Toyota / scion associates : A fellow menber in need of advice, order taking or ever
 

So i was aware of the frs coming to the usa on june. However i was not going to pull the triger until i got a chance to drive one. Long story short on sunday 6/22/12 i finally got to test drive it and ordered mine the that day. I was told i would be able to get mine in that week or at the most 2 weeks. Well couple of days after i get a call from the sales rep that the vehicle was not avaliable and the only thing i could do is order one ,well i said ok and was given a delivery date of early august. Today a month and a couple of days have passed and i have not recieved 1 phone call regarding the car. So i though i should check on it. The dealers knows nothing about the car. And when i asked about a v spec sheet, a serial number or a temporary vin i got a big no no ,that no information was avaliable, to sit thigth and wait . Now after seen so many people recently purchasing their frs i feel like i made the worse move by going to this dealer. Now i am aboutready to cancel my order since i can not belive that my car is supposed to be here with in a week and a half yet the dealer has no idea when they are getting the car. Well my prolem lies in the fact that i just read the order recipt that the order is non cancelable and non refundable. Now my stupidity was to trust enough the dealer to give them a serious amount of cash as a deposit. Is there anything i can do at this point or am i f*ked ? Can some one be able to find a way to find some information about my order instead of starting a war at the dealer? Sucks that i have to go through so much trouble to get my car. This is definetly making me think twice about a future purchase from the company, and regarding the dealer , forget it i never contemplate the idea of going back and or even a relative or friend. This is by far is one bad auto buying experience. :thumbdown:

You signed the papers, now your screwed. Before reading anything legally binding it is always important to read the terms no matter what. The best advice I can give is to hound the dealer and be patient. A little note for you, by BRZ isnt set to come in until january or march. So be happy you got an estimated ETA of around this time.

Find out what the laws in your state are regarding deposits. The bill of sale or buyer's orders that my dealership uses is a standardized form that does have a section about deposits being non-refundable. All deposits in PA are refundable, not matter what a dealer tells you. As far as NY, you'll have to check on that because I am not familiar with NY laws.

Now say if you wanted leather installed after the car came in and they already installed it, then the dealer will have more leverage. But since your dealer doesn't even have your car yet, (even inbound), this doesn't come into play. Because if they did, they can print you a V-Spec on any vehicle that is in their inventory in any status. Hell, they can print one on any car they pull up actually. This leads me to believe that they are still trying to get your order filled and don't have your car yet.

I would go into the dealer and talk to a manager. If they are still refusing your money, file a claim with the Attorney General or BBB. It will light a fire under them and you WILL get a reaction. Even if it is legal for them to keep your money, they should give you your deposit back just to avoid bad publicity. They most likely don't have your car at all so it's not like they can say we ordered this car specifically for you and now we (dealer) are stuck with it. If they can't provide you a V-spec on your car then it's not in their inventory and they are "stuck" with a "non-existent" car.

Ruskymx

Hang in there. Here's a suggestion: ask your sales rep to let you know when an FRS that is close to what you want comes to the dealership. If you like it, then buy it.

I originally preordered with a nonrefundable deposit a sterling silver metallic 6MT limited BRZ in Apr. By early July, there was no estimate when my car would arrive. In mid July, a dark gray metallic 6MT limited BRZ arrived at my dealership and my sales rep called me. I test drove it and bought it.

Do any of you know o any other way i can find out if there was an order made with out having to go back to the dealer? I work a thigth schedule . When i get out of work the place is closed : /

From what I understand, dealers aren't really ordering cars. They don't ask Scion/Subaru to build a car especially for you. They just take your preferences and try to get that car in their allocation, assuming they even try. That's how it seemed to work in my case. The salesman basically "asked" the regional somebody to get the color/transmission I wanted so that he could sell it to me.

Subaru dealers did seem more official with entering stuff into a system, but the Scion dealers I put money down on at didn't seem that way. At least they didn't show me anything like that.

The way the Toyota system works is like this. Each dealer has a "Preference List" of each model. If there is a sold order, that should become preference #1 for that model. It doesn't guarantee that you will get that car though when Toyota allocates the cars. We can make phone calls into our district managers and let them know what our solid sold orders are and they will do their best to fill them, but there is no guarantee. Each region will receive an allocation of vehicles from the mfg and then it's up to the region to distribute those vehicles to each dealer in the region based past sales, turn rates, preferences, and probably some other criteria as well. The region will do their best to make sure all the sold orders are taken care of, but with such tight availability, some dealers may have to wait until the next allocation to get their orders filled. We get allocations at the end of each month and also around the middle of the month.

