How to read a dealer worksheet and check the math before you sign

In the sales office, someone slides a sheet across the desk with four boxes and a lot of pencil on it. It is called a worksheet, or a four-square. Here is what each box is doing, and how to get from the sheet back to the one number that matters.

The four boxes

A classic worksheet is a page divided into four squares:

1. Price. What you pay for the car.
2. Trade-in. What the store allows for your old car.
3. Down payment. The cash you put in.
4. Monthly payment. What you pay each month.

Each box is a real number. The trouble is that the four are tied together, and you can only look at one at a time.

How the blending works

Move one box and another can move to hide it. A store can allow a generous trade-in value and hold the price firm. It can lower the monthly payment by stretching the term, which leaves the price untouched and adds interest. It can ask for a bigger down payment "to get you to the number you want."

None of that is a trick by itself. It is just arithmetic. The problem is that when you talk about all four at once, you cannot tell which one is carrying the deal. The sheet gets harder to read, not easier.

How to pull it back to the total

1. Take the trade out. Ask what the store would pay for your car as a separate line, and what the new car costs without it.
2. Ask for the out-the-door price. Selling price, add-ons, doc fee, tax, title, registration and other fees, itemized. See what an out-the-door price includes.
3. Leave the payment for last. A payment is built from the amount financed, the rate and the term. Settle the total first and the payment follows. See out-the-door price vs monthly payment.
4. Add the down payment last. It lowers what you finance. It does not change what the car costs.

A worked example

Take a sample sheet. The numbers are illustrative, not a real quote.

The gap is $41 a month. It could be an add-on rolled into the amount financed, a higher rate than the one on the sheet, or a different term. You will not know which until you ask. The question is easy and fair: "Could you show me how the $533 is built?"

What to look for on any worksheet

• Do the price, fees and tax add up to the out-the-door figure?
• Does the payment match the amount financed, the rate and the term printed on the page?
• Are there products on the sheet you did not ask for? See dealer add-ons explained.
• Is the trade-in shown separately from the price?
• Is the rate the one you were told?

Deal Check, for the moment you are holding the sheet

Deal Check is the part of DriversSeat you open on your phone at the sales desk or in the finance office. One photo, a few seconds, and you know whether the numbers on the paper add up.

1. Snap the worksheet. Take a photo of the sales worksheet or the finance menu. Rather type it? The numbers go in just as well by hand.
2. We redo the math from its own numbers. Deal Check rebuilds the payment from the price, rate and term printed on the page. It flags a payment that is higher than those numbers explain, products packed in that you did not ask for, and a rate above the manufacturer's published programs.
3. You get one friendly thing to ask. A green, yellow or red read, plus one plain question to put to the salesperson.

Your photos are not kept. Deal Check reads the numbers and lets the picture go. Credit applications are turned away unread, so only snap the worksheet, menu or contract. You can read more on the out-the-door price guide, or see Deal Check on the home page.