Paying for a car a couple of days before taking possession of it

SteelSpark

Hi,
I am in the process of buying a car, and am paying cash. I paid a deposit of £250 yesterday and will be picking the car up on Wednesday. The dealership have asked me to come in on Monday and pay the balance (just over £13,000) via debit card on Monday morning.

There is therefore 2 days between me handing over the cash and taking possession of the car. The dealer is an authorised Ford dealership, so hopefully they are reputable, but does this gap between payment and taking possession expose me to risk?

Would I be an unsecured creditor in the scenario that they went bust between Monday and Wedneday? Is such a gap between payment and taken possession common? Is there a reason that they would do this (apart from getting the money early), for example does a debit card payment needs time to fully clear?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The_Pedant

Once you have paid for it, the car will legally be yours.
Buying from a dealer, if they went bust (somewhat unlikely), the car would still be yours.

cardinalbiggles

I have heard this with other manufacturers as well so there must be a reason.

I bought a new car last Monday and basically turned up, signed to say I was happy with the car and paid there and then by debit card (not quite 13k but almost...) 10 minutes later I was off.

A debit card transaction is immediate as far as I know and its traceable so there are no issues with laundering.

I know that I would feel uneasy about paying 2 days before and not having the goods.

stebiz

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

I have heard this with other manufacturers as well so there must be a reason.

I bought a new car last Monday and basically turned up, signed to say I was happy with the car and paid there and then by debit card (not quite 13k but almost...) 10 minutes later I was off.

A debit card transaction is immediate as far as I know and its traceable so there are no issues with laundering.

I know that I would feel uneasy about paying 2 days before and not having the goods.

I would definately say - don't do it. When I bought mine I paid about 10k on a Debit Card, minutes before driving away!!

Amistoso_2

I would imagine paying by debit card for a car would be just the same as paying for anything else, if you pay for your shopping in Tesco with switch they don't tell you to come back in a couple of days to pick it up!
If I were you I'd tell them you can't make it in tomorrow and will pay the balance on collection on Wednesday. After all I don't think they would want to lose a sale for the sake of waiting 2 more days for full payment

olly300

Say sorry you are busy and can't come in to pay for the car then. Then pay them when you pick up the car.

The only reason they may be doing this is to massage their quarterly figures. Not all companies have quarterly targets that fit with calendar months.