What would you do?

jfkmk wrote:

2edgesword wrote:

captnjack wrote:

2edgesword wrote:
The deposit is the cost of removing the vehicle from the market. You forfeit the deposit if you back out of the deal. I think the dealer is letting you off lightly by just charging the cost of the new rubber.

"the cost of removing the vehicle from the market"

What does that even mean? Sounds a little like "dealer speak" to me.

Plus I doubt they would "remove it" until it actually sold (deal done and closed out and vehicle fully paid for).

It means that the vehicle is sold pending some final approval. It means the dealer can't commit to selling the vehicle to anyone else for some period of time. If someone came in and was willing to pay cash on the spot for the vehicle an HONEST dealer would tell the person he is not allow to accept the offer pending the outcome of the agreement with the person that left the deposit.

The dealers don’t take the vehicle off the market. In the unlikely event that this old vehicle actually had two interested parties in the same night, I’m sure they would told the next customer that someone had a deposit on it and they would call back if the deal fell through.

That’s what happened to me years ago when I was purchasing a car. The other person DID buy the car, and I wound up buying a different car from the same dealer.

The op called back first thing the next morning. It’s not like he left the dealer hanging for a week. And it’s not like he was buying an exotic highly sought after vehicle that the dealer put thousands into at his request. It was a cheap piece of rubber they were probably going to need to replace anyway.

Actually your statement confirms that the vehicle was off the market. If it was on the market there would be no need to refuse the new offer even temporarily. Suppose in the meantime the other person moved on to buy a different vehicle. The point is, likely or not, while the dealer is hold the deposit he is NOT free to sell the vehicle to anyone else.