I have no intention of entering a car dealership ever again.
Anyways, in the end, you can get them to do almost anything by simply saying you want to return the car. That's pretty damn expensive and something they have no choice but to honor. Still, if you don't know this trick, it's a good way for these guys to be sneaky. This would've been easier for me to deal with if I could just physically bring it in somewhere and say "give it back clean".
That being said, I also understand you have better consumer protections in the UK, so maybe things are different for you.
I would assume "decline to accept" is different than "return car", is that true?
I think it's because of some law in the US requiring a grace period to return cars. One of the best consumer protection laws in the US, in my experience. I saved a lot of young military guys a lot of money by forcing them to return their 22% APR, 0% equity, brand-new, street demon car and get something vaguely reasonable.
I don't like buying at dealerships but I do like being able to inspect the vehicle at the same time I am signing the paperwork.
Used car dealers suck, in every way. They add zero value other than having a selection of cars in one place, and possibly a selection of lenders for financing if you need that. They also know every trick in the book to get you to pay more for the car than it is really worth.
Best way if you have a little time to do research and watch the local market is to buy a car from a private seller.
But yes generally my experience with https://clutch.ca was they push you to some expensive financing deal through their people.
I asked a used car salesman once, "what do you do to these cars after you get them" and he said "nothing." They get them from the auction and put them on the lot.
Now maybe some dealers do a little more. I am a bottom-feeder when it comes to cars. But stands to reason that any money they spend on the car is less profit for them when they sell it.
My guess is the "certified" part of pre-owned. It's basically just the labelling they give to lease vehicles that come back without excessive damage or wear. These vehicles generally have lowish miles, low wear on pretty much all components, and have been reasonably well kept by the leasee.
My wife and I have found certified pre-owned is sweet spot for price-to-value. We get a vehicle that's basically brand new - but with a massive cost reduction.
This to me is actually the opposite of deceptive. The used car industry took a risk by asking to be judged on their merits because pre-owned could have been synonymous with garbage in short order. There was little anchoring it to any particular connotation.
This is entirely deceptive, and nothing else. It is a change solely made to confuse people about the validity of their past experiences, and to sucker them into disregarding them when making very expensive decisions about their futures.
They think the classifications are "new," "used," and "pre-owned" rather than "new," "pre-owned," and "certified pre-owned" (which is a special warranty type.) So when they see "pre-owned" they think it is short for "certified pre-owned" which means that they're pricing in a warranty that they are not getting.
They were not confused, they were specifically talking about the distinction of 'certified' and how it applies to this article.
Colloquially, people commonly understand that "pre-owned" means "used".
This is different than people shortening their language while concurrently understanding the distinction.
How would anyone presume a warranty based off of the terms used or pre-owned? There's not an industry standard warranty that correlates to these terms. Anyone who's curious about a warranty would be told the terms of the warranty are anyway regardless of whether it was called it pre-owned or used.
> all the vehicles sold on Amazon will be backed by Ford’s warranties and roadside assistance guarantees. According to Ford, every vehicle that appears on Amazon has been “inspected, reconditioned, and comes with a Ford warranty, Ford Rewards points, and in some cases, a money-back guarantee.”
In my book, it's the same for "used" and "pre-owned". It never occurred to me that anyone would think a "pre-owned" vehicle automatically came with a warranty. It was just a nicer way of saying that you weren't the first owner, without using the word "used" (which evokes "used up"). Also, I think sketchy used car lots sell what they call "pre-owned" vehicles, even though they don't provide certification and warranties (at least not ones you can count on, since they could just disappear overnight).
"Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait." (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
I've made the title say 'used' instead of 'pre-owned' now.
If submitters are supposed to change the wording wherever marketing corpspeak exists, there will be a lot more changed titles, and perhaps not always for the better.
Sometimes it's only when the commenters start reacting to a title that we even find out that there's an issue.
It's just a lead generator like any other. Why did Amazon choose to enter that market?
* If Amazon spends the appropriate time researching into each car's history, properly inspecting and repairing any defects and working with customers if there are problems - they will not make a net profit. Not 'maybe', they won't.
* If Amazon doesn't have due diligence, people will get cars with endless problems, Amazon will be covered in bad press, and the whole thing will collapse due to low demand.
