3PedalMINI

Hey, you have a 2004 R32?! I love that year, one of the best IMO.

Ive ordered two cars, both from MINI. Corporate policy is 500 deposit 100% refundable. They are a company where 75% of the cars are custom ordered and they push heavily on ordering the car you want. Ive found that BMW is the same way, although they dont custom order as much they still push it. Both make it a very pleasurable experience

I know audi is more of a dealer lot take your pick company, with my past experience with customer service i cannot think that the experience would be awesome! I know the wait times are LONG but well worth it!

Good luck, definitely shop around, do a credit card deposit! I will be ordering an S5 or S4 once my Mini lease is up. I plan on doing european delivery too.

hosierr

I was asked if I wanted to put anything down and how much. I chose to put down $500.00 which was refundable and great to add that to the amount I put down towards financing when the car arrived. I didn't want a car payment the size of my house payment

netwrkr

Yeah well....lesson learned. 2 weeks before my car was to be delivered the sales guy called me up to tell me they no longer wanted my business and were refunding my 5K deposit. I surmise they found someone to pay full MSRP (they claim otherwise). In the end the sales guy was fired and I got my car but only after Johan got involved....but that's a whole other story

Tom

ni4ni

[QUOTE=3PedalMINI;24222527]Hey, you have a 2004 R32?! I love that year, one of the best IMO.
QUOTE]

Yes sir! Thanks. That is one of the car that I won't give up easilly. Call me crazy but I flew to pick up that car from FL. and drove back to WA. Fun time definitely!

With the new facelift coming soon, I'm anticipating a good deal is on the horizon.

I definitely appreciated peoples chiming in because I sure learned a lot here.

HyperS4

Our policy is to collect a $500 deposit for every order. It is completely refundable EXCEPT in the case of exclusive colors or really ugly color combinations (i.e. teak brown with grey interior). We are not in the business to make money from deposits, its to sell cars.

pbadss

Anybody have a dealership wanting to do a credit check AND a deposit?

helix139

They should only be doing a credit check if you are applying for financing. Tell them to go to hell.

av_audi

Which happens all the time, as evidenced by the experience of another poster in this thread (the $7K deposit).

I am 99.9% sure it is illegal not to refund a deposit in California.

Why do they bother with deposits? I can only speculate: perhaps it is a way for them to know upfront that your financial health affords you to have at least a valid credit card. Perhaps they also think that it makes you psychologically more committed to actually purchasing the car.

av_audi

This is an issue that bugs me a lot. If they want to do a credit check, either the dealership is in a shady area and deals with shady customers, or for whatever reason they suspect the customer cannot actually afford the car. Either way, I don't think one should agree to it because every credit check lowers your score, potentially jeopardizing the best loan rate you could get. So when you apply for the loan, your credit will show a recent check and a lowered score.

Here is another twist on the same problem. When you bring your own financing, or when you pay cash, technically they have no need to do a credit check. But they all require it. I was told that they do it mostly as an identity check to cover themselves, in case a crook is buying the care with stolen identity funds. But I am not sure I buy that.

Osicom

I think they need to do a credit check even if you pay with a check. If you pay with rock hard cash then they shouldn't check.