Should I Be Worried? Deposit Placed - Bringing from other dealer

Friday I struck a deal on a red 2018 Sport Hatch 6spd from another dealer upstate.

Got a receipt for down payment but they wouldn't give me a clear printout of what I am to be getting/price, and I'm somewhat concerned.

You know how they are with all this signing of random handwritten pages that we know means nothing. They claimed since it wasn't in their inventory, they couldn't print it out for this exact car but did cross out VIN & non-matching details for a blue/grey one that I test drove. *edit* After I saw this with higher price, & renegotiated down to $22,500 OTD, I never got the new price sheet for this reason.

Took some work & staredowns with their muscled A-Mog finance guy who very much resembled the Rock, complete with a serious eye-twitch poker stare, which was kind of funny to me but I see how it works on others. They gave me guilt for having to drive 5 hours to get it from Jacksonville, and my $500 deposit to cover that is understandable.

Am I overreacting? We'll see soon enough. Just asking if any of you have experienced any bs, or if I should've expected/demanded better paperwork with my deposit. Basically have no docs of any value & have been sweating it out since.

Update:

As of this afternoon (MON) they still apparently hadn't yet ironed it out with the other dealer but an hour heard back that it should be good for pickup by my local rep & avail to me Tues or Weds. Was initially told it'd be ready for me today.

WIN:
Still happy to have sold my 04 Saturn Ion w/ 225k. Priced cheap & got $1100 cash within a day. Kelly BB valued private sale from $900-2300 with mine in the middle. Cleaned up very sharp, with tons of maintenance done. Great car but I'd get junkyard $$ if trans or AC died on me.

Honda gave $100 for trade-in. Granted I didn't give them my keys right away "for inspection" only to have them make it hard for me to walk out during negotiations. Got $1100 cash. Coulda made more but happy with quick sale with no place for 2 cars in single drive w/ HOA. Uber or rental til then still worth it.

Hope sharing my experience helps. Deal still not final.

You are probably fine. You usually have to go through a bit of a headache to get a hold of a 6spd hatchback sport in the states.

they had to get mine from another dealer.it took a couple of days but it was delivered on the day we set up. I wanted a certain color and it takes time to find a matching car and sometimes they don't work with dealers that are close to them because they are competition. You will be fine.

Thanks. I expected to have to wait for delivery and was willing to go get one myself. Of course local reps won't help me find a car from others & sure tried hard to push their stock. I leveled & told em I "was willing to wait, travel, etc. for what I wanted or be smart with a cheaper used car, & honestly was pushing budget to even consider this"..."just stopped in to see if it's even possible".

Held very steady to my initial $20k OTD limit through all the tactics. Finally got to the point where they wouldn't budge on that since that's a bit under their Invoice price ($20,118), so I'm OTD for a bit more, knowing they legit need tax, title, & some for delivery, n profit. Am I wrong on this?

Q: Is the sales commission built in under or over the invoice price? I assume over, which is why they fight so hard to not give $$ out of their comm.

Guess I'm just worried they'll change the terms and want to charge more for the delivery or something since I don't have proof of the handshake deal. I trust car dealers a bit less than ambulance chaser type lawyers.

It'll be ready by Weds. now. Still pretty happy about grabbing the extra $1k for the Saturn.




Q: Is there a way to edit this thead title? It's more about the purchase/acquisition story than my worries at this point. New to this forum & ZenForo BB software.

UPDATE:

My worries were confirmed. Tell me if I'm off here...

Out the door price = total final price. Yes? NOT after down payment!?

I negotiated $22,500 OTD.

Today during the last part of the finance doc sigs said that was the price OTD AFTER my $3k down payment, and even pulled out the bs previous sales sheet with the other car's VIN & other fees & mess on it totalling $25k, from Friday which I then negotiated down to $22.5k and were steadfast that deal was dead at that cost OTD. Basically pulling crap like "is that your signature?" as if my word was in question.

They claimed OTD was after down payment which was on the sales sheet on the left but not on the right where fees, packages, & other bs added up to more...also what prompted me to renegotiate Friday, making that page garbage.

They bragged about getting it down to $21.5 after removing a few more fees and overall my monthly payment was still lower than what I saw Friday, so I'll live but I'm feeling kinda sour. I shoulda let em kill it and walked out to Enterprise a block over to call their bluff.

They had leverage on me due to:
1) was the only red manual sport hatch in FL & they brought it in for me 4.5 hrs away.
2) they knew I sold my car already

Starion said:

UPDATE:

My worries were confirmed. Tell me if I'm off here...

Out the door price = total final price. Yes? NOT after down payment!?

I negatiated $22,500 OTD.

