Dealers and deposits

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As a licensed "rip off artist" as most of you like to refer to us dealers, who usually end up getting screwed much more often by the consumer, this is what my take on deposits.

Deposits are taken for a number of reasons (most of which were eloquently stated by 2live&ride). Furthermore they are used to deter the buyer from changing their mind halfway through, after much of the hard work is done. I sell exotics and I've sold cheap cars and if you dont leave a deposit you do not get the pleasure of dealing with a professional like myself. Its a buyers market (to a certain degree), without dealers buyers cant buy.

p.s. Repeat customers do get exempted from a deposit in a case by case scenario.
 
2live&ride said:
It's not a line my man, it's the truth. We don't just send a credit application and wait for an answer. We work hard to get better rates, lower monthly payments, lower down payments, etc...
If a customer is putting 500$ down payment and the finance company wants 1000$ down payment. A lot of times we take that 500$ out of our profit margin to make the deal go through. (if the customer can't come up with the rest)
Unfortunately we are selling/financing cheap used cars, I don't work for a major manufacturer. My lot is on Morningside & Kingston Rd where the majority of shoppers are looking for cheap cars, so it's a different ball game than what you're used to.


Good Luck, did you end up putting down a deposit?
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Paper pushing, sending emails, making phone calls hard work?

I'd hate to see you getting a real job that actually takes physical labour. Lol
 
Power_Man said:
Paper pushing, sending emails, making phone calls hard work?

I'd hate to see you getting a real job that actually takes physical labour. Lol
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Sometimes mental exhaustion is worst than the physical.
At least when you go home, you can rest and wake up the next morning feeling fresh.
When I go home, my brain is constantly thinking about deals/problems/solutions/complaints etc...
And it's always something new.
 
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2live&ride said:
It's not a line my man, it's the truth. We don't just send a credit application and wait for an answer. We work hard to get better rates, lower monthly payments, lower down payments, etc...
If a customer is putting 500$ down payment and the finance company wants 1000$ down payment. A lot of times we take that 500$ out of our profit margin to make the deal go through. (if the customer can't come up with the rest)
Unfortunately we are selling/financing cheap used cars, I don't work for a major manufacturer. My lot is on Morningside & Kingston Rd where the majority of shoppers are looking for cheap cars, so it's a different ball game than what you're used to.


Good Luck, did you end up putting down a deposit?
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Thanks.. Yep $200 ...still no answer :/
 
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It should take a day or two at the very most, unless the dealer is trying more than one place to get you approved. In this case read Regder's post... He knows what he's talking about.
It's the long weekend now though, so you probably won't hear anything until next week.
Keep us posted.
 
Hi,

What if the customer (me) puts down a deposit with a dealership, and the deal is NOT subject to financing because I'll be paying in full soon after.

Also, say I deposit the $ over the phone via credit card, because I can't actually come see the used bike for a few days and don't want someone else to snatch it up. It would be hard to get any kind of written agreement this way, since I don't have a fax machine. As I understand it, deposits are refundable if there's no bill of sale. But maybe something could be worked out.

Now, suppose when I go to see the used bike I find out they are having trouble getting it ready to roll. There could be any number of problems with a used vehicle.

How much of a struggle would you expect to get the deposit refunded?

I know, I know it's a bad idea to give any money without knowing exactly what you're getting. All I've seen are photos. The make/model and the dealership are reputable. It's just a good price, and the place is far away.
 
Grunk said:
Hi,

What if the customer (me) puts down a deposit with a dealership, and the deal is NOT subject to financing because I'll be paying in full soon after.

Also, say I deposit the $ over the phone via credit card, because I can't actually come see the used bike for a few days and don't want someone else to snatch it up. It would be hard to get any kind of written agreement this way, since I don't have a fax machine. As I understand it, deposits are refundable if there's no bill of sale. But maybe something could be worked out.

Now, suppose when I go to see the used bike I find out they are having trouble getting it ready to roll. There could be any number of problems with a used vehicle.

How much of a struggle would you expect to get the deposit refunded?

I know, I know it's a bad idea to give any money without knowing exactly what you're getting. All I've seen are photos. The make/model and the dealership are reputable. It's just a good price, and the place is far away.
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Your correct that if there is no bill of sale a deposit must be 100% refunded. In this scenario as a dealer I wouldn't take a deposit to hold the bike just for you to look at it. The deal sounds like a headache in the works for both you and the dealer. If you absolutely have to have the bike the bill of sale could also be scanned emailed to you, but now you open yourself up for disapointment.

To answer the struggle part of the question. It shouldn't be too hard to get the refund although you may have to get omvic involved but it should be pretty straight forward.
 
Grunk said:
Hi,

What if the customer (me) puts down a deposit with a dealership, and the deal is NOT subject to financing because I'll be paying in full soon after.

Also, say I deposit the $ over the phone via credit card, because I can't actually come see the used bike for a few days and don't want someone else to snatch it up. It would be hard to get any kind of written agreement this way, since I don't have a fax machine. As I understand it, deposits are refundable if there's no bill of sale. But maybe something could be worked out.

