Advice please on when to pay the balance on new car?

confused,moi?

Hi Folks,

All being well, I collect my new (used) car tomorrow at noon. I will pay the full balance by electronic transfer as requested by the dealership. My plan was to transfer the money online tomorrow morning but I've just received an email asking whether I've transferred the money to their account yet which took me by surprise.So, can anyone advise as to whether I'm obliged to make payment today as this wasn't discussed a few days ago? Thanks for your advice.

foxy-stoat

Pay for it when you are there before you collect. I assume you have test driven it before you paid the deposit?

rhino_horn

I'm a dealer.

We would never ask for payment in advance. We only ask for payment once they are with the car.

confused,moi?

Thanks for responding, guys. Yes, I test drove the car a week ago and a friend is driving me up tomorrow for my noon appointment. I have the funds in place and was going to take my laptop with me so I could make the transfer at the showroom once everything was sorted. I'm with the Nationwide and electronic transfers under £10,000 usually go through immediately although there is a caveat some payments can take up to 2 hours.

Ebe_Scrooge

You could ask the dealer if they'll accept payment by Debit card - lots of places will. This is the quickest and easiest method. You may get a slight delay if the card terminal flashes up a message asking you to call your bank to authorise the transaction (this happened to me once), but it's no big deal and takes just a couple of minutes.

confused,moi?

Hi Ebe, The salesman told me verbally that their preferred payment method is electronic transfer which I'm happy to do. As for payment by debit and credit card, they'll accept a payment up to £1000. I did pay the £250 deposit by credit card.

This isn't an Arthur Daley set up by any means. It's a well-known, national car dealership so I'm not saying anything untoward is taking place. It's just that there was no mention of transferring money before I was there in person to take actual ownership of the car. To be honest, if that had been mentioned, I would have baulked at the suggestion. Being a cautious individual an' all, I thought I'd come on here and see what others thought.

agrinnall

I'd insist on payment by debit card regardless of their restrictions. If they want your money they'll accept it.

Herzlos

When you're standing in front of them with a debit card ready to buy the car, they'll accept debit card
If not, send the payment via laptop/phone banking and sit with a coffee whilst it comes through.



Remember you're the one with the bargaining power. Once they have the money, you lose £10,000 worth of bargaining power should anything be amiss on collection.

confused,moi?

Thank you for all your great advice, people, you've really helped me. The car I'm buying is nearer £6000 but still a lot of money which I want to part with only when I'm in situ. Thanks again.

RichardD1970

Both mine and my wife's last cars were paid by debit card (two different dealers), mine for £11k, the wifes for £7k.

No other payment method was mentioned, just asked if we wanted finance or had funds in place.

EssexExile

Herzlos wrote: »

send the payment via laptop/phone banking and sit with a coffee whilst it comes through.

Of course you may have to wait overnight.

Don't you trust the dealer? I paid mine a couple of days before to make sure everything went smoothly. It did.