Badman Forever

just tell the dealership you heard of everyone else only required to put down a $500 deposit for an is350. That's all i had to put down even before it came out.

kensteele

The whole problem with insisting that a deposit is non-refundable has to do with a contract. If you obligate one party in the deal, the other party to the deal has to be equally obligated. If you put down a deposit and you are required to purchase or else lose your deposit, is the dealership obligated to sell or else they lose what?

They have no skin in the deal. You have $1,000 on the line and what do they have on the line? Nothing. If you car arrives and one hour later, someone comes in, they see the car and offer MSRP sticker for the car, will the dealer sell it to them? Yes. Then what? They give you $1,000 deposit back? How's that fair, they didn't risk anything but you did. And if I walk into a dealership down the road and buy the car from someone else, I lose my $1,000 deposit back at the original dealership?

You can't bound one side of the party to a contract while the other side is unbound. At that point, you don't have a deal. A deposit simply shows that you are serious and that your intentions are honorable, that's about it. If there is a custom order or add'l cost has been added per your request, that's a little bit different. But I don't think ordering a car with different available options qualify.

Tony1

First off, they are not supposed to sell the car that you left a deposit on,, you can
take them to court for that, and probably win.. Secondly, the dealer has more than
the $500 or $1,000 to lose... I'll give you a sinario,,, dealer named John, promises car
to me,,, i leave a deposit, now John gets 2 other ppl interested in the car , he turns them
away "assuming he does what he's supposed to".. so now at the last minute i back out
of the deal... and 2 hours later another dealer named Mike, gets an offer on that same car..
dealer Mike gets the commision, and dealer John gets squat... deposits are left for
a reason.. I'm sure the dealer makes more than $500 or $1,000 off of each car he/she
sells...

diablo1

This is off topic, but I'm loving that your avatar is Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa.

I think that in general, it would be fair for dealerships not to refund the deposit, if they really have a lot of trouble selling the car. I saw an S65 AMG on a lot in Santa Monica, and I was like, oh man, I bet that was a custom order that someone backed out of. Good luck to the dealer trying to sell a car like that off the lot! If I'm gonna pay $180k, I better get the custom options I want! No way I would take a car that expensive from dealer stock, unless it was just what I wanted... So I can see how a dealer wouldn't want to get stuck with a bare-bones IS350... A car with (potentially) low demand that they are worried about being able to sell.

I also agree that most dealerships refund the money because they don't want to get a bad reputation. But in general, this policy favors the consumer. In fact, I put down deposits at 3 dealerships before I got my car, and the one that came in first, I bought. The other 2 gave me my money back. Is that fair to the dealers? Not really. But if they're willing to do it, I'd be a fool not to take advantage of it. I'm sure the other guys had no problem selling their cars (in fact Tony1 bought one of the other cars I had a deposit on)..

Tony1

Wow, no way, i remebered you had said you had interest in the car i bought, but
i didnt know you had a deposit on it?, Are you sure about that, because ive been keeping
in contact with the dealer since Sept, and he called me a let me know that car was
arriving to the dealership about 2 weeks prior to it arriving, then he called me and
i came about 1-2 days after it arrived, (it was all wrapped in plastic).. So then i made
the deal that day.. Did you just have a deposit on a IS350? or did you have a deposit
on that specific one, (VIN number included in the deposit paperwork)?

diablo1

The VIN was not included. I put a deposit and he said he would call me when any IS350 came in. He called me in late October or early November to tell me that they were going to get the car that I think was yours (Gray or silver (I forget), gray interior, sport package, nav, park assist, headlight washers). I asked when he could have it for me, and he said mid November. I passed because another dealer could have it for me on Nov 3, they were offering the same price, and the other dealer was more convenient to where I live.

So I guess the deposit wasn't officially pegged to that vehicle, although that vehicle was offered to me. I don't know how they could have offered us both the same car. Maybe they got two identical ones in the same shipment...

Tony1

Oh, on your last post you made it seem as though you were still interested in
the car and they just refused to sell it to you in order to sell it to me.. I bought the car sometime between Nov 14-20th, that was much past the time when you had already made a deal elsewhere.. So what did
the dealer do wrong here, maybe I'm missing something?..

diablo1

Oh, I didn't mean to make it seem like the dealer did anything wrong. I didn't want the car, they gave me the deposit back, and they sold it to you. I was just confused because I thought they had offered it to both of us around the same time, but obviously they didn't. So, no problems as far as I am concerned.

kensteele

I'm not even sure what you are talking about, you're not making any sense.

gshb

keep re-reading it

kensteele

never mind, it's off the topic anyway, who cares, if you find yourself in such a position you'll need to decide for yourself if you want to take legal action and regardless of the law, i suppose you can sue for pretty much anything but you'll never win. personally i've never ever heard of anyone going to court to sue a dealer that sold a car out from underneath them, happens all the time, deposit or not. if you think putting down a deposit (and not paying the whole amount yet) legally forces the dealer to transfer a car title to you sometime in the future and you somehow have a claim, that's weak; go ahead, good luck.