Now, suppose when I go to see the used bike I find out they are having trouble getting it ready to roll. There could be any number of problems with a used vehicle.

How much of a struggle would you expect to get the deposit refunded?

I know, I know it's a bad idea to give any money without knowing exactly what you're getting. All I've seen are photos. The make/model and the dealership are reputable. It's just a good price, and the place is far away.
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As blackcamaro stated, if the bill of sale is not signed, then there is no deal and your deposit is 100% refundable.
Simply ask the dealer to refund the money back to your credit card and if they refused, you have two options...

1- It is not a signed slip, you can contact your CC company and they will make sure the transaction gets reversed, if that doesn't work...
2- Contact OMVIC and tell them what's going on, they will get a hold of the dealer and make sure you get your deposit back.

Hope it works out.
 
I actually purchased a bike recently and i never put down a deposit.

The only condition i listed in the agreement was - 'subject to financing'

The only time a deposit came into discussion was if I wanted them to 'hold' the bike for me while i worked out the finances - to pay it cash, loan, etc. - so as to prevent someone coming in the next day and buying it.

The overall process for me was quite straight forward - i liked the sales person, and his attitude towards sales.
 
Thanks guys.

I spoke to the dealership, and they were very accommodating, living up to their reputation. The only odd part was the bike I'm interested in is actually a new demo model, though they advertised it used, and they have new models going for exactly the same price. Apparently they've marked down the 2009 odels by about 35% and just haven't updated their website.

I wouldn't be placing the deposit just to view the bike, but to have the right of first refusal should it for some reason end up being a piece of junk (as in, not roadworthy - period). I'm pretty sure this is the bike I want, and would take it as long as it's not falling apart... but then, since they're in fact new and not used it's kind of irrelevant.
 
Picking up an 600rr... should be a nice upgrade from my cbr125r ... will miss that bike, great little machine! maybe one day we will meet again. =]

Thanks to all for the help.
 
2live&ride said:
It takes a lot of effort and negotiation to get a finance deal going..
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Seriously? I spent over twenty years in the car business and it was NO effort at all to get the finance deal going (only effort was if the buyers credit was bad). I laugh when a dealer says something like that to me. My last car got financed in 15 minutes... Paperwork took another 30.
 
2live&ride said:
If a customer is putting 500$ down payment and the finance company wants 1000$ down payment. A lot of times we take that 500$ out of our profit margin to make the deal go through. (if the customer can't come up with the rest)
Unfortunately we are selling/financing cheap used cars, I don't work for a major manufacturer. My lot is on Morningside & Kingston Rd where the majority of shoppers are looking for cheap cars, so it's a different ball game than what you're used to.
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If you did that with us, you wouldn't be dealing with us very long. If you are helping with the down payment by messing with the invoice amount, that is screwing up the loan to value calculation, and the credit folks wouldn't like that very much.
 
RickT said:
Seriously? I spent over twenty years in the car business and it was NO effort at all to get the finance deal going (only effort was if the buyers credit was bad). I laugh when a dealer says something like that to me. My last car got financed in 15 minutes... Paperwork took another 30.
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I would agree with that. When we did our VW we were talking about financing for less than 5 mins before approval, then in there another 25 to SIGN the stuff. Pre-deal committment was only 5 mins or so.

In fact, where I work doing financing for a major manufacturer, all your info can be in our system and you can be auto-approved in under 4 mins. If the computer doesn't approve you, a live person can do it in under 1 hour. Where the work comes in is if the deal is big enough and we need financial statements etc when dealing with a business vs individual. Even still, that stuff is on the customer to get to the dealer who needs to spend 2 mins faxing it.
 
RickT said:
Seriously? I spent over twenty years in the car business and it was NO effort at all to get the finance deal going (only effort was if the buyers credit was bad). I laugh when a dealer says something like that to me. My last car got financed in 15 minutes... Paperwork took another 30.
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You are correct. We are selling cheap used cars ($2000 - $10000) and most of the people that come looking for finance have bad if not horrible credit. Very rare do we get a customer with good credit that wants to finance because chances are if they have good credit they usually get a loan from the bank with a next to nothing interest rate.
 
Financing a new car or a fairly new car is different then financing a 10 year old vehicle.
A new/newer car holds a strong value and therefore it is easy to get financed in under an hour and mostly goes through a bank.
We are talking about people with poor credit and older vehicles it's not a walk in the park as some of you may think.
Some dealers do in house financing and can get you approved on the spot, they're able to determine your interest rate, your monthly payment, your down payment etc...
 
I have another question:

Once you put down the deposit, is that it for negotiating the price of the bike?

Eg. If someone deposits whatever $ over the phone via credit card, and the advertised price is 3K + tax, is the dealer going to budge even 5% from that $3K?

Not sure what I want to do yet - but I definitely don't want to travel 200km going over numbers in my head only to find out I'd be wasting my time and the dealer's trying to bargain down even slightly.
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