent are concerned about hidden fees when buying or leasing a vehicle84 percent say price transparency is lacking at most dealerships76 percent don’t trust the dealership is being honest about pricing

Something is amiss here if the perception is so much worse than the reality. If I had to guess, this gap in perception and reality is probably due to dealerships having such a long history of being absolutely awful. Honestly, I’m more surprised that 24 percent of people think dealerships are being honest about prices.

Anyway, these survey results come on the heels of an announcement from the Federal Trade Commission’s Combating Auto Retail Scams (CARS) Rule. Basically, it is being implemented to protect customers from shitty car dealers. Over the last year, the FTC has put a whole bunch of additional rules in place related to pricing transparency, financing, unnecessary add-ons and keeping customer information secure. If a dealership doesn’t follow these new laws and regulations, they can face fines from the FTC of over $50,000 per violation.

Here’s a quick note from KPA on its survey methodology:

This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of KPA between January 16-18, 2024 among 2,098 adults ages 18+. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. For this study, the sample data is accurate to within +/- 2.5 percentage points using a 95% confidence level.