Personally I look at the final out the door price. I don't care about fees. I care about my final cost. I cannot tell you how many dealerships I checked out on my last two machines. Someone could be "no fees" but OTD was $15700 while another dealer had fees but OTD was $14500. FOR THE EXACT SAME MACHINE, COLOR, TRIM, OPTIONS AND ALL.
I worked at a car dealership for 10 years. Most fees exist to pay the guys behind the counters. The accounting style typically dictates how those "fees", "audit lines", "dollar location" (however you want to describe it) are displayed and laid out to the customer.
Most people do not get to see the people in the cubicles running the show. Someones has to pay them.
The Kawasaki Teryx4 I recently purchased was an interesting transaction. I found a machine out of state that fit my budget. I was able to nail down final price, deposit, and loan rate. It was a super awesome deal. I called a few dealerships closer to me and told them what I wanted. They politely said they couldn't match that. I finally found a salesperson at a dealership in my state that was willing to negotiate with me. She asked all the information I had on the machine I wanted, she told me she would call me back. A couple hours later she called with their sales manager on speaker phone with me and the three of us agreed on the machine price for the exact machine I wanted. They matched everything for the out of state machine, including the loan. They hooked me up with an in house loan to compete with their competitor. Come to find out the salesperson and manager called the out of state dealership and confirmed everything I had told them. They matched it all, I put down the deposit over the phone, and I picked up the machine the next day.
A good dealership will always work with you. Not against you.
Also, I am very aware and very appreciative of any salesperson who works for me. I respect them. After all of this happened I called the out of state dealership and told him what happened and thanked him very much for his time. I was able to get his favorite restaurant from him and I mailed him a $50 gift card to it for his time.
