The FTC Buyers Guide: A Used-Car Dealer Cheat Sheet

This is a plain-English overview, not legal advice. Always confirm the current official form and your state requirements with the FTC and your own counsel.

If you sell used cars, the FTC Used Car Rule (16 CFR Part 455) requires a Buyers Guide displayed in every used vehicle you offer for sale. It is one of the most common things dealers get dinged for, and it is easy to get right once you know the parts.

What a Buyers Guide has to show

At a minimum, the Buyers Guide must clearly display:

• The make, model, model year, and VIN.
• The warranty information, which is really one big choice: As Is, No Dealer Warranty, or Dealer Warranty (full or limited), with the systems covered and the duration.
• A notice to get any promises in writing.
• A notice to have the vehicle inspected by an independent mechanic before buying.
• A notice to get a vehicle history report and check for open recalls.
• The dealer name and address and where to send complaints.
• The standard list of major systems that can go wrong, on the back.

Where it goes

The guide must be displayed prominently and conspicuously in the vehicle, in a way the customer can see, typically hanging in a side window. It has to be there the entire time the car is offered for sale, and the buyer gets a copy at sale.

The mistakes that draw fines

• No guide displayed, or a faded, unreadable one.
• The warranty box does not match what the salesperson actually offered.
• Wrong or missing dealer info.
• Missing the Spanish-language version when the sale is conducted primarily in Spanish (the Rule requires a Spanish Buyers Guide in that case).
• Editing the form into something that no longer matches the official layout.

How to make this a non-event

The whole thing takes seconds if your inventory tool builds it for you. In ReconPath, you can generate an FTC Buyers Guide (and a branded window sticker) for any unit straight from the vehicle record, with the make, model, year, VIN, and dealer info already filled in, so your team is not hand-typing forms or working off a stale template.

Keep a clean process: every car gets a current Buyers Guide the day it hits the line, the warranty box matches the deal, and you keep the signed copy. Do that and this stops being the thing an auditor catches.

Want the recon side handled too, so cars are inspected, priced, and lined with the paperwork ready? Start a free trial.