The FTC's Used Car Buyers Guide can override your own sales contract

Most of this Library covers state-by-state licensing law, because that's how home warranties and vehicle service contracts are actually regulated in the US — state by state. This one is different: a single federal rule that applies to every used-car dealer in the country, requiring a specific window sticker before a sale, whose legal effect most buyers never learn about until it matters.

A federal window sticker, not a state law

The FTC's Used Motor Vehicle Trade Regulation Rule — the "Used Car Rule," codified at 16 C.F.R. Part 455 — requires a dealer to post a specific disclosure form, the Buyers Guide, in a prominent place on or in every used vehicle offered for sale, visible from at least one side of the car, before a buyer signs anything. Unlike the licensing regimes elsewhere in this Library, this one doesn't vary by state: it's a single federal requirement enforced by the FTC nationwide.

What the sticker actually has to say

The Buyers Guide discloses whether the dealer is selling the car "AS IS — NO DEALER WARRANTY," or backing it with a dealer warranty — and if it's the latter, the sticker has to spell out the percentage of parts-and-labor cost the dealer will cover, for how long, and which specific systems that coverage reaches. Below that, if the dealer also makes a service contract available on the vehicle, the rule requires a separate "Service Contract" box to be checked and a short paragraph added, telling the buyer a service contract is available for an extra charge and to ask for details on coverage, deductible, price, and exclusions — unless offering that service contract counts as "the business of insurance" already regulated under the state's own law, in which case this specific box isn't required.

The part most buyers don't know: the sticker can beat the contract

This is the detail that actually matters most. Under 16 C.F.R. § 455.2, the Buyers Guide's terms become part of the sale and legally override any conflicting language in the separate written sales contract. If the sticker says the dealer covers 100 percent of parts and labor for 30 days, and the sales contract you sign later says the car is sold "as is," the Buyers Guide wins — the "as is" language doesn't erase a warranty the dealer already disclosed on the window sticker. That makes the Buyers Guide itself, not just the paperwork you sign at the finance desk, a document worth keeping.

The 2016 update: pointing buyers to recall and history checks before they sign

The FTC amended the rule on November 18, 2016 (81 Fed. Reg. 80060), with the amended rule taking effect January 27, 2017 and dealers required to display the revised Buyers Guide by January 28, 2018, after a one-year window to sell through existing stock of the old form. The revision added two consumer-facing prompts that weren't there before: language directing a buyer to get a vehicle history report, pointing to ftc.gov/usedcars for how, and separate language directing a buyer to check for open safety recalls before buying, pointing to NHTSA's recall-lookup site, safercar.gov. It also added a line, in Spanish, telling a Spanish-speaking buyer to ask for the Buyers Guide in Spanish if the dealer conducted the sale in that language. None of that replaces the recall-reimbursement rights covered in our recall vs. known-defect exclusion guide — this is a nudge to check before you buy, not a remedy after.

Don't confuse this with the FTC's separate, vacated 2024 rule

In January 2024, the FTC finalized a different, broader rule — the Combating Auto Retail Scams ("CARS") Rule — targeting bait-and-switch advertising and hidden junk fees across the whole car-buying process. The Fifth Circuit vacated that rule in January 2025, so it isn't in effect. That litigation had nothing to do with the decades-old Buyers Guide requirement described on this page: § 455.2 and its 2016 amendments were untouched by it and remain fully in force.

Before you sign anything: read the actual Buyers Guide on the car, not just the salesperson's description of it. If the warranty box, the percentage, or the covered-systems list is blank, or if it was crossed out and rewritten during negotiation, get it initialed — that document, not the finance paperwork, is what a court looks to first if the two disagree.