Illinois Dealers Get OK to Hike Fee

Effective Jan. 1, Illinois new-car dealers can charge customers a $168.43 documentary service fee to handle the paperwork on each new vehicle sold, a $2.16 or 1.3% increase over 2014.

Dealers are allowed to charge any amount of DOC fee they want, or none at all, as long as it doesn't exceed $168.43 and as long as they charge everyone the same amount if they do collect the fee, according to the Chicago Automobile Trade Assn., which represents Illinois new-car dealers.

The fee was initiated in 1991 by the Illinois Attorney General’s office at the urging of the CATA as a means of regulating the amount and type of add-on fees dealers were charging car buyers. The so-called DOC fee was set at $40, with an allowable cost-of-living escalator each year.

Prior to 1991, add-on fees varied based on the ingenuity of the dealer and ranged from $25 to more than $100 per sale for anything from a charge for paperwork to a fee for washing the customer’s trade-in before putting it on the used-car lot.