rageous

Hi all,

On May 23, 2006, I sat down with Silverhill Acura in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and hammered out a price for an '06 PWP AT w/ Navi for $42000 CDN Out the Door (Tax + Freight incl). Put down 1600 deposit and I leave satisfied.

Real excited and they promised me that the car would be in by mid-June. The days come and go with me calling the dealership almost once a week as per the following:

1)May 30 - Just to find out if I'm approved for financing or not. After I call them 7 days later I find out they didn't even look at my file. (I only found this out after I end up taking off from work to talk to them in person)

2)June 2nd - Financing troubles on getting approved so they need a co-signer. This is no problem since I figured I'd need one. Settle in to wait till the 15th or so to get a call with an update.

3)June 19th - Called with asking: Is the car in? Was it brought in from a dealer? any idea? All I wanted was a working timeframe. If they would have told me another month I'd be fine. All I wanted was a working timeframe so I wouldn't be killing myself with anticipation. I'm told it's in Calgary and should be ready for next week, Friday (June 23) pickup. NO call on Friday.

4)June 26 - call, Salesman says he needs to talk to his boss, he'll call me by 12 the next day.

5)June 27 - 5:30 pm. I call Silverhill, a little run around and says it'll be in for a Friday pickup. again.

6)June 29 - Silverhill calls me and tells me it's on the lot but needs to be prepped and is ready for pickup on Monday @ 12:30. When the dealer called me, I ask again to make sure that 42000 was the correct price. The salesman comes on the line and tells me that the price was now 42000 + 6% tax.

I'm a little pissed off now cuz the final price just shot up 2500.

Now I feel I'm in a rough spot cuz I put down 1600 to seal this deal at 42000 and now they're changing this up at the 11th hour!

Help! What can I do? Ask for my deposit back if they don't come back down? Walk on the deal and the deposit?

hawaiiantsx

definetely do not walk out on your deposit.They should at least eat the 6% for all the trouble you went through......seems like you have things documented about all the trouble you went through.Bring that up with the manager and see what he says....you should even tell them to drop the price more or throw in some extra goodies for all your trouble and tell them you're thinking about cancelling the deal and you want your deposit back

Russdaddy

Shady dealers like these are the reason why I get my financing approved before I give a dealer ANY downpayment money.

TacoBellSauce

did u sign the papers at 42000?
the dealer cannot change the price once its signed

curls

Exactly.

tmac145

Based on the above information, you should at least have had a document of this transaction showing all the figures, including taxes and amount of deposit. If the dealership or yourself want to revise this document ,and only if the other party agrees, does it becomes void and then can be renegotiated. However, if you did not have a full agreement in writing, either party is able to change the terms as there is no contract and you should not have given a deposit. At the very least, you will have a receipt for this deposit and I would strongly suggest you tell them to stuff this deal and return your deposit. If you have any problems there are consumer agencies and lawyers for just this purpose.

BTW this deal is reasonable with the taxes included, but not so good with taxes on top.

rageous

I do have some of it. I have the Yellow "Condition of Sale" form. I didn't sign anything, and it has $45338.71 on the left side as the acura msrp. The "Terms of Settlement" column down the right has 42000 (Written above 45338.71 that was scratched out) at the top, and total at the bottom of the right column is a scratched out 42000. All written in by the salesman, with his signature on the bottom

This is on the right side:

Basic Vehicle 42000
optional equipmnent
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
Total Cash Price 45338.71

Left Side:

Total Cash sale price: 420000 (written over a scratched out 45338.71
AC Tax
Tire Levy
blah blah blah
GST (tax) box was empty
Total : there is a scratched out 42000

Every piece of writing was done by the salesman

oaksnutz

If they don't honor the original price then I would get my deposit back and walk.

rageous

The deal is pretty much in line with what I've seen some others have posted. With the taxes on add on top, it'll mean I sat in that chair for an hour and a half squabbling over $800.

tmac145:
I've been thinking along the same lines as you. If the salesman backtracks on the sudden price addition I think I'll stay with the car. If not I'll try getting the deposit back and take my biz elsewhere.

Gotta say, Loved The car. Can't fault Acura...but to have this happen at the last minute really sours a guy and really kills all the anticipation and excitement for this car.

DaveWhyman

I had a dealer try something similar on me with my previous call. One call to my lawyer and it was dealt with. That bill of sale is a binding contract on both your part (to purchase the vehicle) and on their part (to sell you X vehicle at Y price). One thing that has changes since you purchase the vehicle is that that the GST has dropped 1%. I'd go out to another dealer and see if they will beat the price using the new lower tax.

tmac145

That is kind of how I felt when the guys at North Shore started their nonsense, but Richmond were a pleasure to deal with. Check some posts on the other forum about the Calgary dealers as there were some comments about which one was the best to deal with. PM me if you need the URL.

By the way my GG 6MT w/navi was intended for Silverhill. I was told it was on the way there and they offloaded it partway to return ship to Vancouver.

Best of luck, and let us know how it all turns out.

jpt

When I special-ordered my car in Feb, I wasn't able to sign the purchase order until they learned the VIN of the car, because AHFC and state law only give the dealer 3 weeks to complete the sale and issue a title (which requires them to know the VIN) or the sale is cancelled. So if they had tried to screw me on price (they did not) I would have had no legal recourse but to get my refundable deposit back and go to another dealer. (This is why I made sure it was refundable.)

It might still be worth asking your lawyer to write a nasty letter -- it's amazing what just the threat of litigation will do. I would guess you could at least get your deposit back even if they claimed it would be non-refundable.

