Unwinding a Deal / Writing Contract Addendums Question (Texas/Alabama)

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I’m dealing with a bit of a strange pickle here.

I had a deal written and a contract signed at the end of June for a new X3. One of my issues is that, the dealership backdated the date of the deal to the initial date of when they demanded that the deposit be sent to them to ‘confirm the deal was done’. The second issue is that, the car has yet to be delivered, meaning I haven’t taken possession of the vehicle yet. The deal was signed and paid for in June, but hasn’t yet arrived now in July.

I thought it was strange that when they sent a notary out to have me sign the paperwork, that he was adamant about me not adding dates to lines where my name should have a date next to it. He then mentioned when I asked him why, he said “because this dealership doesn’t like people dating their paperwork.”

BMW corporate has confirmed that the Warranty Period on the car has been submitted to them, and that the warranty is confirmed to have started back when the dealership backdated the paperwork for (June 25th). They said this is bizarre and the first time they have ever seen a case like this.

Now, in full transparency I told the dealership that there was no way I would fly out to pick up the vehicle for health reasons, and instead would prefer to have it shipped. Though when I made that request, they had no way of estimating when the car would actually arrive. Today the dealership finally contacted me with a rough estimate of when the car should actually be arriving (sometime this week).

I’ve pointed out to them that the delivery date in the paperwork doesn’t actually match my possession date of the vehicle. And this is also beyond the idea that they demanded that the wire transfer for the full amount of the vehicle driveoff’s be sent upfront, and not just a deposit for the car because “they had to do the deal in June”.

To me this all seems a bit sketchy. And I’m wondering what I should be doing outside of just contacting BWW corporate. From what I’ve been told on their end, and from BMW Financial, they have no real say in the writing or the modification of the contracts, and that it’s all up to the dealership.

Question 1: Should I be requesting them to re-write the contract to reflect the actual date of ownership and delivery of the vehicle?

Question 2: If that’s not possible, should I consider unwinding the deal/can I refuse delivery of the car?

I’m not sure if there’s something else I should be considering here. The wire transfer for the inital payment was not for an insignificant amount.

Thanks everyone.

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Answer #1: It might be because they don’t even have idea when the vehicle would be arriving. I’d ask the lawyer who are in this group that can advise, but from what I understand, dealerships do this all the time. I don’t know why BMW Financial wouldn’t recognize this.

Answer #2: You can, but you might be asking for legal trouble between you and the dealership.

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1). They likely punched the vehicle sold and have already submit for the programs. They’d need the contract to reflect last month if so. Personally, I have a lot of these at the end of the month.

2). That’s a personal choice. If you like the car, take it.

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Yeah. My other question is that if there is potentially an adjustment made to the delivery date of the vehicle, then who dictates what the RV/MF/Incentives are that can be used? BMW seemed flummoxed by this question too. It all pointed to the idea that the dealerships got to ultimately decide what incentives they were using. But is that truly the case? Would anything else in the contract need to change if they changed the delivery date. Or rather, Does BMW FS get to interpret which parts of the old/new contract to keep in play?

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RV/MF are based on last month, as that is when you signed.

Delivery of the vehicle has nothing to do w/ the date of the contract.

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Your deal probably already funded, so I doubt you can “unwind” the deal. The dealer wouldn’t risk shipping you the vehicle and have the deal fall through.

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Delivery in this case meaning possession. But I would disagree here. From everything I’ve heard so far on the BMW side, I’ve been told this is actually abnormal. Whether or not that’s true is hard to know since I can only go based on what I’ve heard so far.

The reality is that I’m currently paying for something, that I have no possession of, and that I have no ability to use until it arrives (which in effect lessens the length of my ownership). And that’s assuming the best case scenario that the car is in perfect condition (and matches the listed mileage) when it arrives.

@derekoh1991 which lawyer is your post referencing? I think BMW mentioned the same thing about refusing the delivery. That it would technically fall under state law. Though I’m not sure which state applies in this case, or where that section of the law resides.

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Simplest question here - what is it you want from this situation?

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I thought the car belonged to you from the date you signed the paperwork and handed the deposit? It doesn’t matter when you take physical possession of the car?

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You wanted that car in June with June programs, right now we’re talking about 12 days here because you wanted the car delivered instead of picking it up, correct?

So like many other people in these unprecedented times: you wanted your car shipped — which is not an exact science as anyone who has shipped the car will tell you —and it sounds like you knew that upfront and agreed to it.

If the car actually arrives this week, it sounds like you lost half a month of utility over a 3 year lease because you chose to have it delivered rather than risk your health. I wouldn’t be worked up at all unless the car doesn’t arrive this week. You got the deal you want, on the car you want, on the terms you wanted. :man_shrugging:t2:

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There is nothing strange here. Car dealers do this all the time. They put the date you buy/lease from them on the paperwork. If you picked up the car same day or they ship it to Alaska it doesn’t matter.

