Help. Car on order, how to lock trade price?

[Damage Inc]

So I'm considering a dealer allocation for an 18. Its 6 weeks out. I'm going with this dealer b/c they have put in writing $2k more than any other dealer for my trade in. Which is not chump change (to me).

Of course they will not "commit" to that amount on my trade but will re-evaluate when my car comes in.

I'm a bit of a "worrier". I am tempted to go trade my car in tomorrow so I dont have to worry about this for the next 6 weeks. Of course the deposit is refundable, so worse case I just walk.

I will be talking with the sales manager and the guy who do trades tomorrow.

The sales guy, while new, continually tells me "he'll take care of me". I think he is being honest, but not experienced thus I cannot trust him.

So... any tips or suggestions of what I can do? I'm ordering the car from them with a few extra options, thinking I'm getting the extra $$ for my car so that is a wash.

TIA

[steelesm]

Originally Posted by MojorisinM3

So I'm considering a dealer allocation for an 18. Its 6 weeks out. I'm going with this dealer b/c they have put in writing $2k more than any other dealer for my trade in. Which is not chump change (to me).

Of course they will not "commit" to that amount on my trade but will re-evaluate when my car comes in.

I'm a bit of a "worrier". I am tempted to go trade my car in tomorrow so I dont have to worry about this for the next 6 weeks. Of course the deposit is refundable, so worse case I just walk.

I will be talking with the sales manager and the guy who do trades tomorrow.

The sales guy, while new, continually tells me "he'll take care of me". I think he is being honest, but not experienced thus I cannot trust him.

So... any tips or suggestions of what I can do? I'm ordering the car from them with a few extra options, thinking I'm getting the extra $$ for my car so that is a wash.

TIA

I ordered my M3 and "pre-traded" my car in early December and got a signed agreement with the trade-in value. My car is expected to arrive in a few weeks.

[Damage Inc]

Originally Posted by steelesm

I ordered my M3 and "pre-traded" my car in early December and got a signed agreement with the trade-in value. My car is expected to arrive in a few weeks.

I appreciate you posting.

But how exactly did you do this? Are you still driving your car around? Did they limit your miles? Or did you physically trade in the car early Dec?

I dont think I can go a month without a car... although I'm kinda considering it...

[Clark_Kent]

I experienced this very situation when I traded in my 2016 for my 2018. I was told they could not "lock in" or "guarantee" a trade-in value in the future. I was provided a trade-in value for the day the vehicle was appraised and was told the value may fluctuate some when I actually traded the vehicle in. In other words, the value will almost certainly go down. I told them I was not interested in that arrangement as it opens the door for manipulation of the value. I got them to agree that the trade in value of today will be honored once I turn the vehicle in.

The agreement looked like this:

September 18, 2017 - Placed order and left deposit for vehicle, received trade-in value for vehicle that would be honored once the vehicle arrived with the understanding I would drive the vehicle and the mileage would increase at a reasonable clip.

December 9, 2017 - The vehicle arrived at the dealership and I officially traded in my then current vehicle for the new one. I believe I ended up putting ~1,800 miles on the car in that timeframe.

I say all of that to say, 'yes' you can have them lock in the trade-in value today for a vehicle you will pick up weeks later. In my experience it's a better practice to communicate the terms to which you're comfortable with instead of asking them what they can do. They will either agree to those terms or not.

[steelesm]

Originally Posted by MojorisinM3

I appreciate you posting.

But how exactly did you do this? Are you still driving your car around? Did they limit your miles? Or did you physically trade in the car early Dec?

I dont think I can go a month without a car... although I'm kinda considering it...

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I have another car that I'm able to drive while waiting for the M3.

[Grant1210]

My dealer locked in a trade value (and monthly payment) when I ordered. No restrictions. In fairness my car is a crv with 130k on it. I ordered in early December and should pick it up in mid February.

[dmk08]

My dealer locked in trade value on my 15 and I had to wait over 4 months for my individual car to come. They tried to back-out at delivery but I threatened to walk and they ended up honoring it.

[Clark_Kent]

Originally Posted by dmk08

My dealer locked in trade value on my 15 and I had to wait over 4 months for my individual car to come. They tried to back-out at delivery but I threatened to walk and they ended up honoring it.

Good work!

When it was time to trade in the car I was at the dealership longer than I had anticipated and I tracked down the Sales Manager to ask him what was taking so long. He stated: "The numbers on my trade in aren't working for them." I stared at him with no response and he said, "This is our problem and not for you to worry about." I agreed and let them do their thing. I believe a phone call was made to Finance telling them to recoup monies from the deal as they started to play games with the financing interest rate and tried to hard to sell warranties/tire protection.

[FirstF80InSpace]

Depends on your dealer. When I ordered my F80, it took six months due to lack of allocations at the dealer. However, the dealer honoured the original agreed trade in price of my S4, even though the car probably depreciated a couple of thousand dollars since my original purchase date.

[5soko]

Good info in here, i haven't thought about this..

I will be trading in my car aswell when i do ED this summer..

Hopefully they give me a decent trade in value and hopefully we can agree to lock in a value the day i order the car, or maybe they will take the trade that day..

[Mr. Hankey]

Depends on the dealer. I traded in a '15 M3 on an '18. Time from order to new car arriving was 2 months. Options were to trade the car in at the time of ordering for guaranteed trade in price, or drive it for 2 months with a mileage limit of 1000 miles and they dropped the trade in price by $1000 but still guaranteed it with signed agreement. So I drove my car for 2 more months and took a $1000 hit on the trade, and got 998 of my 1000 miles out of it. That was not hard to negotiate since they were the ones who offered. Seemed perfectly fair to me.

In the meantime various folks at the dealership were driving my car until it got onto their website inventory and based on my BMW connect app they put about another 800 miles on it.

[Habber]

My sales rep told me he can keep price for 30 days on my trade and didn't give me mileage limit.
He also lied to me about options on the car too so don't trust anything not in writing. The guy can switch jobs too and then you're SOL.

Sales reps are chameleons.

[GOLFFRR]

just get your agreement in writing and go from there. Don't assume anything unless its in writing.

[Killed by Death]

Originally Posted by FirstF80InSpace

Depends on your dealer. When I ordered my F80, it took six months due to lack of allocations at the dealer. However, the dealer honoured the original agreed trade in price of my S4, even though the car probably depreciated a couple of thousand dollars since my original purchase date.

Same here, depends on dealer. Mine put a value on my wife's Mini and never wavered or tried any BS over a 4 month wait.

[goneloco]

I ordered my 2015 in November 2014 for a March PCD delivery. My trade in price was locked in at the time I ordered. They said no problem driving my car until I took delivery. It ended with me getting the car in January because they didn't order the car for PCD. They offered to order another car but ended up giving me a day of M school instead.