Yesterday I sold my car to a used car dealership. It was a 2014 Ford Fiesta hatchback with 70,500 miles on it. Just last week I had my auto shop do a ton of mechanical repairs on it. They had to replace some mechanical belt thing and they had to change my coolant and they replaced the battery and did an oil change and all the repairs I did cost $1400. And two months before that I did my (belated) 60K mile tunee up. And I’d even had leather seats installed.
Yet I’d brought it to that used car dealership for a quote before and they said they’d only give me $4000 for it. So I went in yesterday and they said “Well your front tires are worn out so we’re only going to offer you $3000 because we have to pay to replace your tires. And that’ll cost us a lot of money.” So I agreed to $3000, assuming they meant new front tires would cost like $1000.
So today I looked at their website and my car is already listed for sale on there and it still has its original front tires. And I looked up tire prices and they could’ve replaced the front tires for $50-$80 per tire. So it only would have cost them $100-$160 to replace my front tires, not $1000.
I want to call them tomorrow and tell them to give me the extra $1000. I doubt they will but my plan is to notify them I looked up tire prices and found out new front tires would only cost $50 per tire and I know they lied to me about it costing $1000 plus I’m going to tell them I can tell my car still has its original tires in the picture on the website. They’ll probably claim they haven’t replaced the tires yet but are gonna get around to it.
I think they lied by saying they’re going to replace the front tires, and even if they do it’ll only cost $100. Do used car dealerships actually replace front tires? Either way they ripped me off by only giving me $3000. I could’ve not accepted the deal but I was in a rush and just wanted to get it over with. And car dealers are experts at bamboozling you.
UPDATE: I posted the original post on Tuesday. So I called the dealership yesterday (Wednesday) and talked to one of the employees and they had the manager call me back today (Thursday) and he said he’ll sell my car back to me for the price I paid for it ($3000.) So he’ll give it back to me. So that worked out. And I’ll try to sell it independently for like $7000. People are cheap though so I doubt I’ll be able to get more than $4000 for it even if I sell it on my own, ha.
Which leads to another question: Best site to independently sell your car? Should I list it on Autotrader? Definitely not Craigslist, I know that, haha. On Craigslist people will be like “I’ll take it off your hands for free and you can pay me $50 for driving out to your place to pick it up.” I hate Craigslist.
Whether they replace the tires or sell the vehicle as-is will be up to them, the tires are probably not below minimum specifications but you accepted the suggestion that they should be replaced during negotiations.
You could have replaced the tires or just sold the car as-is yourself for $4,000 to $6,000 but you chose the easy route.
It was 2 months ago. In June they said they’d give me $4000. I’m still gonna call him and tell him to give me the extra $1000. I googled it and I can cancel the sale as long as it’s still on the lot and the title hasn’t gone through into their name yet.
I am not going to berate you on any of the above but just out of curiosity,
Were you planning to sell before having all the work performed on your car? If so, why?
You entered into a contract to sell the car to the dealer, does not matter what price they paid you or what they said to get the best price they could. That is called negotiation. They have more experience that the average person. Once the deal is done, what they do is none of your business. They could turn around and sell it the next day as is for 2x the price you sold it for. They would owe you nothing. Look up ‘sellers remorse’
+1
The essential elements of a legal contract are:
Offer
Acceptance
Consideration
The buyer made an offer, the seller accepted that offer, and he/she received payment–otherwise known as consideration.
Because the OP agreed to–and accepted–the lower price that was offered, his contract with the buyer was complete, and it is a done deal.
The dealer did nothing wrong and they did not bamboozle you. You bamboozled yourself.
Selling a car to a dealer outright is not going to bring you a decent price. You should have listed it on Craigslist or eBay. Odds are you would have gotten a higher price.
It makes no sense to me to spend 1400 dollars on repairs, do a 60k maintenance, and add leather seats just to unload the car for what you just spent.
“Cancel the sale”? Not gonna happen no matter what Google says.
You spent money ( wasted ) doing things to a vehicle that you were not going to keep . You agreed to a selling price and now you are having second thoughts . Well it is too late.
