scoopman

Any dealer should be able to sell a Navarra S5 SB pretty quickly, especially in Seattle area. The dealer is screwing over OP for no reason, and is losing a potential future customer in the process.

This being said, dealers are generally not there to help you as a consumer, and will try any way they can (respectfully or with disrespect) to make money from you.

Bill17601

In my case I dislike my dealer. They just have not communicated since I gave them a deposit in late July for my S5 Sportback. I wasn’t getting any email from Audi so I went into the dealer. They found an error in the email address. Not my error. I have been getting Audi messages since then. The dealer has not contacted me once since July. The only reason I put up with this dealer is I want my car. They do have an excellent service department. Sometimes you put up with inconvenience to get what you want.
Good luck with your deposit situation.

njspeedfreak

I'm hoping that you can get your deposit back and that the dealer can just sell the car to someone else, BUT, that's not the way I'm reading that part of the contract you signed.

The way I'm reading the (I'm not a lawyer) is that you have 15 days in which to complete the purchase of the vehicle from when the car actually arrives, and that if you fail to do so the dealer gets to keep the deposit. There is nothing in there that says the deposit only becomes non-refundable starting 15 days before the car shows up.

So say the car shows up on Nov 1. You now have until Nov 15 to come up with the other $60,000 needed to purchase the car before they keep your deposit and start looking for another buyer.

I hate to say it, but if the dealer wants to play hardball on this, you are screwed. I think your best bet would be to try to convince the dealer that it would be in their best financial interest to refund the deposit in order to avoid bad publicity, since they will still get to sell the car anyway.

Either that or you are going to have to find something else that the dealer did so you can claim that it was they who breached the contract and not you. Good luck.

stampede253

I have dealt with Audi of Tacoma for many year, and purchased my last 4 Audis from them. They have always treated me very well, and have bent over backwards to make sure I'm happy. I am very shocked to read of this seemingly easy-to-fix issue; I am pretty sure that the sales manager is not completely aware of it--or, perhaps there's more to the deal that we're not aware of. We should keep in mind that there is another side to the story here as well--not trying to say the OP didn't tell us everything
. With the info the OP provided us, I can't imagine why they want to play hardball like this. Cancel the order--or take delivery of it because it's a very easy sell, after giving back your deposit. I'll mention this to them next time I'm down there--they won't like to know that their decision to not reasonably take care of the customer is now public knowledge.

Redd

Sounds like the dealer is being pig-headed but within his rights. Pig-headed because he could cancel the order with Audi at no loss (presumably) or put the car in inventory at no real loss, and still have a happy potential future customer. Unless the dealer and saleman are PO'd at the OP because it took so much time to place the order, or something. (There are two or three sides to every story.)

And, fwiw, if you just cancel a check without damned good reason, in most places you'll be charged with some type of fraud or other offense, the folks you cancelled on will collect far more than the check was for.

Sure, try small claims court. IIRC that's a small filing fee in King County (?) and the worst the judge can do is say "The dealer is within his rights. Oh, by the way, you can pay his attorney's fees and court costs on the way out." Whatever the rules are up there. The dealer already knows them, sometimes they'll just hand you the refund literally as you enter the courtroom. Sometimes, not.

prashanth1337

There's nothing more to the deal. It was me going over to the dealership, confirming an order with a deposit after negotiating a bit. Less than a month later, me going back again to cancel the order. The salesperson promised to refund my deposit within a week, because the car was an easy sell. I was happy for the moment, until I realized I didn't get my money back yet after 2 weeks. It seemed, the same sales guy was on vacation and promised me again he would look into it that week. A week later, no refund yet. Then, I try calling them, was forwarded to a Sales Manager, didn't pick up the call, so left a voicemail with my number asking to call back. No response. 2 days later, I try calling them again, this time a different Sales Manager picks up, and I explain the situation, and he flat out tells me he wouldn't return the money, because I signed an agreement. I asked him to send a copy of the agreement to my email, refused to email it, but sent it to me via text message ( My bad, I didn't take a copy of it when I signed it )
I am going to take this to small claims court and see what happens. There's nothing for me to lose now, anyway. No harm trying.

Redd

"The salesperson promised to refund my deposit within a week, because the car was an easy sell."
That is good ammunition in small claims, where the rules often tend to be liberal. On the one hand there's no proof that was ever said, so a "real court" would disallow that. On the other hand...car salesmen are known to sometimes lie, your actions were in reliance on the employee's statement, which binds the employer, and overall...$1000 for a minor inconvenience just isn't reasonable.
Let us know what comes of it.

3cat

To me the bottom line here is morals. The dealer should do they right thing and refund your money regardless of the contract. The Dealer isn't going to lose any money on the car if he cancels the order and he surely will make a profit if he takes delivery and sells the car. So he is merely greedy and keeping the $1k for that reason only.
That is what is hard to swallow. These Dealers come across as friendly and that they care about their customers... BS!

Emerson11

I agree that it would be nice of the dealer to refund the nonrefundable deposit, just for goodwill and trying to help out a fellow man. But there is also the, "morality" of standing by what we sign or what we say, regardless of whether it's convenient, or regardless of whether it's easy for the other party to concede. One's word isn't supposed to be limited by whether others have a need for us to follow through on our word.

Emerson11

No, enforcing the contract would mean that if you don't pay for the car within 15 days of the car's arrival at the dealership, the dealer keeps the car and the deposit.