About to put a deposit down, does that guarantee the car is mine?
 

The car I want won't arrive until another month and I'm willing to put a deposit down but i'm just worried that if they find someone who's willing to offer more, they'll sell it to them or make something up. I'm not haggling on the price at all since it's already cheaper than the local dealers here.

Oh i'm buying out of state of as well.

In my experience, a deposit means nothing.

They do whatever they want... Best bet is to read up on the dealer and see what other peoples experiences have been. And cross your fingers.

I pre ordered a car nearly half a year in advance, and frequently kept up to speed on the order process... vin number... build date... shipping date etc.. etc..

The day it arrived they posted my car up for sale on craigslist. And almost had someone come in and snake it.

They lied to me non stop about everything, I had to get all the info myelf.

That was with 5,000 down, and I was paying the full balance in cash @ MSRP.

Most dealerships I've been through have been so shady.

Only look at it this way:

It is only yours when the final sales agreement is signed by both parties and the vehicle is registered in your name. Others might say it is really only yours when one does not owe the 'bank' any more $$$.$$.

It might mean something if you have a vin...

Did you have a signed contract on the vehicle? Also, what make and model of car was it?

To my understanding in MO if you have a signed intent to purchase they have to reserve the car for you.

According to post #2, apparently not.

Placing a deposit does not necessarily = a binding contract.

I ordered mine, got it the day it got to the dealer. I never heard of issues with dealers.

I'm not a lawyer but there are three parts to a contract, an offer, acceptance and consideration. You offer to buy the car for MSRP, they accept and you give them a deposit (consideration). In return they give you a written acknowledgement of your deposit. I'm not saying there can't be a screw-up at a dealership with all that goes on there but I can't imagine a dealership wanting to put themselves in a position of being liable for violation of a contract. I know it certainly worked for me.

It doesn't "guarantee" but if you have a verbal agreement on price and the car comes in undamaged and you still want it then it should be yours no problem.

Deposit shows you're interested. That's all.

They can lock down the vin number so the dealership doesnt sale it. Ask them to do thay

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

Ahh up here you don't just put a deposit down neccessarily. You can write up the whole deal at the time of deposit. I did, but in my case the car was on the lot and will sit for more than 2 months before I take delivery. (4 weeks to go)

The original car I ordered (another dealer) they wrote up the whole deal, sat me down with finance the works and took my deposit.

Good suggestions.

Specifically ask for a buyer's order with all details listed:
Make/model
Vin
Options
Total price
Price w/tax
Deposit amt
Total due upon delivery.

Good luck

When I ordered my car I was going to be out of country for an extended period of time. I let my sales rep know this and we wrote up an agreement on the car and proceeded with ordering the car. I put the bare minimum I could for the car, $500. We kept in contact during my time away and everything he said to me matched with SOA. I was feeling good about everything. Up until December when delivery was supposed to take place. SOA was still telling me Dec, the dealer was saying upwards towards end of Jan. So finally the last week of Dec, SOA emails me a VIN. Saying it has arrived at port and is on a train. I call the dealer and they confirmed. Needless to say it got there in 12 days and my sales rep never tried selling the car to anyone under the table. I got it for MSRP. What I am getting at is I was always in contact with the sales rep. I emailed him on a bi-weekly basis. I always got a reply. If you order the car, just keep in contact so they know you are still buying it. If I was a sales rep and had an order taken but never heard from the person for an extended period of time, I would start to try and sell the car as well.

Read before you sign. If you sign something that says it is a non-refundable deposit then they can still sell the car to someone else and keep your deposit as well. It actually says this in the fine print on the paper.

A deposit just says you are interested but it is in no way binding them to sell you the car at a certain price or at all.

Make sure to look in every dealership as far as your willing to go. My scumbag dealership made me wait for a month so I looked around and found several in my state that just weren't the right color. I eventually said screw it and bought mine 1200 miles away. Lol

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

so far i've only inquired about what the deposit amount is. i'll have them email me the documents involving the deposit tomorrow.

but man, but waiting one month for the car and out $1000 is gonna suck. at least it'll give me time to try to privately sell my current car.

