Dealers have spent most of 2026 waiting on the same document. After the Federal Trade Commission sent warning letters to 97 dealership groups in March, and after the April webinar the FTC held with NADA, the promise was that formal guidance would follow. On September 15, 2026, it did. The FTC published “Automobile Industry Pricing Transparency: FAQs,” a fourteen-question document that answers several of the questions dealers have been raising all year.
It arrived a few weeks after an enforcement action that gives the guidance its weight. Read together, the two documents point at one standard, and it is a standard most dealerships can meet without much difficulty once someone sits down and works through the advertising. The harder part is everything that happens after the ad, in the showroom and in the finance office. Dealers who have not yet reviewed their advertising against the March letters may want to start with why advertising compliance can no longer wait, then come back to what has changed since.
A $4 Million Settlement That Reached Further Than Usual
On August 19, 2026, the FTC and the State of Connecticut secured a $4 million settlement with Chase Nissan LLC, doing business as Manchester City Nissan, resolving allegations of deceptive and unfair practices under the FTC Act and the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act. The allegations will sound familiar to anyone who has followed these cases: advertised prices that were not honored, consumers charged twice to certify vehicles already advertised as certified, add-ons charged without the customer’s knowledge or authorization, and misstatements about the amount of mandatory state registration and other fees.
What makes this order worth reading closely is who it binds. Many earlier settlements reached owners and general managers. This one names sales and finance managers as well, and each individual defendant will be required to make disclosures to the FTC in that individual’s title or role in any business activity related to selling and financing vehicles for the next six years. That is a personal, portable obligation that follows those managers to their next dealership. The order also permanently restrains the defendants from stating any amount a consumer may pay without disclosing the total price, clearly and conspicuously, as the most prominently displayed item in any visual disclosure. Consistent compliance training is a great deal cheaper than that outcome.
What the FAQs Actually Settle
The central answer is the one dealers already suspected. The most prominent price has to be the ceiling, not the floor. The FAQs confirm that MSRP, discounts, and rebates may appear in an ad, but only where the actual price is the most prominently displayed amount and the consumer can tell what they would have to pay to get the car.
Prominence is not only a question of font size. The FTC’s own example describes a dealer listing the actual price in 16-point type and the MSRP smaller, but placing the smaller MSRP where it is more likely to draw the eye. In that case the actual price is not the most prominent amount, whatever the point size says. Language such as “the price you’ll get” sitting near both figures is called out as confusing for the same reason. The FAQs repeat that any given ad is a fact-specific inquiry, which is another way of saying that the overall impression is what gets judged.
Two other answers close gaps that have caused arguments. Responsibility is shared: everyone who has control over the advertising is responsible, which covers the dealer, the third-party advertiser, and the manufacturer. And in-transit vehicles may be advertised, provided the ad plainly states that the vehicle is not on the lot, and provided it is genuinely available for purchase once it arrives. A representative photo is acceptable in that situation as long as the ad is clear about what the consumer is looking at.
Conditional Incentives Remain the Hardest Problem
The test for whether an incentive belongs in the most prominent price has shifted, and it is worth stating plainly. It is no longer only a question of whether the incentive is available to everyone. It is also whether the price goes up if the consumer does not qualify for it, or chooses not to take it. Under that test, a cash rebate a customer forfeits by taking special financing does not belong in the advertised price, and a disclaimer does not fix it. Neither does folding the rebate into the dealer discount so that no disclosure appears at all, a pattern that sits alongside the compliance mistakes dealers most often overlook.
Geographic and PMA incentives raise the same issue in a different form. A customer buying in Virginia and registering in Florida may sit behind a different incentive amount than the one the manufacturer built into the advertised price, and neither the dealer nor the customer necessarily knows it until late in the deal. In an online shopping market, pricing that changes with the buyer’s registration address is difficult to advertise honestly. The workable practice is to keep conditional and geographic incentives out of the most prominent price and present them separately, in something like an “additional incentives possibly available” box, the same way a military or first responder rebate is handled.
Where Dealers Are Most Exposed
The six practices identified in the March warning letters are still the fastest route to a problem: advertising a price that excludes required fees, building in rebates or discounts that not every buyer qualifies for, ignoring a required additional down payment, conditioning the price on dealer financing, requiring the purchase of add-ons not reflected in the price, and advertising vehicles that are not available. Only government charges, meaning tax, title, and registration, may sit outside the advertised price. Processing or documentation fees, freight, and destination all belong inside it.
Add-ons deserve their own review. Paint and fabric protection, VIN etching, total loss protection, and service contracts should carry real value, and they must be disclosed, itemized, and genuinely optional. Anything pre-installed and charged to the consumer belongs in the most prominent advertised price, which is the strongest argument for not pre-installing optional products in the first place. Mislabeled and unauthorized add-ons were central to the government’s case in both the Chase Nissan and Napleton matters.
Certification claims are a related exposure. If a vehicle is advertised as certified, the certification should be completed, the associated warranty honored, and the ad should make clear whether the certification is the dealer’s or the manufacturer’s. Many consumers assume manufacturer certification by default, so the unqualified word “certified” can itself be deceptive. A vehicle already advertised as certified should not then carry a separate charge to certify it.
What to Do Before a Regulator Asks
Start with the advertising, including third-party listings and syndicated feeds, and confirm that the price shown is the price a consumer would actually be offered. A single screenshot of a price the dealership will not honor is the kind of fact these cases are built on.
Then move to consent. The requirement in the recent orders is specific: before a charge is added, explain what it covers, what it costs, and whether it is optional, and get the customer’s affirmative agreement. A signature buried at the end of a long closing process, or a final payment screen the customer initials, does not cure a charge that was never explained. Building a separate, documented authorization for each add-on into the F&I workflow is the practical answer.
Finally, train and audit. Sales and finance staff need to know what is advertised and what is included in the price, and management has to be visible about the expectation. Periodic self-audits of advertising, deal jackets, and add-on authorizations, conducted with counsel, tend to surface problems while they are still inexpensive to fix. These reviews sit alongside the broader compliance priorities dealers set for 2026.
The bottom line has not changed, and the September FAQs have now put it in writing. The most prominent price a customer sees should be the price that customer pays, or less, and every additional charge should be optional, disclosed, and affirmatively authorized. Meeting that standard costs very little next to an enforcement action. If you would like help reviewing your advertising, your add-on disclosures, or your F&I documentation against the new guidance, contact Charapp & Weiss to talk it through before a demand letter arrives.