Plus, unlike buying a new car where inspection doesn't matter nearly as much - buying online gives you 0 way to really look at it yourself and take it to a local mechanic to have it inspected. (Which I am EXTREMELY glad I did, I nearly bought a car that would have been a disaster)
I suspect this effort will last maybe a year and a half at best.
Cars are bulky, heavy, expensive, and lose value quickly with age. Even new, the competition is so tight and logistics so hard that it's a nightmare. Used cars are so much worse an industry to work in.
(Figured at the time that the ‘hybrids’ cost more to rent, and anyone getting one as part of an upgrade would have treated it better than an econobox. Paid off quite nicely.)
It was a reasonable price at the time and I’m sure as hell glad I don’t have to go back into the used car market now with how stagnant the prices got.
https://www.ford.com/cmslibs/content/dam/brand_ford/en_us/br...
Given that used car dealerships have existed for decades, it's possible to do profitably. Why can't amazon?
* Avoid paying any shipping costs, and require the car be driven to you in person
* Have a shop attached to the dealership for inspection to avoid paying a third party
* Have a person at the ground level look over the car and refuse to accept ones that are obviously junk, minimizing wasted time and money
If Amazon is literally just acting as a front-end/advertisement for Ford and has 0 involvement than most of this doesn't apply.
It's only a concern for places that act as a true online retailer, taking on all the inventory and risk associated with it.
I bought my car off of Shift (wonderful experience in 2016) for such a low price that my credit union heard the price I was buying it for and immediately went, “oh, honey, I’m so sorry. We can’t give loans for a salvage vehicle.” She looked at the carfax and was dumbfounded how it had a clean title, no accidents, etc. and was not just cheaper than blue book for a dealer but cheaper than for a private party by a significant margin.
freedomben•2mo ago
> Forty-eight states have laws that limit or ban manufacturers from selling vehicles directly to consumers
Why on earth is this a law? (I mean besides the obvious lobbying efforts and likely scare-mongering from powerful auto dealers) Is there an actual reason/benefit for this though for consumers?
everdrive•2mo ago
This is the only reason so far as I understand it.
lordnacho•2mo ago
s1mplicissimus•2mo ago
ortusdux•2mo ago
Kirby64•2mo ago
Nowadays with nationwide fast shipping and the internet these aren’t really problems… but in the 1950s I could see how there would be some benefits to having a dealership near you.
SoftTalker•2mo ago
jvanderbot•2mo ago
freedomben•2mo ago
SoftTalker•2mo ago
ch4s3•2mo ago
dh2022•2mo ago
jvanderbot•2mo ago
axus•2mo ago
ceejayoz•2mo ago
https://service.tesla.com/docs/ModelS/ServiceManual/en-us/GU...
> Tesla does not allow the use of any used, recycled, alternative, aftermarket, or third-party replacement parts. Use only new parts ordered directly from Tesla.
kube-system•2mo ago
ceejayoz•2mo ago
A Federal-level right to repair can't come soon enough.
kube-system•2mo ago
ceejayoz•2mo ago
If you're a mechanic who wants Tesla parts, you need to go through Tesla. If you go through Telsa, you can't use third-party parts or resell the first-party ones. As a result, the market for third-party parts stays largely too small to exist.
AndroidKitKat•2mo ago
In the event you want to DIY a repair, Tesla publishes all their service manuals they use at their service centers (e.g. [2]) and you can can even use the exact same software their technicians use for the deeper repairs, albeit at a price that is expensive if you're a plain Joe, but for a repair shop it doesn't seem to be terribly expensive.
On the topic of 3rd party parts, there isn't quite as robust a marketplace.
[1] - https://epc.tesla.com/en-US/landingpage
[2] - https://service.tesla.com/docs/ModelY/ServiceManual/2025/en-...
[3] - https://service.tesla.com/en-US/diagnostic-software
kube-system•2mo ago
That's actually a lot less than I was expecting. Toyota's is $1500/year.
freedomben•2mo ago
ceejayoz•2mo ago
Guess who donates a whole bunch to their local and state-level candidates to prevent precisely that?
