Congress needs to drag car buying into the 21st century

OPINION:

You can open a bank account from your couch, sign a mortgage on your phone and have nearly anything delivered to your door in two days or less. Yet buy a car — the second-largest purchase most American families will ever make — and you step into a time machine.

You will spend hours at the dealership, be handed stacks of paper, be required to sign in wet ink, and pay fees that appear out of nowhere at the end of the deal.

The average used-car buyer spends about three hours at the dealership to close the transaction, on top of nearly 15 hours researching and shopping, according to Cox Automotive. New-car buyers average closer to 13½ hours total.

Nobody designed this system on purpose. It is a relic: a mountain of paperwork and delays that have accumulated, rule by rule and form by form, over a century.

Congress is finally asking why. Tucked into the House’s bipartisan surface transportation reauthorization’s BUILD America 250 Act (H.R. 8870) is a provision directing the secretary of transportation, in consultation with multiple stakeholders, to study the modernization of state vehicle titling and registration systems, along with federal odometer disclosure rules dating to 1972 and significantly strengthened by the Truth in Mileage Act of 1986.

A study will not fix anything on its own, but it is the right question asked by both parties simultaneously. It should kick off a much bigger conversation about every outdated rule that makes buying a car slower, costlier and more frustrating than it needs to be.

Start with what that study will find. America’s titling and registration system still runs on paper. Titles get lost in the mail, locked in filing cabinets and “washed” by fraudsters.

In much of the country, states still effectively require an ink signature on a federal odometer disclosure form — a horse-and-buggy requirement that has done little to stop odometer fraud, which, according to a 2002 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study, still costs American consumers more than $1 billion a year.

The study will also find a 50-state patchwork that punishes consumers for shopping across state lines. Nearly 1 in 10 vehicles sold during a 2025 period tracked by Cars.com went to out-of-state buyers, up from about 1 in 15 in 2020. Consumers are voting with their feet for more choice and better prices.

The rules have not caught up. Depending on where you live, buying a car in one state can mean waiting weeks for a paper title to crawl through the mail or shipping inspection forms back and forth in envelopes. Industry lawyers politely call this “compliance complexity.”

Consumers should call it what it is: a paperwork tax.

The paperwork is only the beginning. Layered on top of red tape is an obstacle course of add-ons and junk fees: dealer “document” costs that are capped at a few hundred dollars in some states and unlimited in others, surprise charges for “protection packages” nobody asked for and advertised prices that bear little resemblance to the final number.

President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission had to warn dealerships in March that the advertised price of a car must include mandatory fees. Think about that: In 2026, we still need government intervention to remind sellers that the price should be the price.

None of this is effective consumer protection. It is a system stuck in the past, with years of well-intentioned policies piling up, making life harder for consumers. It does not make buyers safer; it just worsens the consumer experience.

The encouraging news is that this is starting to change. Policymakers across both parties, consumer advocates and much of the auto industry now agree that it is time to bring these systems into the digital age.

The fix is neither complicated nor partisan. Every state should offer fully electronic titles, liens and registration. Electronic signatures should be valid on every form in every state, including odometer disclosures.

State systems should talk to one another so that buying a car across a state line does not mean weeks of limbo. The price a buyer sees, online or on the lot, should be the all-in price they pay.

If you care about government efficiency, this is the real thing. If you care about affordability — and after years of rising car prices, every American family surely does — this is that rare reform that lowers costs without spending a dime.

America settled the e-commerce debate decades ago. We decided that consumers benefit when they can shop, compare and buy from anyone, anywhere, with transparent prices and modern tools. That revolution transformed how we buy everything, except the second-most-expensive item for American households.

Congress should pass this study and treat it as a beginning, not an end. Car buying is stuck in the past. It is long past time to catch up.

• Gerard Scimeca is a lawyer and co-founder, chairman and general counsel of Consumer Action for a Strong Economy, a free-market-oriented consumer nonprofit organization.