Whenever I've bought a new car I've always paid a deposit at the time of placing the order and then paid the balance when I've picked the car up. Admittedly I haven't bought a car for eight years so I don't know whether that is still the norm.
Some friends of ours recently ordered a new car and said they had to pay the full sum in advance of collecting the car. Did the dealer pull the wool over their eyes, or is this standard practice nowadays?
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2006 - £200 deposit paid by Credit Card to DrivetheDeal (Citroen Picasso)
2008 - £500 deposit paid by Credit Card to Main dealer (Fiat Panda) with a 2% CC uplift on Deposit.
The Balance by Debit Card at time of collection
Paying Deposit by CC invokes protection if Dealer goes bust in intervening period.
No way in the present climate would I give a dealer cash or cheque payment ahead of collection!
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Same here for the LEC in April: deposit by CC, then balance by debit card (with obligatory confirmation call to the bank) on collection day. That was an Approved Used car, but we'd done the same for the new Toyota in 2008.
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When I bought my car last year I paid the balance on the day by debit card. Likewise when we picked up a new VW Up! last weekend the dealer would have been happy with payment on the day; I actually went there on Friday afternoon to sort out the admin/handover and paid so we could just turn up on Saturday morning and drive off. They'd have been happy with payment on the day. They did want cleared fund of course, hence payment by debit card. If paying by cheque, assuming they accept them, I can see that they'd want payment in advance.
The only time Ive paid before actually having the car is when ordering through a broker for delivery to my home address. In both cases the dealer wanted the balance the day before delivery. Again, that seemed reasonable - I wouldn't send a car half way across the country without any guarantee that I'd be paid for it. I imagine the likelihood of having a card declined for a five figure transaction without a cardholder present must be higher than usual...
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THe contract od sale for the last new car I bought specified payment before collection day, but the salesman just checked I was OK to use a debit card on collection day.
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Like above , when I bought my last two cars I paid a deposit on CC and debit card on the day....
Very easy and everbody happy so you can drive away on the day.
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Same here. Deposit on CC balance when collecting on DC.
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Last car I bought, it was deposit by charge card, and balance by credit card. The dealer squealed a bit at the last part!
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I paid the deposit on my last new car, nearly ten years ago, by credit card. But I was quite surprised when the dealer said he was happy to accept a cheque for the balance on collection.
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>>The dealer squealed a bit at the last part!
Knowing you, that would have been Amex.
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You guys have it easy. Bought an hydrid in Spain this year, and our local regional government gives a subsidy on them. So I had to do a certified bank transfer (go into bank and get them to rubberstamp a copy of transfer) of the balance money with the VIN number of car. The dealer then had to give me a cheque for the part-exchange value, pay this in, wait for clearance, and then do a second certified bank transfer with VIN number returning the money. Two certified bank transfers taken to townhall for subsidy approval. (Think there had been problems with subsidy payments on "ghost" cars in past years)
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Never paid anymore than a deposit up front, and last 3 cars have been leased, so no balance to pay either.
Oddly on the Volvo they didn't even take the initial payment up front - it was collected by DD 3 weeks after I got the car - found it a bit hard to get my hear around them just delivering it to me without a penny changing hands.
Did order a car by phone once to be delivered to me. I just rang the sales guy and gave him my debit card details while the delivery guy awaited the nod to leave the keys
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Paying for a new car - sherlock47