@tracerit that is what I did with mine. Just be sure you don't sign it as a non-refundable deposit and absolutely make sure that you can get a refund if you decide to buy elsewhere.

Just don't sell your car too early. I sold my daily like 3 weeks before I got my BRZ.

Buy from a dealership you trust and it will mean something, I got my BRZ from the same dealership we got our '07 Forester from six years ago. I put my deposit down ($250) which was refundable, when I ordered my BRZ, which was the 2nd or 3rd the dealership was getting, out of 12 they were allocated. I got a buyer's order, everything went smoothly, I called Subaru several times to track the build process, and SOA called me several times with updates and to give me my VIN. Got a call while I was on vacation 3 months later that my BRZ was in, came back a day early to get it, everything was simple and painless. If I didn't trust the dealership, I wouldn't have given them a deposit.

i'll have a spare car i can use from my dad in the mean time.

while i'm sure i'll go with an out of state purchase, i might want to try locally and see if they can price my trade in higher than the kbb value of $17,500 to try to off set the markup of socal BRZs. Beacause i'm sure they'll try to sell my car for +$24k, so if they buy it marked up a little higher than the kbb value to say $21k? Is this something that's reasonable or just a dream lol

^^^Banking on a dealer to offer you MORE for your trade than, oh, ANY valuation you come up with is a pipe dream. There's "trade-in" value, private party value, and retail value. Oh, and also auction value (and cost to transport and sell it at auction), and then there's "we got you in our trap" value where you're drooling over the new car so much they'll give you pennies on your trade in and make you feel like they're doing you a favor. ("Actually that offer of $3.52 was really generous of us, bc we're just going to take it to auction - but first the transmission probably needs replacing, all new tires, fix all the scratches, re-upholster the interior, and then add $2k to transport it 100 miles away to the auction and pay a 15% fee to sell it there. Really, at that price, you're the one ripping US off - but Im doing you a favor."

Don't believe me? Wait and see! (Go to CarMax first - they'll make you an offer to buy your car that's good for 7 days or something. And it will be about 80% of trade in value. And after you go talk numbers with the Subaru dealer, that lowball CarMax offer will seem very generous.)

Also expect to be talked into extras - LoJack, extended warranty, etc. it's not a "hard sell", but a passive aggressive soft sell. They will add it in on the sticker "oh, you want that. Everyone gets it. Highly recommend it." and then "it's only $20/month more - for piece of mind, that's the best deal you'll get this week!"

Have fun!

Thanks for putting it out so bluntly haha. I sold a car to carmax in the past and it was about $1-1.5k less than what i had in mind but i was comfortable with it because i needed to sell the car and could not bother with meeting a bunch of no shows anymore. the daelership i'm looking to place a deposit on stresses that they don't upsell... we'll see when i call later. they do want to try to get my financing business though.

Sadly, Subaru of Canada is a bit slow or not really good CSRs, about a week from my last e-mail.

My dealer was pretty good for the whole process - but not great. On the plus side, when he took my order in February (2012), he asked what color, transmission, options, and other color choices. When I spoke to them a couple months later he confirmed the 6 speed and options. I prayed he coded it as a MANUAL as both are 6 speeds. Also he said it was scheduled to arrive in June. They called me June 1st to say the car was in.

That's where things went "average". I had told them exactly what time after work I'd be in. I got to the dealership and had to wait around for about 30 minutes before they could find my sales guy. No sales people in the showroom at all - completely empty. Then the whole process took about 2-3hrs to buy it. (???). I wasn't even doing a trade. I did use their financing - I have excellent credit and a great income to debt ratio. They gave me 3.9% financing. I should have done financing for 1.9% at a credit union and brought in a check. (I plan to pay the car off soon anyways, I hate carrying debt.). They also fought me in financing to remove the add ons they automatically add to every deal. Ugh.

So - I got the exact car I wanted, for the price I had agreed to, and one of the first 500 delivered in the US - but it wasn't without some hassle. And that's considered a good car buying experience!