Let’s say your car arrives on July 15th. Do you think that should be the date your lease payment starts? If that’s your goal it will never happen.

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I think the deal I was looking for happened to apply some credits from June. Though I actually didn’t need the car right away. I even told the dealership that I have a couple of months left on my current lease. So my ideal would actually to have purchased the car in August. Agreeing to the idea of a price and potentially placing a deposit on the car, and confirming that they are actually selling/delivering the car in different months and writing the contract to improperly reflect the date of possession are two different ideas here.

Also this:

https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FI/htm/FI.348.htm#348.111

Sec. 348.111. BUYER’S RIGHT TO RESCIND CONTRACT. Until the retail seller complies with Section 348.110, a retail buyer who has not received delivery of the motor vehicle is entitled to:

(1) rescind the contract;

(2) receive a refund of all payments made under or in contemplation of the contract; and

(3) receive the return of all goods traded in to the retail seller under or in contemplation of the contract or, if those goods cannot be returned, to receive the value of those goods.

Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1008, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1997.

For reference, this is 348.10 (I don’t have a copy of the contract either):

Sec. 348.110. DELIVERY OF COPY OF CONTRACT. A retail seller shall:

(1) deliver to the retail buyer a copy of the retail installment contract as accepted by the retail seller; or

(2) mail to the retail buyer at the address shown on the retail installment contract a copy of the retail installment contract as accepted by the retail seller.

Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1008, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1997.

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As @Benedetto mentioned and would provide more context:

Simplest question here - what is it you want from this situation?

What was the idea behind looking a couple of months early and taking advantage of June programs and inventory if you didn’t want something till August?

If the goal was to have the contract date and delivery date be the same, then you needed to put aside your health concerns, drive to the dealer and sign & drive on the car on the same day. If you were looking to have the delivery date and contract date be as close as possible did you reach out personally to any shippers and see if they could get it to you quicker?

Most likely due to Consumer Finance laws or the way BMW FS software is set up the contract date needed to be in June for June programs. The dealer needed to get the vehicle off the floor plan and is probably one of the many reasons the sales manager agreed to a deal that was acceptable to you and them.

As @jeisensc mentioned you got the deal you wanted on the car you wanted and it will be delivered at the expense of the dealer.

Is this buyers remorse and now you are trying to figure out how to undo it?

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Whats your objective here?

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I don’t necessarily think they dealer was doing anything shady. I’ve done similar things many times because I typically buy at the end of the month. Sometimes contracts have to be dated accordingly to qualify for programs. I’ve also shipped cars, and as someone else said that is not an exact science. That’s just a risk one takes when you agree to have a car shipped.

There were programs available in June that were used in the transaction of the car. If you waited until July those programs may not have been available. I think you’re make a big deal of nothing. Either you want the car or you don’t? If your lease isn’t up on your current car for another 2 months then why were you leasing a new car now? Must have been the deal you wanted, or you would not have agreed to lease a new car now instead of waiting.

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No remorse. Just seems strange that the contract didn’t match up (which I have to admit is my fault for just initially calling that out before anything was signed), and also that it’s an unknown area when it comes to lease turn in on the vehicle/maintenance and anything else that might result from having some mixed up numbers floating around.

It’s more of a transparency issue than anything else, and also the idea that there’s just money sitting around on something that is going unused. That’s never a good feeling.

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Of course not: like all our cars that were formerly daily drivers that spend more time parked.

The specific remedy to that ailment was

The dealer didn’t go out of their way to deprive you of the utility you leased, they went out of their way to accommodate your request.

Edit: IANAL but

Call your Texas based attorney if you want some kind of legal remedy. If you did unwind the contract over this, and I was a dealer principle, I wouldn’t lease you another car over it.

Make sure you show them the notarized bits.

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As @Batistuta said its going to be very rare for a contract date to match delivery date on a shipped vehicle.

We recently had a LH’er on here mention that Volvo shipped him a vehicle with no signed paperwork. If I was GM at a dealer their is no way I would ship a car out with nothing signed and potentially be on the hook for a buyer changing his mind and be out shipping both ways.

It isn’t a good feeling however that is on you for not grabbing a flight and picking up the car, not on them for arranging shipping with June programs on your behalf that happens to fall into July. Would the local BMW dealer not entertain this deal so that all of this could have been avoided?

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That’s definitely nuts they sent blank paperwork. I can only imagine the issues you could run into with that…

Considering the health risk, saying something is ‘on someone’ isn’t really a great way of framing the argument. That’s a whole different discussion if you want to try and go down arguing that route. I contacted a bunch of different dealerships and a couple came back with the same offer, though none of them were local.

The dealership ended up covering the first month’s payment as a measure of good will.

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That sounds like an excellent result. Hopefully the car will arrive without any shipping damage.