Car Dealerships

If the car dealer doesn't pay-off you loan within a reasonable amount of time (one to three weeks) the lender is going to be looking for you to make a payment when it comes due. I have even seen cases where the customer didn't know for several months that the pay-off hadn't been made, and it was actually causing late payment entries on their credit report.

Remember . . . I said this was a rare occurrence, so don't panic if you have a trade-in with a pay-off. There are steps you can take to protect yourself. If you trade a car with a pay-off get a written statement from the dealership signed by either the Sales Manager or the Finance Manager stating that they will in fact pay off your trade-in, and by what date. The statement should include the following information:

• The date of the document


• The amount of the pay-off


• By what date will the pay-off be made by


• How long the pay-off amount is good for (because the amount changes as interest accrues)


• The year, make, model, mileage and serial number of the car being paid off


• The name and mailing address of the lending institution


• The name of the person at the lending institution who verified the pay-off amount


• The signature of either the Sales Manager or the Finance Manager

Any reputable dealership should be happy to accommodate your request for this form. In fact, a professional dealership will have such a form as a routine part of their paperwork.

This way if anything goes awry you have something in writing to protect yourself, and to prove the car dealer agreed to make the pay-off. As I said before, most dealers are honest, but it's always a good business practice to protect yourself.

If a dealer refuses to give you a written statement on the pay-off you should not complete the deal. To me this would be a big red flag! Go do business with another car dealer who will accommodate your request. There are too many honest car dealers out there for you to waste your time with a questionable one.

As 2010 drew to a close and 2011 dawned, automakers began to plot sales strategy in a bid to fine tune marketing for the new year. 2009 represented the worst year for automakers in more than a quarter century, as job losses surged and the housing market plummeted. Those two factors meant consumers were not in a buying mood, effectively removing one-third of new car buyers from the market.

By early 2010, the market had stabilized with General Motors and Chrysler emerging from bankruptcy leaner, cleaner if not a bit more meaner. GM tossed four of its brands and hundreds of dealers with it; Chrysler added one brand, married Fiat and also let the ax fall on many of its own dealers. Both automakers began to work hard on drawing customers back to dealer showrooms, plunking wads of cash on new car hoods in a bid to move iron.

Big Incentives

Once the worst of the crisis was over, the incentives would ease with it, right? Well, no. As it stands, January 2011 was one of the heaviest months for discounts as GM lead the way with an eye popping $3,762 off of the average sale according to Autoweek.