IncreasePosts•2mo ago
gwbas1c•2mo ago
IncreasePosts•2mo ago
No, you didn't pick them up at a dealership. Because Tesla doesn't operate dealerships. They call them stores, or galleries depending on if direct sales are legal. They hold dealer licenses, but that does not mean they are a dealership.
If you're going to be needlessly hostile, at least be correct.
https://www.tesla.com/findus/list/stores/United%20States
tomhow•2mo ago
Please omit swipes like this from comments on HN, regardless of who or what you're replying to. The guidelines make it clear we're aiming for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
navan•2mo ago
BugsJustFindMe•2mo ago
Generously, protecting local labor is important in an environment that demands labor for survival and where considering alternative systems of providing for people is verboten. This is a confederation-level version of protections against offshoring jobs. Whether the jobs add value or not is its own dilemma.
Arainach•2mo ago
zer00eyz•2mo ago
This is a gross misunderstanding of what vertical integration is.
YKK zippers makes an unbeatable product because of vertical integration.
A lack of vertical integration means that you're subject to the whims of larger markets (and increased interest and costs at every step).
The flip side to this is "control nothing". Buy the building your office is in and own an asset, or get a triple net lease and then pay margin on top of that. Own your own hardware or pay AWS to have 30percent profit margins...
pessimizer•2mo ago
YKK zippers make an unbeatable product because they are a monopoly.
verall•2mo ago
zer00eyz•2mo ago
Also makes great zippers. They are more vertically integrated than most of their other competitors.
Arainach•2mo ago
It potentially means you can only get parts going through the company that sells the complete product.
It potentially means that you have to pay whatever price the company sets because they control the distribution pipeline.
zer00eyz•2mo ago
A company could be vertically integrated, and have a small portion of the market. A company could be a full on monopoly and have little to no vertical integration.
YKK processing raw metals and plastics, building its own zipper making machines has nothing to do with how much market share it has. It has everything to do with product quality.
Faunc is another example of "vertical integration" where they make the mills, software and controllers for their devices, as well as servos and spindles. Servos and spindles are commodity items (you can buy them cheaply from china) yet Faunc makes their own for quality and reliability reasons.
s1mplicissimus•2mo ago
I would like to add some nuance though: As the supply chain becomes longer, the value of vertical integration rises. Now if we acknowledge that bigger players can profit more from vertical integration as well, and assume that players play equally well, we have a "devil poops on the big pile" situation, pulling the market towards a monopoly as the bigger player gets to profit more.
So it's not got exactly ZERO to do with market dominance ;)
ceejayoz•2mo ago
Car dealerships tend to be keystone businesses in towns; they wind up with outsized political power on the state and local level.
scrumper•2mo ago
ceejayoz•2mo ago
Locally powerful people can have a lot of leverage, even against a much bigger national-level entity.
dragonwriter•2mo ago
cvoss•2mo ago
imglorp•2mo ago
This whole thing sounds like dealership with extra steps and a middleman fee.
dawnerd•2mo ago
SoftTalker•2mo ago
"Yeah but that TruCoat.... Lemme talk to my boss..."
rdtsc•2mo ago
geodel•2mo ago
apparent•2mo ago
rchaud•2mo ago
3 months ago, I had to navigate multiple froms and dropdowns to even reach a chat representative. And when I did, they had none of the information I spent several minutes filling out. The rep then grilled me about my order, seemingly incredulous that Amazon had sent me a "new" product that was clearly used and repackaged when I opened it (this has been common for years as Amazon commingles its own stock with that of 3rd party sellers).
apparent•2mo ago
HeyLaughingBoy•2mo ago
Why did you need to talk to support?
rchaud•2mo ago
blibble•2mo ago
I can't imagine any support experience worse than dealing with Amazon "customer support"
christ help you if you mix that with a car dealership
apparent•2mo ago
The real question is: who's on the hook if things aren't as described/pictured? It sounds like these all come with extended warranties, so that would mean it would be the dealer. They're no picnic to deal with, but that's going to be the case no matter whether you buy the car from them or from Amazon. If you can have a more pleasant buying experience by starting with Amazon, that's a win in my book.
As a knock-on effect, it could help bring down prices on used cars sold by other dealers, since buyers could point to these car listings as comparables.