DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour

Since I generally drive a different car every week, I get the opportunity to peruse a lot of Monroney labels. (For those from rural Vermont, Monroney labels are the price sheets you have to scrape off the rear side window when you purchase a new vehicle.) Lately, I’ve witnessed a phenomenon that I do not care for whatsoever. A lot of manufacturers are listing charges for such items as “paint.” You heard me right…charging for paint!

And it seems the more words used to describe the paint the more expensive the “option” is. I just had a 2009 Dodge Journey dropped off for reviewing and in reading the price sheet I see there’s a $225 charge for “Inferno Red Crystal Pearl Coat Exterior Paint.” (I wonder if it were just called Red Paint if the dealer could throw it in out of kindness?)
 
A while back I reviewed a Mercedes-Benz CLK. It was a truly marvelous vehicle and I was delighted to have experienced it. It certainly wasn’t a cheap ride – bottom-lining at about $65,000. However, of that total there was a $720 charge for “Metallic Pewter” paint. Let’s think about this for a minute. Someone is paying over $65,000 for a car. If you’d deduct the $720 cost of the paint and bury it in the cost of the vehicle, you’d still be paying close to $65,000. However, you’d have the satisfaction of thinking you didn’t pay a 1.1% premium for a paint job! At some point you’re going to have to shave the whiskers off that sap you’re looking at in the mirror.

In 1965, I purchased a Ford Galaxie 500 two-door hardtop. I didn’t have any options except whitewall tires and an extra charge of $38 for “Poppy Red” paint. Poppy red was a Mustang color and only available on the Galaxie at a premium. I don’t have a problem with that. But what I really think approaches the outskirts of “tacky city” is when manufacturers charge extra for an “available” color – especially in the luxury car segment.

If you chose to accept your vehicle without any paint, would the car company credit you for the amount of money you would have had to pay if you’d had the car painted? I doubt it, Rollo. This could set off a veritable chain reaction of savings.
 
When Boeing sells one of its 747-400 jetliners, the publicized price may be in the $180 million range, but that does not include the interior, which is exclusively designed to meet the requirements of the individual airline.
 
What if you wanted to buy this Mercedes CLK but you were on a really restricted budget. If you were to save thousands of dollars by accepting the vehicle without external paint and without interior you could go to Pep Boys, buy a few cans of your own choice of spray paint, and purchase a couple of aftermarket canvas-back seats and, voila!!! You now own a custom-built Mercedes-Benz.

I don’t see any difference in this concept and one where you have to overtly pay a manufacturer extra for paint. But maybe that’s just me. After all, I was born and raised in the flatlands of Indiana, and was a graduate of the “University of Ben and Shirley” (my parents, two of the most fiscally-irresponsible who ever walked the face of the earth).

Other examples of “customer gouging” are extra charges for floor mats and cargo nets. Collectively they equal perhaps a hundred dollars maximum. It is beyond my comprehension why manufacturers choose to break out these figures and list them separately on the Monroney. Just throw the damned things in as a “gift” from the sales person. It will make him or her look good, the customer will feel special…and it won’t cost JACK! If you have a prospective customer who has saved and scrimped so he can buy a new vehicle for his family – and he detects you’re trying to extricate another $34 from him for something as mundane as floor mats – then you don’t deserve decent people shopping your dealership.
 
I have enough voices in my head without bringing up the subject of “Destination and delivery charges.” Why would you have to pay the better part of $1,000 to have your vehicle delivered from a plant you could walk to, but yet spend the same money for a vehicle to come all the way from Korea?

I was not raised by wolves, but I was raised by people who had the philosophy that “perception is reality.” When I see a vehicle manufacturer who gives the impression that the $65,000 I’m spending for its product isn’t quite enough and it try to get another $720 from me by charging extra for paint, it’s time for me to save my hard-earned money and consider public transportation; most of the time you don’t even have to pay extra for a transfer.