Today during the last part of the finance doc sigs said that was the price OTD AFTER my $3k down payment, and even pulled out the bs previous sales sheet with the other car's VIN & other fees & mess on it totalling $25k, from Friday which I then negotiated down to $22.5k and were steadfast that deal was dead at that cost OTD. Basically pulling crap like "is that your signature?" as if my word was in question.

They bragged about getting it down to $21.5 after removing a few more fees and overall my monthly payment was still lower than what I saw Friday, so I'll live but I'm feeling kinda sour.

Click to expand...

25,500 OTD for a sport hatch? That’s ridiculous. I paid $21,800 OTD for mine, also 6MT from another dealer.

Just found another one in Tampa for $21,500 dealer price.

Think it's worth returning it and buying from the other? Will have to look into the paperwork, restocking fees n such. If I can save a $1k or 3, my ears are open. Credit hit might negate the opportunity.

I'm also hearing a very high pitched whine that matches engine rpm at certain ranges...very similar to what crappy AUX input wires do to the stereo. I'm concerned they will pretend to not hear it and not fix it for me. Strangely it seems louder with AC fans on than without? Happens when stereo off even but sounds like it's coming from speaker(s).

25.5k is a good deal more than I spent on my Si. Mind you my trade knocked down about 1k of interest. I did purchase in Jacksonville. It sounds much too high.

Looked at some numbers for a sport hatch.

https://www.truecar.com/m/prices-new/honda/civic-hatchback-pricing/2018/2594A447/?interiorColorId=1456087&incentiveIds=&zipcode=31548&trimOptionIds=5-C-U,10-C-U,11-C-U&exteriorColorId=1455212

MSRP $22645
Invoice $21106 (dealer still makes profit on hokdback, at least)
$20795 is the trucar average... a little below invoice.

I got my Si out of Jax... a little below invoice at the time, then I had a little bit of trade equity that saved me a chunk of change on taxes. Still... taking about 21k, adding the 695 doc/destination which I think is standard fare in FL and add 6% sales tax you're looking at just south of $23k... and that's not necessarily a raging deal.

Financing 22.5k on top of 3k sounds bad. If you'd not put the 3k down and worked 22.5k otd... it sounds pretty solid but as it is, that 3k was a bit of robbery. No matter what way you cut it, that's still 25.5k for a sport hatch. Did they have dealer add-ons to raise the price up? Mine had a pinstripe, N2 in the tires, trunk mat-thing, locking lug nuts and another thing or two as I remember upon delivery. I hadn't agreed to pay anything more than the agreed price for an Si on summer tires so they just left all the stuff on/in the car and didn't get to sneak it in the paperwork.

That was a clean Saturn. Of it's Chevy and Pontiac brothers, I always thought it was the best of the bunch. Not super good in a crash and a well dated interior now, but that ecotec engine was torquey and dependable while being efficient for it's time and within the limits of the transmissions they mated it to.

I will say I would not have let a car go before replacing it. It put you in a needing a car vice wanting a car position.

Biggest red flag to me is that you said in your initial post that you "struck a deal" but then say that you don't have any paperwork that actually says that the deal was for that price. It's not a deal until you have legitimate paperwork from the dealer stating that you negotiated the price for X amount of dollars. That price in short is atrocious for a sport hatch and I would hold it over their heads to get them to bring it down to the price you discussed with them. There is a chance they could give in and you can get what you want since they went through all the trouble of sourcing it from another dealer anyway, but if they don't agree I would walk out and pick up another one for a better price. Whenever making a deal on something of value, always have paperwork or something to support it, word of mouth isn't worth much for this kind of stuff.

Side note: That Saturn looks pretty damn good for 225K miles, seems like it was built pretty well.

That was the point of this thread initially. They refused to print me the sale sheet with updated numbers "because they didn't have the new VIN until the car arrived into inventory", yet needed my acceptance to bring it over (with min. $500 deposit - which even took haggle to drop from $1k). A bit of a catch 22 & I should've absolutely demanded writing on Friday. They gave assurances then flipped it on me today.

"$22.5 OTD deal" on Friday, sold Saturn on Sunday and was told car would arrive Monday, Tues. at the latest. Got the a-okay for Weds AM.

Needed it for work today so it's mine. I hate & lothe this shady bs crap. Not sure there's anything to do now unless I threaten to return it for a bit of restock loss & bad-mouth them in every way possible for dishonesty. Maybe demand a free sunroof install?

I can't even imagine the hastle it would be to squeeze anything back now.

Man, that sucks. But I appreciate you sharing this story. If nothing else, it reinforces for us future buyers several things including getting everything documented ahead of time when dealers have to transfer, or possibly teaches us to work with the other dealer directly and skip the middle man.

Damn that Saturn was clean af lol