A preparation fee is a fee that dealers may charge for getting a car ready for purchase or lease. Such preparation consists of little more than washing the car and filling it with gas. You sometimes can negotiate this fee out of a lease contract.
Information for this was taken from the Cars.com’s glossary, written by Joe Wiesenfelder.
Learn more
When I bought My 08 Sienna on February, I was charged around $300 for paper processing and to keep it in their system for 10 years. Was I ripped off?
See if your question has already been asked and answered
Your question has been successfully submitted to Ask.cars.com. It will now be reviewed by our editors and we'll answer it soon if we think it's a useful question. You will be notified via e-mail when the answer is posted. Ask.cars.com tackles your questions about new cars and the car-buying process. Unfortunately we can't answer questions regarding:
Have our experts answer any of your questions about new cars.
Don't worry — we won't publish your last name or email.
This is another way that dealer uses to rip you off.
You tell dealer that you're not going to pay it. Period.