Now some dealers may do what my dealership does. A good example is how I ended up with mine. The first FR-S my dealership was allocated was a Raven 6spd manual. A dealer called us and asked if we would trade them for a Firestorm manual. Since our Raven wasn't spoken for, we swapped with them before the vehicles were even shipped to the respective dealers. Now we had a Firestorm 6MT. On 5/5/12 I attended the First Drive Event in Baltimore, MD and when I got into work the following Monday morning I spoke to my inventory manager. I asked him to see if he could get the Firestorm swapped with a Hot Lava 6MT. There were only 4 that showed in a 500 mile radius and luckily a dealer in the Pittsburgh area had one inbound that was available and took our Firestorm back for a trade. Now when it came time for the cars to ship at the end of May, the Firestorm went to the dealer in the Pittsburgh area and the Hot Lava came to us. It's what we refer to as an "A swap". "A" stands for allocated status and as long as it hasn't been processed at the port or labeled for production at a domestic plant, it can be swapped to another dealer extremely easily. It's a matter of 2-3 clicks and typing in the dealer's 5 digit dealer number. Out of region swaps are a little more involved. For example, New York is a different region than PA so there are a few more steps involved, but it can still be done.

Inventory in my area is tight and extremely hard to get a 6MT. The only way to trade for a 6 MT is to have one to give back (color swap). I had to send a customer to another dealer because of this. I took a deposit in early June for a Whiteout 6MT. We had a Firestorm AT coming into us that we were using as trade bait for the Whiteout 6MT. The dealers that had the car we needed would only take a manual back and wouldn't take our AT even though is still an FR-S. We tried every dealer in a 500 mile radius (it was 9-10 dealers) that showed one in the system that we could see and had no luck getting the car.

The one dealer that had one wasn't too far from us but wasn't really a competitor either. There are about 4 dealers that are actually closer. One of our sales people used to work there and knew someone that I could send this customer to and be taken care of. So, what I did, I gave my customer the contact at the other dealership that had the car he wanted so he could get the car he wanted. Otherwise, he may have bought Brand X, but really wanted a Whiteout FRS 6mt. The customer was very nice and patient with us, but was in a unique situation where his current car was totaled and had a limited time frame. He could only borrow a car for so long.

I took some heat from my managers for that, but after they realized that we wouldn't sell him a car unless it was a Whiteout 6MT, they let up. Even though I didn't sell him his car, it won't surprise me at all if I get a few referrals from him because I helped him get the car that he wanted so bad.

Ruskymx

Talk to the sales Manager and see what they say. Do you have proof that you did the paper work wit them? If so, and they don't want to do anything, Sue them!

Money gifting like a boss!

I just looked up New York laws concerning car deposits. They are non-refundable unless the contract states they are. Better Business Bureau:

Try disputing the charge. Also, there may be some kind of way you can get a refund if they're highly incompetent but that is just a guess on my part." Explain that to your credit card company. If it doesn't work become a pain in the ass to your dealership and keep calling every day to see if they know more.

You can also post how unprofessional they are and to alert others considering doing business with them. Quite often these things get back to the dealership and they may offer you a refund in exchange for removing your post about their tactics with you.

It worked for me.

Edit: Report them to the BBB, file a complaint. It will show up and then the dealership has the option to resolve the complaint which looks good for their BBB rating. Good luck man :)

Edit: Also contact the Attorney General for your state. (My sis and father are lawyers. This was their recommendation.)

Thanks to all for the reply's . I am deffinetly making moves tody. Im also starting to look at different dealers arround my area. Im going to try and leave early from work so i can have a word with the inventory manager. I hope it all goes good : / .

I feel your pain..i actually ordeded my car from westchester toyota...if thats where u ordered your car from i would def get my deposit back and go on auto trader and look for cars within the area... I ordered my frs june 12 i never even got one call! and everytime i called they said they would call back and never did... I ordered a white one and funny thing is within that month i saw two white ones on a truck thinking they were mine and i was told that those werent mine and a friend i know there told me that a friend of one of the salesman just walked in a left with a white(dude didnt have to wait) and i was like wtf, they just doing favors for people and making others wait? i got my money back and went out to long island to get my frs. I would check auto trader!

Sorry to hear this.. my girlfriends FRS took about 2 weeks to come in. The salesman told us it would be 2 or 3 weeks when we put the deposit down - a couple days later the salesman told us the car would be in the next day:eyebulge:.. we were shocked at how fast they were able to get the Red MT she wanted.

I called him the next day after work and he was out of the office - the other salesmen had no word of an FRS coming in that day or anytime soon.

So I got a hold of the Inventory Manager - and he gave me a MUCH better idea of where the car was, and how long it would take to get it in. He could almost give me an exact date plus or minus a day. I was also able to get him to remove the Bespoke system from the car before it got here which lowered the price of the car by like $900.

So try and chat with the Inventory Manager.. if he doesnt help you I would look for a different dealer.

If I had encountered a similar situation like this... Then I would politely ask to speak with the main manager, and simply explain to him / her in a courteous tone of what exactly is going through your mind. Explain to him / her of what is frustrating you, and let them in on your mindset currently. Seek understanding from them first, and then take it from there... Hopefully they will understand, and will cooperate towards your kind request.

Good luck.