When you buy a car at a 4S store, do not pay a "financial service fee." Insurance, the loan, and registration do not have to be done at the store either

If the store says that taking a loan means paying a separate "financial service fee," the rules do not allow a dealer to charge that. You can take the insurance, the loan, and the registration to another place, or do them yourself. The store cannot force you to do them there, and it cannot charge money on top of the marked price. Before you take a loan, have them write down the annualized rate and every fee, then compare.

Cost

No money. Before you sign, spend a few minutes asking what each sum is a fee for, and have the store write it into the contract or onto an invoice. Doing the insurance and the registration yourself means one extra trip.

Benefit

The measures on automobile sales say a dealer must post, in the store, the prices and fee schedules for the car, the parts, and each service, and must not sell above the marked price or collect extra fees. The dealer must not limit the place of your household registration, and must not limit which provider you use for parts, supplies, finance, insurance, rescue, and after-sales service. Parts and services that the manufacturer pays for under the three-guarantee and under recalls are the exception. When selling a car, the dealer must not force you to buy insurance, and must not force you to let it handle registration for you. A breach of these points is ordered corrected by the commerce department at county level or above, which may warn the dealer or fine it up to 30,000 yuan. In 2022 the former China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission required financial institutions that make car loans to control the dealers they work with: a dealer must not charge fees in the financial institution's name, and must not charge fees on the ground that it is providing you a financial service. It must also tell you the annualized loan rate and the fee rate. It must not induce you with lines that do not match the facts, such as "no penalty for breaking the loan" or "the car needs no mortgage," and it must not bundle products and services against your will. The financial institution itself must not charge a fee as a condition of the loan. The regulations implementing the Consumer Rights Protection Law say a business operator must not force you, or force you in a disguised way, to buy something, and must not shut out or limit your choice of another operator (nationwide).

Notes

This money is often renamed a "service fee," a "handling fee," or a "loan service package." Under the rules all of them have to be shown in advance, and nothing extra can be charged outside the marked price. If you have already paid, ask the store for it back first. If it will not return the money, call 12378 for anything tied to the loan, and complain on 12315 for the rest. If the sum is small and you need to sue, how a small-claims case works is in item 22 of section 8 (cheated in an online purchase or a second-hand deal). There is no official figure for how much this fee usually is. The benefit magnitude is medium, set by judgment. The handling fee on a car loan has to be counted into the annualized rate before you compare. The method is in item 7 of this section (turn borrowing into an annual rate first). The beneficiary is you and your family.

Sources · 2

1. 商务部 (2017). 汽车销售管理办法（商务部令 2017 年第 1 号，第十、十四、三十二条，2017 年 7 月 1 日起施行）. gov.cn/gongbao/content/2017/content_5230275.htm
2. 中国银保监会 (2022). 关于进一步规范汽车金融业务的通知（银保监规〔2022〕22 号，第五、十一项）. policy.mofcom.gov.cn/claw/clawContent.shtml?i…（商务部政策法规库转载）；国务院 (2024). 消费者权益保护法实施条例（国务院令第 778 号，第十一、五十条）. gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/202403/content_69401…