The sales staff would not honor the TrueCar pricing certificate (obtained through USAA) for a used car. East Valley Nissan is a "certified dealer." This means that they "have pledged to disclose dealer fees and commonly installed dealer accessories in their pricing estimates."
Their first write-up of the order completely ignored the price on the certificate. The second write-up attempted to charge us twice for a $449 "document fee" (this fee was disclosed on the TrueCar certificate, so we expected to pay it, but not twice). Each buyer order included dealer "add ons" and the sales staff explained each one of them as "commonly installed dealer accessories." One was a paint protectant of some kind that did not come with any sort of guarantee that it would perform as claimed. They ended up backing this one out of the price.
But they dug their heals in on VIN window etching. First, the sales staff said "we could be sued by other customers if we charge you a different price than we charge everyone else." When I pushed back on the notion that every customer gets exactly the same deal even the salesman laughed. The manager who was finally brought over to explain what a fantastic deal this $199 add on is finally, after my consistent refusal to pay for it, said "look, it's just a fee we charge everyone."
Let me be clear: the car was offered at a fair, some might even say very good or great price. If this "fee" had been disclosed on the certificate I probably would have paid it without blinking.
But should one trust a dealer who pledges to disclose fees for "commonly installed dealer accessories" and then tries to sneak them on to the buying order? You decide.