Deposit Paid, Car Built, getting cold feet....

[Plugin Pete]

Hi All, 

My car has been built, and due to be delivered at the end of March. I'm thinking about cancelling my order (not because I don't like the car, but I just don't think we will use it for the foreseeable future due to changes in working patterns caused by Covid).

Does anybody know what the situation is if I don't wish to go ahead with the purchase? I'm fine to loose the 99 quid deposit. As far as I can tell, I can walk away, but the paperwork is not totally clear to me (partly as I have Covid right now I'd I'm struggling to read the tiny text!)

Any help, much appreciated, 

[Flatcoat]

I suspect there is more to this, so Why will you not be able to use it? 

[Yugguy1970]

If you're pcping maybe you can lower the agreed mileage and so the monthly?

[Roger_N]

With the delivery time on these at present you may even get your deposit back, depending on the price you agreed to when you pay the deposit.

[Bernard Foy]

You may lose your deposit. However the dealership may return it if you are a regular customer, as he probably has a queue waiting for the same car as you have ordered. 

[StreetHawk]

I’d guess you’ll be fine to walk away without penalty and possibly your deposit back too. Stock cars are hard to come by so they will easily sell it. 
 

[Bc sussex]

I imagine as long as you haven’t done anything crazy with it the dealer will have no issues with taking it. Given the current demand, I would imagine it will be sold at rrp in a flash. Just remember though, once you cancel it, it will be months before you get another factory build. 

[roadster-rav]

Newly joined the forum! Could there be an ulterior motive? If not the poster should definitely not make any decisions until health is restored. 

[Stopeter44]

16 hours ago, roadster-rav said:

Newly joined the forum! Could there be an ulterior motive? If not the poster should definitely not make any decisions until health is restored. 

edit: I don’t believe the OP has an ulterior motive.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Stopeter44
Changed original comment

[Parts-King]

Your contract is with the dealer, I suggest you ring him. No point in making assumptions about the car being easily sellable, nobody on here apart from the OP knows what the deal is, do it sooner rather than later

 

 

[Roy124]

As I read it, it is not yet a stock car nor has he done anything to it as delivery is end of March. 

How many times have you gone into a dealership to buy a particular colour and spec and come out with something different?  

Someone will want a car in March and not even ordered on yet.  Someone else might get moved up the queue.  Shouldn't be a problem. 

The deposit is trivial and if he refuses a refund may offer to  hold it for the future. 

[Stopeter44]

16 minutes ago, Roy124 said:

The deposit is trivial and if he refuses a refund may offer to  hold it for the future. 

I am surprised by the puny deposits that UK retailers ask for, over here the figure runs into €€€€, but I suppose it's because the new car market is vibrant in the UK, and in particular when there is a lack of in stock cars.

[robo1]

When I went to the local dealer March this year the Toyota website showed a 2 month wait for a RAV Dynamic 4WD. 
Dealer said there was one already at Derby. Delivered in a week. Wondered then if it was a cancelled order.

If it was me I would be expecting the dealer to keep the deposit and someone else in the queue will get their car sooner than expected.

[StreetHawk]

29 minutes ago, Stopeter44 said:

I am surprised by the puny deposits that UK retailers ask for, over here the figure runs into €€€€, but I suppose it's because the new car market is vibrant in the UK, and in particular when there is a lack of in stock cars.

For the new cars I’ve ordered it’s always been £500.

[nlee]

I was told the deposit is minimum £500. I paid £99 to "secure" the vehicle so it was allocated to me (popped up in My T as soon as I paid). The dealer said this was refundable because he knew I was looking at another dealership closer to home. Whether it would have been if I decided to go elsewhere, I'll never know. I fully expected to have to pay the remaining £401 within days but I didn't until I picked the car up from the dealership.

[Flatcoat]

I paid £99 too. In the current market any cancelled order will sell within the hour, and at full list price too. 

[Stopeter44]

8 minutes ago, Flatcoat said:

I paid £99 too. In the current market any cancelled order will sell within the hour, and at full list price too. 

