After advice on a Car PCP deal I just signed

GrvR78

Hi

I signed an agreement on Friday for a new car that is ready for delivery. It has taken 8 weeks to arrive from the order date. They sent me the contract to sign (via their Financial Services team) on Thursday and I signed it on Friday once I read it.

Back when I ordered the car, the dealership offered me £28,000 for my car in part exchange. I still owe £17,000 on the car but the dealer said they would deal with that once I pick up the new car. This gave me £11,000 equity in the car I'm part exchanging. I agreed to pay a total deposit on the new car of £25,000 made up from the equity plus £14,000 cash / balance transfer. The contract I signed just states a £25,000 deposit.

After I signed the Finance agreement on Friday the dealer call me to say they now value my p/x car at £25,000 and want my permission to cancel this contract and write up a new one where the new p/x value would be £25,000 and my equity would be £8,000 and I'd have to up the cash deposit to £17,000. 

So my question is can I hold them to the original valuation? It's not on the contract but to ask my permission to cancel it and write another sounds odd. I'm not sure of my rights here and I thought dealers would have to guarantee a level of equity when the deal is done in this kind of scenario.

SaverRate

Tell them they must honour the contract and you don't agree to it being cant be cancelled. I am sure they they can find the £3000 elsewhere! 

Alderbank

The car purchase and the finance agreement are separate contracts.

It's not clear, have you actually taken delivery yet? If not then I suspect the sale has not completed and they can back out of it.
New car deals are returning and used car prices are indeed falling as supply slowly returns to normal. But that also means that if you walked you might get a better deal now from another trader. I would go along with @SaverRate and push them to honour the deal but I don't think you will be able to compel them to do so.

The p/ex of £28,000 was eight weeks ago. What does the contract of sale actually say? Here in Scotland, dealers only guarantee trade-in prices for 4 weeks at most.

Grumpy_chap

GrvR78 said:

Hi

I signed an agreement on Friday for a new car that is ready for delivery. It has taken 8 weeks to arrive from the order date. They sent me the contract to sign (via their Financial Services team) on Thursday and I signed it on Friday once I read it.

Back when I ordered the car, the dealership offered me £28,000 for my car in part exchange. I still owe £17,000 on the car but the dealer said they would deal with that once I pick up the new car. This gave me £11,000 equity in the car I'm part exchanging. I agreed to pay a total deposit on the new car of £25,000 made up from the equity plus £14,000 cash / balance transfer. The contract I signed just states a £25,000 deposit.

After I signed the Finance agreement on Friday the dealer call me to say they now value my p/x car at £25,000 and want my permission to cancel this contract and write up a new one where the new p/x value would be £25,000 and my equity would be £8,000 and I'd have to up the cash deposit to £17,000. 

So my question is can I hold them to the original valuation? It's not on the contract but to ask my permission to cancel it and write another sounds odd. I'm not sure of my rights here and I thought dealers would have to guarantee a level of equity when the deal is done in this kind of scenario.

I would not expect to see a movement in the value of the trade-in over a period as short as 8 weeks (unless there had been some event to change the value - mechanical or physical damage).

Has the Dealer taken your car and you have the new car, or is the delivery (to you) of the new car still to happen?
If the latter, you could see what the other car buying services (WBAC / Motorway etc) would offer for the trade in car as an alternative to the supplying Dealer.
In fact, you could still do that even if the trade has already happened as the knowledge around the value of your car might influence the stance you take to resolve with the supplying Dealer for the new car.

GrvR78

The contract just states a deposit amount. How that deposit is made up is not on there. HOWEVER I spoke to their central team about my rights and they tell me on the system it states that a "committed trade in valuation of £28,000 is agreed". Also they said the dealership should not be asking me to cancel the order to re-do it. They are calling me back tomorrow so we'll see I guess.

GrvR78

I have not taken delivery of the new car (and therefore not handed my current car over), and I was meant to pick it up this week.  The push to try to get me to cancel and re-make the order doesn't feel very ethical to me. I had an agreement, they have it on their system (and I've requested a copy of those records) and now they are trying to change it. I am unsure if I can enforce the original agreement so will see how far I can push them. I've tried several times with their head of sales but basically I'm getting stone walled.

Aylesbury_Duck

Are you happy to back out entirely?  If so, you have good leverage to use.

visidigi

Grumpy_chap said:

GrvR78 said:

Hi

I signed an agreement on Friday for a new car that is ready for delivery. It has taken 8 weeks to arrive from the order date. They sent me the contract to sign (via their Financial Services team) on Thursday and I signed it on Friday once I read it.

Back when I ordered the car, the dealership offered me £28,000 for my car in part exchange. I still owe £17,000 on the car but the dealer said they would deal with that once I pick up the new car. This gave me £11,000 equity in the car I'm part exchanging. I agreed to pay a total deposit on the new car of £25,000 made up from the equity plus £14,000 cash / balance transfer. The contract I signed just states a £25,000 deposit.

After I signed the Finance agreement on Friday the dealer call me to say they now value my p/x car at £25,000 and want my permission to cancel this contract and write up a new one where the new p/x value would be £25,000 and my equity would be £8,000 and I'd have to up the cash deposit to £17,000. 

So my question is can I hold them to the original valuation? It's not on the contract but to ask my permission to cancel it and write another sounds odd. I'm not sure of my rights here and I thought dealers would have to guarantee a level of equity when the deal is done in this kind of scenario.

I would not expect to see a movement in the value of the trade-in over a period as short as 8 weeks (unless there had been some event to change the value - mechanical or physical damage).

Has the Dealer taken your car and you have the new car, or is the delivery (to you) of the new car still to happen?
If the latter, you could see what the other car buying services (WBAC / Motorway etc) would offer for the trade in car as an alternative to the supplying Dealer.
In fact, you could still do that even if the trade has already happened as the knowledge around the value of your car might influence the stance you take to resolve with the supplying Dealer for the new car.

There has been a huge sudden value drop (10-25% dependent on model) in trade in prices, mainly triggered by the uncertainty of the coming quarters.So they are trying to carve out as much of a margin as possible.

OP, I believe they need to honour it, but you would have to check the terms of the contract, very few here could advise you without knowing what the current value contract signed says...

Veteransaver

Used car prices are all over the place at the moment.
Did you pay any deposit when you placed the order?