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Yeah the dealership experience is so frustrating. I hate haggling and feeling like you have to comb over all the finance paperwork to make sure they aren't trying to trick you. Even buying a house feels less difficult by comparison. Atleast with a house you EXPECT to haggle/ negotiate over something used.. but usually there's not surprises or hard sells once the offer is agreed upon and paperwork is being signed

Why on earth do they still make buying a new mass-produced vehicle so full of BS fake negotiating. I understand it more with USED vehicles since gremlins and prior history can effect the price so much.

 

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My surprise was when they wanted to see if VW finance could beat my already much lower credit union financing. So I said OK, and found out a week or two later that they did about 14 hard credit report hits. Just that could keep me from buying a second in short order. Oh, VW Credit eventually beat the rate I found by 0.5%, but the key differentiator was the included gap insurance, in the event of a total loss.

Yeah, i agreed to the GAP insurance too just to give the finance person a bone to get out of there. But you have 60 days to cancel GAP after you buy the car with no penalty.. which I just did. We put over 30% down though... so GAP insurance wasn't really necessary. The dealership was charging a high rate of $1K for gap insurance. So upon cancelling, it will just be credited to my car loan. Next thing I'm gonna do when i have time is look into refinancing through a credit union at a lower rate. 5% rate isn't terrible in current market... but i think with my high FICO i can do better.

 

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I recognize gap insurance fills a need, but it bugs me because it's so variable based on down payment, car depreciation, mileage, month of loss (relative to the payback schedule), and voodoo. But nobody wants to be upside down in the event of a total loss.

A policy Liberty Mutual offers I find to be a little more palatable: Better Car Replacement. In the event of a total loss payout, they will use the value of a one year newer car, same specs, with 15,000 fewer miles for their comp. And it's a relatively inexpensive add-on – about $5 monthly when I last used it ($0 down on a new Volvo, which depreciate steeply). It helps greatly if the insured car is the last year before a redesign – there's usually a large bump in value going from "old" to " refreshed."

I was looking for a good cheap GAP insurance option to carry the first year of ownership.. just in case. Geico my insurance company doesn't offer it, so it looks a bit complicated to just buy GAP stand alone thru a different insurance company. Haven't found a simple way to do so online. Anyone know of any short term standalone GAP insurance options I'd appreciate it.. and I'm sure others would to. VW sells the GAP policy for $1000 which, is cancelable... but still obscene.