Having been reading through these highly informative posts, I suspect you are correct. I don't recall all of the details, and I am curious to discuss this with him again. I don't think they had gotten to the written contract yet. I know he had a firm quote for financing from SECU (State Employees Credit Union). I believe he had negotiated the out the door / drive away price, in other words the amount that he could go to SECU with. As you've been pointing out, there are numerous injection points where they will try to sweeten their profit with various add on options. I think he asked them about beating the SECU terms and they quoted him an interest rate, that was lower, and then said it would be $x per month for y months. He pulled out his HP finance calculator (he does land appraisals for a bank and the DOT) and ran the calculations and it came back as something like an 8% interest rate. He said, 'aw come on, you're trying to charge me 8%' and they disagreed. At this point he ran the amortization in front of the guy, showing him the calculations and said: "see that works out to an 8% interest".I totally believe this but what I don't understand (unless they didn't print the contract yet) was at the top of every installment contract is the "Truth in Lending" box(snip for brevity) This is the only way I could think of in charging a higher rate than stated.
Now it is entirely feasible that they were trying to play the monthly payment buyer game. They may have assumed all the add on items that they would like to add to the purchase price, they could still say that the car was at the agreed upon price, especially if these weren't discussed but that would be them talking apples and water-heaters. In his mind, the price, and amount to be financed, had already been set and they took this as an opportunity to add in the extras hoping he would focus on the payment.
The key being that he's thinking one thing and that the terms have been settled and they're still playing the game.
I don't recall what happened at that point, but I think they ended up financing the agreed to price at the quoted interest rate.