Maybe more! Even before the Yaris Cross was officially launched, in France at least, within a few days of demonstrators being available in dealers, there were used models available on the French website advertised at higher prices than new list price. 

17 minutes ago, nlee said:

I was told the deposit is minimum £500. I paid £99 to "secure" the vehicle so it was allocated to me (popped up in My T as soon as I paid). The dealer said this was refundable because he knew I was looking at another dealership closer to home. Whether it would have been if I decided to go elsewhere, I'll never know. I fully expected to have to pay the remaining £401 within days but I didn't until I picked the car up from the dealership.

The two closest dealers to me, are the same dealer! So not much chance I'd go anywhere else, the next closest are part of a 7 dealer group. I was reliably informed that people that live closer to those dealers prefer coming to where I ordered my car for service.

The only thing I could have done, but felt very uncomfortable with, was ordering a grey import (BE, DE, IT, ES or whatever), but when looking closer at specifications, I couldn't find anything that suited me better. Plus, although I could have got the car serviced anywhere, I would feel like shi*t, going back to the dealer where I had the demos.  

[Flatcoat]

Just now, Stopeter44 said:

Maybe more! Even before the Yaris Cross was officially launched, in France at least, within a few days of demonstrators being available in dealers, there were used models available on the French website advertised at higher prices than new list price. 

The two closest dealers to me, are the same dealer! So not much chance I'd go anywhere else, the next closest are part of a 7 dealer group. I was reliably informed that people that live closer to those dealers prefer coming to where I ordered my car for service.

The only thing I could have done, but felt very uncomfortable with, was ordering a grey import (BE, DE, IT, ES or whatever), but when looking closer at specifications, I couldn't find anything that suited me better. Plus, although I could have got the car serviced anywhere, I would feel like shi*t, going back to the dealer where I had the demos.  

Why? It’s business is business. The service department won’t give a monkeys, they are getting your money

[Stopeter44]

Just now, Flatcoat said:

Why? It’s business is business. The service department won’t give a monkeys, they are getting your money

It's just the way I am wired, I don't see it as so black and white. 

[Plugin Pete]

Thanks for all the comments, I'm still thinking it over. I work abroad, and I haven't driven my car in months. My wife drives it about once a month. The car is arriving sooner than the dealer expected, so looks like I will be paying for it for at least a few months before we actually need to use it. I own my current car outright, so I'm not sure if I want to paying monthly for a car I'm not really going to use. 

The covid situation in the UK is probably not helping, as it's a bit of a depressing backdrop, but hopefully it will be a short term blip and we will be back on the road to recovery. 

[Stopeter44]

15 minutes ago, Plugin Pete said:

so I'm not sure if I want to paying monthly for a car I'm not really going to use. 

 

Sounds to me that you've answered your own question. Do you really need a RAV4, would a smaller model do ?

[Roger_N]

Have a look in the topic on 12v Battery maintenance, given what has been said about Battery drain and Hybrids , it would not seem to be a good choice for a car that is left unused for weeks

[Plugin Pete]

2 hours ago, Stopeter44 said:

Sounds to me that you've answered your own question. Do you really need a RAV4, would a smaller model do ?

I really need this size of car as we have 3 kids 🙂 

[Catlover]

Is your current vehicle not big enough? If you need a bigger vehicle and you cancel the Rav what are you going to do?

[Nick72]

On 12/21/2021 at 5:59 PM, Plugin Pete said:

Hi All, 

My car has been built, and due to be delivered at the end of March. I'm thinking about cancelling my order (not because I don't like the car, but I just don't think we will use it for the foreseeable future due to changes in working patterns caused by Covid).

Does anybody know what the situation is if I don't wish to go ahead with the purchase? I'm fine to loose the 99 quid deposit. As far as I can tell, I can walk away, but the paperwork is not totally clear to me (partly as I have Covid right now I'd I'm struggling to read the tiny text!)

Any help, much appreciated, 

Come June the vast majority of UK population will have had COVID. At which point we should be returning to something resembling normality.

That's what I'm banking on.