Hi All:
I'm shopping for a new Cayman and have found several attractive cars for sale at various dealerships. The car I really like is at a dealer who wants to add $850 for dealer prep and $400 for document fees on top of the negotiated price. Is this normal and reasonable and/or necessary?
Thanks for your input.

Normal yes. Necessary? Not...well...necessarily. When I shop for a car I make it very clear at the outset that the offer I am making is OTD (out the door). In other words I'm offering to pay this amount for the car all inclusive. If the dealer wants to use some of that for prep or doc fees that's their problem. Sometimes this method can be a little difficult with high-end dealerships but if you make OTD pricing a part of your negotiation from the very beginning you might be surprised what you get. Worth a shot!

While my dealer had a documentation fee (it was 1/2 of yours), there is no prep fee and there should NOT be because EVERY new Porsche at a Porsche dealership has to go through PDI and the dealership gets paid by Porsche to perform those PDIs.

Now if this is a used Cayman at a non-Porsche dealership then sure that might be something they tack on, but if this was at a new Porsche dealership I would tell them to remove that charge or walk away as they would be trying to get paid twice for something.

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K-Man S

I believe doc fee in California is a max of about $50. Just extra profit for the dealer. If used, prep fees should have been included in the price. If new should be $0.. Doc fees should be resonable. When they are this high they are usually negotible.

I pretty much told my dealer that I will prep and document the car myself.

When they said that Porsche requires them to to it, I replied that then Porsche should pay them fo that, not me. Ended paying just the fees that go to the state for tags/registration.

I took delivery on Monday of a new CS that I had ordered on New Year's eve.

The paperwork is in front of me. I was charged $22.50 for Pa. Title fee and $36.00 for registration (license plate). That was it, no other charges other that Pa sales tax.

The dealer also installed clear side markers without charging me for the parts or any labor. Said they do that on all new Porsche's because they look better. I did not argue.

Bart

that is absolutely ridiculous. tell them to include it in the negotiated price or walk. for an 08 you should be driving out with TT&L included for less than sticker price.

They're just trying to hassle you... I've worked in the industry and while the items are "supposedly not negotiable" because the dealer often gets them pre-printed on the paperwork they use; essentially it is just extra profit and thus the dealer can take it out of the purchase price of the car. So just tell them you're ready to buy if they swallow the $1250 in fees, or split it, or whatever will make you happy and I'm sure they will eventually accept because lets face it... it's not like there are more buyers than cars.

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- Suneet

Thanks for your thoughts. This is a new Cayman I'm considering.

BTW...we've negotiated a price of $1500 over invoice(just under $50k) for a non-S Cayman w/some nice options like Sport Steering wheel, 18' CS wheels, PPKG & Sport Chrono etc. They wanted the $1200 Dealer Prep and Doc fees on top of that PLUS California taxes tags and registration. If I accepted all this the OTD price would be about the same or slightly more than the MSRP. From all of your inputs I think $1000 over invoice and perhaps $500 for dealer prep and docs is what I'll counter with. That would end up being the same as $1500 over invoice without the prep fee non-sense.