Sunday, I went with a friend to check out a used car at a dealership in the city. They’re attached to the new car dealer, and we got a good price worked out with a fair value on the trade in. I advised my friend to get their own finance rather than risk getting screwed by the dealership on that.

Salesman seemed pretty on the level, and it all went well. Called them back after checking out some other cars and told them my friend would sign the papers Monday morning.

My friend went in by themselves, and the salesman said “great, I’ll just run this past the manager!” and then came back and said that they’d actually spent a lot of money on parts servicing the car, like brakes and so on, and they could still do the same price, but they’d have to waive the standard (by law) 3 month warranty.

My friend signed but rang me to check if this was “normal”. I advised them that it’s a big red flag - the standard warranty shouldn’t cost the dealer anything if the car is in good condition.

I rang the dealer to enquire as to the situation, and they said that “since there’s no margin on the car, we had to waive the warranty”. I countered that this sounded ridiculous because waiving a warranty doesn’t suddenly put money back in their pocket. They didn’t really have a good answer for that.

I’ve told my friend to run away completely since they’re in the cooling-off period, but they might still take it if the dealer will go back and provide the standard 3 month warranty.

Am I crazy or am I right to think this dealership is acting suspiciously?