I'm not in this position anymore, since I have already made my vehicle purchase, but this is something I still don't understand if it's right or if it's actually b&s or something in-between that's just shady...regardless it irks the hell out of me and I'd like to get the opinion of some people here.

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6 mos ago I started looking at pre-owned Mazda 3s for purchase. Every Mazda dealer in my area had several CPO vehicles advertised at a specific price on their website, just for making numbers easy, I was looking at a 2017 vehicle labelled as CPO at ~$15k. I'd talk to a sales rep, get an itemized OTD invoice, and there would be a fee (usually labelled something like "Accessories") for $1500 on top of the original 15k. When asked about this fee, they'd tell me it was for the Certification.

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I was confused because the vehicle is specifically advertised on their site as Certified Pre-Owned and priced at $15k, not 16.5. I brought this up and was told "yes, but you still have to pay for the certification." and then I was usually sent a patronizing copy-pasted email about how that fee is supporting America or some other garbage designed to pluck at my heart-strings.

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The exact same thing happened at 3 different dealers I looked at and attempted to negotiate with. Although the "Certification fee" (which was never called that on the itemized invoice), varied from anywhere from $850 to $2000.

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Is this how it's supposed to work? Is it really Standard Operating Procedure to advertise a vehicle as CPO at a given price on your website and then when someone walks in the door to buy tell them it's not actually Certified yet until they fork out an extra 1.5 grand? It feels very scammy, but I ran into it with literally 3 Mazda dealers in my area. Do manufacturers set rules about this kind of thing that Dealerships are supposed to follow?

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FWIW, I eventually wound up purchasing a used 2018 Mazda 3 that was still under manufacturer warranty from a Hyundai dealer just because they didn't make buying the car a pain.