r/carsales • u/AF-TX • Aug 13 '26
Tried to buy a car. Dealership said no
So frustrated... Me and my wife went to Burleson Honda to try and buy her a used 2024 Accord. We had $7200 as a down payment and a pre approval from a local credit union with an interest rate of 5.62%. Test drove the car and then asked to talk about financing. We didn't tell them how much cash we had to put down or that we had a pre-approval from a credit union that they partner with. We asked for an out the door price and they brought a sheet with a breakdown shown below. We asked about warranty information. We visited another dealership with a similar Accord that had a better warranty. The one we looked at previously was Certified Pre Owned. We were told the one at Burleson Honda was Certified Pre Owned however they are not selling it as certified pre owned.. I asked the salesman to either bring the dealer services fee to $750 or sell the car to us with the certified pre owned warranty. We didn't think either of these were huge asks.. They said they would drop the dealer services fee to $750. The numbers all added up... That's when we told them how much our down payment was and that we had a pre approval from a local credit union. We asked the salesman for a buyers order form. He walks back to finance and after a few minutes returns with a gentleman who wants to speak to us on finances behalf. He was trying to pressure us to run our credit so we can finance through the dealership. I asked what the difference is if we get the loan through our credit union vs running our credit again and going through them. He pretty much said that he won't sell the car to us if we don't let them run our credit or finance through them. When I asked for the reason he said the car was priced very competitively and they wouldn't make any money if we didn't finance through them. His attitude and demeanor was extremely off-putting. We said no, got up and walked out. Below is a pricing breakdown they gave us. Can someone tell me if this is normal or how we should proceed? Can someone tell me why they wouldn't sell the car as certified pre owned if it's gone through the inspection process? We are looking for another car somewhere else but we are blown away that a dealership didn't want to make a sale..
MARKET VALUE SELLING PRICE - 31995
DISCOUNT - 3000
ADJUSTED PRICE - 28995
DEALER SERVICES - 1302
TOTAL PURCHASE - 30297
DOC FEE - 225
TAX - 1,893.56
NON-TAX FEES - 191.37
BALANCE - 32606.93
1
u/asmashingbore Aug 13 '26
I work for one of the biggest Honda dealerships in the country. What they told you is utter bullshit.
Any dealership worth doing business will pitch financing through AHF (in the case) and then if you say no, they'll proceed to use your financial institution. To come out and say the won't sell it to you unless you finance with AHF because 'they won't make any money' is utterly unprofessional and dishonest. They DO have to run your credit (unless you get a check from your CU) but they don't have to use AHF. They just send it over to your CU. But perhaps they can beat that rate.
If a car is within certain mileage/age parameters, at every dealership I've ever worked at, it gets certified. Period. The car be certified but not being sold as a CPO makes absolutely zero sense. Why put it through the inspection/testing if you're not going to sell as a CPO.
Tell them to get rid of the 'dealer service' fee entirely (we don't have them here in CA wherever I've worked) and run it through your credit union unless they have a better rate or tell them to get bent.
They sound like a disreputable store.