New Car - Delivery Date Ooops...

[Aidi]

My wife called her local Ford dealer around October last year expressing her wish to buy a new car. Dealer said to come in mid December to place the order which she did on the 14th Dec.

Car was scheduled to be ready for driving away on 1st March...

Yep, you guessed it, deadline is not going to be met. No idea at this point how long the delay is likely to be... a few days or even a few weeks - Who knows.

Car is a Ford KA Ztec circa £9k. A courtesy car has been offered as her current car is handed over to its new owner on Thursday... What should she ask/expect in the way of compensation due to the dealer not meeting their end of the bargain?

Money off, free servicing for a year or so??

[pogo]

Serves her right for buying a ford hee hee

[neverlandandy]

Im no sure they will offer her anything as the 1st march would just be a scheduled date

[m8internet]

A courtesy car has been offered as her current car is handed over to its new owner on Thursday... What should she ask/expect in the way of compensation due to the dealer not meeting their end of the bargain?

Remember to remove the Tax Disc from the car being traded-in

The car deal should have included some form of enhancement (car mats, mudflaps, servicing, extended warranty)

It depends on how long the delay is
Find out what the minimum terms are for the Courtesy Car
Equally, if there is an insurance policy in place then find out if it is cheaper to suspend it or cancel it
A new policy can then be setup when the new car arrives

I would accept a deferred a delivery of up to 1 week without any enhancement
After this I would use a sliding scale, at the rate of about £50 per week
Therefore after two weeks a set of mudflaps, after three weeks the first Service included, after four weeks one additional years warranty, and so on
Make a list and make sure the sales person is aware of this

Equally, as the order cannot be satisfied by the seller the buyer has the right to terminate the contract
Therefore find out from another dealership what the delivery date would be for an identical vehicle, no trade-in (don't advise them a car is already on order and late)

[Das]

Im no sure they will offer her anything as the 1st march would just be a scheduled date

They will probably argue they gave you a courtesy car for free for X amounts of days, weeks, months etc.

Silly question but why did they tell her to come back December? Quiet month for new car sale im assuming.

[stevoxsi]

Threat to cancel should get them to keep you right. Then they'll lose 2 customers.

[BigLad]

I presume you wanted to order and get the new reg on 1st Mar and that's why the dealer told you to come back in Dec?

I ordered a new Octavia Vrs on the 24th Dec for a Mar 1st delivery 2 years ago and the dealer was gagging for a sale so got everything I asked for and more ! Your dealer will have access to a build date and WILL know the normal times from arrival at port to delivery at dealership. Ask the dealer for your order number and tell him you are phoning Ford UK direct to get the information on projected build date etc.

Skoda were that efficient they gave me my order number and build week, emailed me the day it had been built and even told me the boat it was arriving on and at what port it would arrive. It was fun watching the ship transit using www.marinetraffic.com it stopped being fun when they wanted to register it last week in Feb though ! I presume for a sales target for that month? I won in the end as Skoda UK intervened on my behalf and I picked it up Mar 1st.

I would be happy with free use of a courtesy car of same size as car I was trading in tbh, mileage on their car rather than mine for a week or 2.

[Aidi]

Yep ordered at the time requested by the dealer for it to be driven off the forecourt on the 1st march with a new plate.

They are saying that it will be ready the following weekend. We are not out to try and screw the dealer over. To be fair she explained that because we live apart during the week, we had planned to pick up the car on the 1st, then off to a spa hotel etc for a nice weekend away. He has offered a Fiat 500 convertable as a courtesy car to bridge the gap - said he wouldn't normally offer this as a courtesy but because we had the weekend planned made the gesture - which is fair enough.

Its just a bit annoying that when you plan way in advance and follow the instructions given etc for it then be late. In my profession, broken deadlines are penalized with quite stiff penalties. I have said to her rather than haggle the price down, go for the first 2 services for free. They can do that quite easy and absorb the costs.

Thanks for the comments chaps, always good to see different points of view!