Consider this an expensive lesson learned. Believe nothing the car dealer says, only what is in writing. They had no obligation to put on new tires. They had every obligation to their owner to pay you the least you’d accept for your car. In the future, spend no money on a car right before selling it, unless it’s needed to make the car drivable. You won’t get it back. And get offers from several dealers before you sell.
conducting repairs on a car you’re about to sell to a dealership is pointless. They can do the repairs for cost. You pay retail. All you’re doing is cutting into the pittance they’re going to pay you for the car.
If a salesman’s lips are moving, he’s lying. He offered you $4,000. You assumed that offer would be good in perpetuity. You were wrong. It may not even have been good five minutes after he offered it. After all, you only had his word on it, and oral agreements are worth no more than the paper they’re written on.
What they pay to replace the tires is irrelevant. You agreed to sell them the car for $3,000. Even if they turn around and sell it for $10,000 thanks to the repairs and leather upgrade you gave them for free, that’s their right. You sold it.
Never be in a rush when it comes to financial transactions. Why were you in a rush? Was someone going to shoot you if you didn’t offload the car in the next 5 minutes?
To be blunt, you couldn’t be bothered to think about what you were agreeing to when you were agreeing to it, and now you have regrets. That’s good - you’ll remember those regrets the next time you feel like rushing through an agreement just to get it over with, and maybe you’ll slow down and not cheat yourself.
The radio host, Bruce Williams used to say a pen is a dangerous weapon, so be careful how you use it. But if you can cancel the deal, great, but then what comes next?
I think a lot of people are being overly harsh with you. While I agree that you were overly motivated to get through the transaction (I think we’ve all been there), no one should condone the dealer lying to you about the work they were going to put into the car before they resold it in order to get you to come down in price. I’m not naive enough to think it doesn’t happen - I’ve owned my own business for almost 20 years - but to say you “bamboozled” yourself isn’t fair. The dealer lied and you are justified in confronting them. Will it change anything? Most likely not, but you have a right to confront them.
Who is condoning that? No one said that was OK. No one condones crocodile attacks either, but if someone jumps into a crocodile pen and gets eaten, no one’s surprised.
Speaking for myself, when I said he cheated himself I was referring to him doing all those repair/upgrade projects, then selling it to the dealership and just taking even less than their lowball offer because he was “in a rush.”
Just a note on the title of the post.
Tires: Depends on the next buyer. Yes, Purchased a used car, told salesperson I would accept the car at XXX price provided they mount new tires. They did.
I would not expect a dealer to honor a price they offered two months ago. I wouldn’t expect them to honor a price they gave two weeks ago. Used cars prices generally change every two weeks, one of the tools the dealer uses to determine the value of a car is the black book value, it’s a subscription service only offered to car dealers, it gets published every two weeks and varies according to region. It takes in account demand and inventory levels for given vehicles. It would be unreasonable to assume an offer made on a vehicle two months ago would stand two months down the road.
The chances of them giving you the $1000 you feel you’re owed, are slim. You have roughly the same odds of that happening as you do getting struck by lightning twice in the same day.
You didn’t mention what kind of shape it was in, but a base “S” trim Fiesta hatchback with 70,500 miles (with the much-maligned DCT) and alloy wheels, has an average trade-in value of right around $4k. The dealership will probably try to sell it for around $6k-$7k. If it had ever been in an accident, and/or it needed fair amount of reconditioning it would be worth less. If the front tires needed to be replaced (even if they didn’t replace them), it would be worth less because the new owner would have to replace them sooner.
The dealer will not have to pay retail prices on tires, but tires generally don’t have alot of markup (compared to many other parts), and I want to say that 7%-12% is the about the margin you can expect a typical tire to have. Labor is where the dealership can save significant money, and they are just on the hook for whatever the tech’s compensation is. The dealership may charge a retail customer $100/hr, but they don’t pay the technician anywhere near that and the cost for the dealership to have work done on it’s own cars is much less. But that’s really not important because, I’m betting that you signed away the car when you chose to accept their offer. When you did you research after the fact, it sounds like a case of seller’s remorse. I don’t think this is going to end in the way that you’re envisioning.