Doom Dealer

Sorry to hear about your situation with Silverhill Acura. I'm currently in the process of trying to buy a 06 TSX from Northwest Acura. Similar to you, I hammered out a price for a CGP Auto non-Navi TSX back in mid June and left a deposit.

The dealer's estimate was for the car to come in sometime between late June to early July. I guess I'll see real soon if the estimate holds up or not. If the car doesn't arrive on time, I too am wondering what kind of options I have. Can I just ask for my deposit back and walk out to another dealership?

I paid for the deposit with my credit card. I'm thinking if Northwest Acura doesn't return my deposit, I can always file a charge-back on my card.

What's with dealerships giving inaccurate estimates about the car being ready?

I really hope both of us get to enjoy our new TSX soon!

jpt

Whether your deposit is refundable or not varies from dealer to dealer. They should have told you (in writing!) when you paid the deposit. If it was not refundable and they have not changed any essential terms of the deal they offered you, your best option is to keep waiting. The dealer has no incentive to hold out on you by not delivering your car (which they have already paid for, and will be much easier to sell to you than anyone else). Only if you feel you have been explicitly shafted (i.e. the dealer comes back to you with a new, higher price than the one you agreed upon earlier) should you even think about walking.


This is actually not the dealer's fault. Honda gives poor estimates about build times, so if you had to special-order your car you are at the mercy of the factory in Japan as well as the vagaries of intercontinental (and then possibly transcontinental) shipping. Sometimes you will get lucky and a correctly configured car will turn up on a dealer's lot somewhere, your sharp-eyed salesman will find it and trade for it, and you will get your car far earlier than expected (this happened to me). Most often, though, you will just have to be patient and wait for the car to be built (takes two to three months after ordering, depending on how long the queue is) and shipped (the Japan-to-California leg will take about 1 month, and then from the docks to wherever you happen to be could take up to a couple weeks. However, when your car is built, the factory will notify the dealer of the VIN, and your salesman should call you and report this to you. At that point you can officially get impatient in the knowledge that your shiny new TSX is on the way!

LoveMyTL-S

I can't understand why they were not calling you all along to give you updates??

minkl81

iTrader: (2)

if you were going to finance it through the dealer, you should've done payment planning and get financing rates according to your credit scores. after that you should figure out how much your really paying for the car and stuff. dealers are scammers and if you don't have locked down the deal, they'll try to find every single way to markup the price.

rageous

It's 11:30 local time and I have a 12:30 appointment with Silverhill. I've decided that I'm not going to take this one lying down and I am either getting the original deal or the full deposit back. Thanks everyone for your input. I'll keep you posted.

Doom Dealer:
Good luck with your own TSX blues. Keep in mind what what jpt said.. if you've got the financing in place and put money down, just be patient. Just ensure that your price is staying the same as you negotiated!

LoveMyTSX:
I don't understand either. I was calling and calling, then all of a sudden they have a car on the lot in a day. Sounds like the someone over there pulled some strings to get it in. The funny thing is, I clearly communicated that I didn't care how quickly or how soon it was coming! I just asked for a working timeframe.. or at the least a ballpark guess

Wish me luck!!

bradykp

Springfield Acura in New Jersey did a very similar thing to me.

i have a thread on here somewhere but it was 7 months ago, so here's the gist of it:

Sometime in October 2005 i stop in to look at a 2005 TSX and talk to a salesman about the additions to the 2006. I seemed to know more about the new features than he did, and i was almost certain I wanted to wait (bluetooth had me at hello).

November 14th He calls and says that they have an allotment of 23 TSXs come in, and a Royal Blue Pearl is definitely in the group. I said I wanted Navi, and they said it had it. So we talk, and I ask what price, and the salesman says he could do $27,500 + tax, tags and title (destination included). Shocked, I said what do i have to do to lock in the price? He says come in, make a deposit.

November 15th 2005, me and my girlfriend go to the lot, and deal with the salesman's manager because he wasnt there. This was the Internet Sales Manager.

We discuss what we want, etc etc. I say i might consider the body kit, they write it in for around $1800 including installation. (this was my mistake, should not have mentioned body kit at all!).

i dont remember the details now, but a couple weeks go by, salesman tells us it should be in end of november or 1st week of december. dealer never calls me, i keep calling, they cant give answers. all i wanted was a timeline. tell me april and i'll wait til april, but they had no idea.

after bunch of jerking around, they finally get a royal blue pearl on the lot through dealer swap. this is around dec 12. the dealer called me 3 days prior to confirm it was RBP with navi that we wanted.

we go to pick up our car, waiting for the finance guy, so we ask the salesman to see the car. he takes us out, they don't know where the keys are, so i take a look in the window, and see a big empty dashboard with no navi. almost exploding now.

so now the guy is trying to give me the no navi car at the 27,500 plus whatever for the body kit. i'm fuming.

finally we get him on the same page and ask when he's getting the navi model in and how. still cant really get a straight answer (just tell me, you need to order it, you never had it coming in, apologize and give me a time period for arrival, and you get to keep my business).

sitting, looking at the paperwork. and we inform them that we don't want the body kit, changed our mind. he says fine, but we have to had $1,000 to the price of the vehicle. i was dumbfounded, and explained that 27,500 was negotiated without the body kit being mentioned, and that the kit was added after the fact.

so, bottom line is, no apologies for them lying to me, no explanation as to why they never had a RBP with navi coming in even though they said they did.

no explanation as to why they swapped for a RBP no navi, knowing i wanted navi (did they plan on trying to talk me into no navi for the same price i was quoted for navi?)

anyways, i know 27,500 was an unfair price. so i wanted to be reasonable. but he came back with 28,500, no extras thrown in.

so i said forget it. went to open road in wayne, and had my RBP with navi for 28,300 5 days later.

some dealers are horrible.