--- title: Why the Dream of Buying a Car in an Hour Might Never Be Reality description: If there's a consensus among auto dealerships, it's that completing a car sale in one hour is impossible—and even if it was possible it would be bad for business. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Personal Finance - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2015-08-18T21:12:40.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T06:34:44.000Z' section: Personal Finance tags: - Autos - buying a car - Car Dealerships - haggling - pubdesk word_count: 419 canonical: https://money.com/buy-car-one-hour/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![140276231](https://img.money.com/2015/08/140276231_em_cardealership.jpeg) We live in a time when [cars drive themselves](https://money.com/self-driving-cars-ownership-rates/), people can buy stuff by tapping their phones, voice-controlled virtual assistants can [save your life](https://time.com/4001848/apple-iphone-siri-saved-man/), and when even the [U.S. Postal Service](https://time.com/4001396/post-office-ups-fedex-amazon/) is pushing the boundaries of what once seemed possible by shipping groceries and offering same-day delivery Yet despite our whiz-bang, one-click-purchase times, buying a car still takes forever. OK, it only *feels like forever*. Research from [Edmunds](http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/how-to-speed-up-car-buying-paperwork.html) indicates purchasing a car eats up 4.3 hours, on average, or more than half of a standard work day. That's probably four times longer than it should take, according to many consumers—75% of whom said in a recent survey that they'd happily conduct the [entire purchase online](https://money.com/buying-cars-online-hate-car-dealerships/) if only it was feasible. There have been efforts to speed things up and appease customers. One car dealership has an ongoing campaign to seal each deal in [45 minutes or less](http://www.autonews.com/article/20141103/RETAIL/311039950/how-to-buy-your-next-car-in-31-minutes). The Toyota brand Scion is embarking on an experiment to allow purchases to be handled entirely online or be [completed in less than an hour](http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/08/03/scion-test-online/31044935/) at the dealership. These examples are anomalies, however, and the standard process remains [slow, confusing, and antiquated](http://business.time.com/2013/02/28/how-car-buying-is-becoming-less-awful-or-at-least-less-time-consuming/) in light of modern-day consumer expectations. The industry publication [Wards Auto](http://wardsauto.com/finance-insurance-resource-center/7-quotable-quotes-pros-cons-1-hour-car-deals#slide-5-field_images-1332231) recently gathered several industry insider opinions on the pros and cons of car sales taking one hour or less, and if there's a consensus, it's that completing such a speedy sale is impossible—and even if it were possible it would be bad for business. The logistics make it extremely difficult to get the deal done in an hour, one dealership owner said: “In the state of California, it can’t be done because there are too many regulations to cover (at the closing). Two or three hours, that’s where we want to be.” "To have a proper experience, buying a car is not done in an hour," another dealership owner said flatly. “There are clear pitfalls in a 1-hour deal," yet another explained. "People don’t want to feel rushed. That’s not a collaborative effort.” Based on these responses, it seems pretty clear that many dealerships simply aren't bending over backwards to get customers speedily on their way. It's just not their priority, so it's a virtual impossibility for their customers. So if there's one more industry consensus, it's that dealerships think they know what's best for consumers more so than consumers themselves—who, remember, would at least like the option of not needing an entire afternoon to complete a car purchase. ***Read next: [23 Tricks to Save Thousands on Your Car](https://money.com/save-money-car-gas-repairs-insurance/)*** ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/buy-car-one-hour/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Personal Finance", "item": "https://money.com/personal-finance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Budgeting", "item": "https://money.com/budgeting/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Why the Dream of Buying a Car in an Hour Might Never Be Reality" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/buy-car-one-hour/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/buy-car-one-hour/", "name": "Why the Dream of Buying a Car in an Hour Might Never Be Reality", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2015-08-18T21:12:40.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/buy-car-one-hour/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/buy-car-one-hour/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T06:34:44.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Why the Dream of Buying a Car in an Hour Might Never Be Reality", "articleSection": "Personal Finance", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2015/08/140276231_em_cardealership.jpeg", "width": 3405, "height": 2161, "caption": "140276231" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2015-08-18T21:12:40.000Z", "description": "If there's a consensus among auto dealerships, it's that completing a car sale in one hour is impossible—and even if it was possible it would be bad for business.", "abstract": "If there's a consensus among auto dealerships, it's that completing a car sale in one hour is impossible—and even if it was possible it would be bad for business.", "@id": "https://money.com/buy-car-one-hour/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-04-16T06:34:44.000Z", "wordCount": 419, "keywords": [ "Autos", "buying a car", "Car Dealerships", "haggling", "pubdesk" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Personal finance", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_finance" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Budget", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget" ] } ] } ] } ```