Yep, I did the same immediate $500 donation with the ASPCA. The process from the donation time to the VIP email in my inbox was 3 hours. I was impressed with the quick response from both organizations. We decided on a Touring model and provided the dealer with the options we wanted. The no negotiating part is nice as the price of the vehicle came in at invoice minus 2%.
The problem here in Florida is that almost every dealer charges a "dealer fee", which they have various names for, and unfortunately, this fee is legal if a dealer chooses to have one. This is mostly, if not all, profit and in my instance is an additional $799.50. Don't get me wrong, I understand the dealer needs to make a profit, and I was willing to let them have it. But it isn't like they aren't already getting money from Subaru via holdback and floor plan money, which, FYI, works out to a little over $1100 on a Touring model. So, by my estimate, if I did approved that, they were going to make almost $2000 on the sale. Which I think would be a nice profit on a new car.
However, there are more costs this dealer has added to pad their profit margin like, electronic filing fee $179.00; document stamps fee $166.00; new license/tags/registration fee $389.00 (I looked this up on DMV and it's only $304.25 at the max). Then they broke out separate line items that are part of the $304.25 registration fees for Florida, like the lien fee $2.00 and the lemon law fee $2.00. Finally, two other fees that Florida requires and are required are a tire fee $5.00 ($1.00 per tire), battery fee $1.50. Then the big one here, 6% tax rate. By the time it was all said and done, the final price (prior to down payment) was $300 more than the MSRP.
So, even though I got the VIP price, when I add up all there is $1233 of dealer profit on top of the money Subaru pays them to sell it. Probably not going to go with this dealer.
