There's an excellent Planet Money episode on this issue: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-435-why-buying-a-car-is-so-awful http://www

There's an excellent Planet Money episode on this issue: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-435-why-buying-a-car-is-so-awful http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-... But in brief, there is basically a vested power that does not want to allow innovation to disrupt their highly profitable industry. They rely on some fairly outdated laws to protect themselves.