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Consumer Reports article I read once said you should refuse to pay these document etc. fees. I tried that with my last purchase and got nowhere. The fee was $550 as I recall. The dealer wouldn't budge.
You only have power to influence the dealer if you really do have other options for buying a car. I did not have other options. Below are the notes I took from various online sources at the time.
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Dealer documentation fees (also known as doc fees), cover a dealer's administrative costs related to title, registration, and other paperwork involved with the car purchase.Doc fees range from $0 to nearly $1,000 depending on which dealer and state you purchase from. Some states such as California limit the maximum amount a dealer can charge for this fee, but most have no limits.
You cannot negotiate a dealer's doc fee because they are required by law to charge the same amount to every customer. You can, however, ask them to reduce the price of the vehicle to compensate for a high doc fee. [Other source says “some” states require dealers to charge the same fee to everyone.]
New Hampshire, 2014: New Hampshire defines “documentary fees” as those used to process vehicle titles and other paperwork with the state, and they’re capped at $27, according to the New Hampshire Automobile Dealers Association. Dealers can charge administrative fees to cover their own processing costs, however, and those are not capped.
Concord Monitor 2017: “The average doc fee in New Hampshire was $304 in 2011 and has risen since then, with some dealers charging as much as $495. New Hampshire has a state-mandated cap of $27 on state document fees but dealers are allowed to charge additional “administrative fees” to cover their own processing costs.”
2019 average in NH: $372
https://www.autocheatsheet.com/new-c...d-you-pay.html