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

[Hix]

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.

[HillCountryGuru]

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

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[tracerit]

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.

[Hix]

@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.

[Miniata]

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.

[tracerit]

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

[ashtray]

^^^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!

[tracerit]

Originally Posted by ashtray

^^^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.

[Myv]

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

[ashtray]

Originally Posted by tracerit

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.

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!