There are two main ways to buy a car from a dealership. The first and most common is that you go to the dealership and buy one off of the lot. Maybe you already know what make and model you want, so you’re checking to see which ones they have in stock, or maybe you don’t even know what you’d like to buy and you want to do some test drives.
The second way is to order a custom vehicle. Some dealers will allow you to do this online and others will ask you to come in and put in the request in person. But either way, you get to go through and design the specific make and model that you want, with all the features that you’re looking for, and then you get a price quote at the end.
Once you put in the order, it can take a few months for the car to arrive. Since it was designed specifically for you, it has to be custom built. But you assume that this happens once you put the order in and that you’re just waiting on delivery. Is that actually true?
Dealers can’t always make any order
The reality is that dealers will usually tell you they can order you a car, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can get one or that they can do it quickly. The factory might be booked with other vehicles being built. There may be supply chain issues. The car may be very rare and in high demand, so there simply aren’t that many in production. The dealer can tell you they’ll make the order, but they are only one link in the chain.
There have been stories of people putting in their orders and then waiting for months with no progress from the dealer. Unfortunately, the dealer had already taken their deposit, so they were financially stuck in the deal. This can be very frustrating and can make it take longer to get the car that you want.
If you feel like the dealer has committed fraud, perhaps knowing that they couldn’t get you the vehicle from the very beginning or maybe trying to pass off another vehicle as your custom option when it was really a stock vehicle from the lot, then it’s crucial for you to understand what legal options you have.