Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

So I traded in my Mazda in April to BMW to help finance a lease on a 335i. They gave me a pretty generous $12k on the trade. 12k was a little low compared to blue book, but since I am an inattentive bum, I think the car was in such a condition that I wouldn't have paid more than like 8k for it.

This where the story starts. I bought the car back in 2004 and through some bizarre events I really don't feel like the need to lay out, I never got the car titled in my name. For the purpose of this story, let's just say that most people would say "wow, that pretty much sucks, but most responsible adults would have still managed to get the car titled in your name." For the next two years, I operated under the assumption that the car was titled in my name, cuz I figured that sort of stuff took care of itself (since I figured someone somewhere would contact me if it wasn't taken care of).

So they took the trade-in without receiving physical title. I can't remember the specifics on signing day, but I probably told them I couldn't find it, but that everything was cool and I'd look for it and get it to them or order a replacement title. Of course, I go home and forget about this.

So here’s the timeline going forward:

June/July – Minions at BMW dealership call me and say “wtf, we can has title?” I decide to ignore these because I couldn’t find the title and realized that prior events were gonna complicate the replacement title-getting process.

August – The GM at BMW calls and says threatening things like “we are going to make you buy the car back for the trade-in price if you don’t get the title to us ASAP.” This lights a fire under my ass…plus now I feel bad because he explained they can’t sell the car w/o title, and the car was losing value by the second. I bust my ass and put something close to 30 hours into figuring out what I can do to get this title. Turns out I need to find the prior owner and get him to order the replacement title for me. After some fruitless efforts, I spend money on one of those creepy internet stalker-type sites where you can buy someone’s contact info and other crap. I track the guy down. He says he will hook me up, but he is wary that this process will screw him over somewhere down the line. So I tell him I’ll have the Mazda car dealership where I bought the Mazda put his mind at ease. I call Mazda, they say they can handle things from there and will contact me when it’s time for me to do something.

October – I wonder why no one called me. I call Mazda, they say guy didn’t return phone calls. They also tell me that BMW figured out some solution to materialize a title in their name. I call BMW and they say Mazda dragged their feet the whole way and didn’t make a good effort to get a hold of this guy. This is not surprising, since it was a pain in the ass for Mazda and there was nothing in it for them. I’m annoyed, but figured the issue resolved itself.

Today – GM at BMW calls and says they finally get the title in their name. They will be selling the car tomorrow at auction. He says car would’ve sold for 10k back in April, but will probably sell for like 7k now. He then goes into sales pitch mode. He tells me he could have busted my balls and really put the screws to me as far as making me take the car back is concerned. He also tells me I’m not legally on the hook for anything any more. Then he says he wants to come to me man to man and ask what I felt my responsibility in this whole mess is. He suggested we would should chop the ~3k hit that BMW is gonna take on this mess, but he also said he wouldn’t hound me if I just told him to f--- off. I tell him I really don’t know, because I am naïve to the world of car dealerships. I tell him we will powwow tomorrow and I will let him know what I feel is fair.

I want to do the right thing here, but I don’t know what that right thing is. If this 7 month lag in getting the title is what is responsible for the 3k drop in value, what should I, in a perfectly just world, be on the hook for?

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

Screw him... the dealership is responsible for taking care of these issues BEFORE they sell you the car.

Their loss

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

Awesome story, bro.

Tell him to take that 3K and shove it up his #@@.

Don't you need the title to get tags on the car? How did you ever tag/register the car to begin with over the THREE YEARS YOU OWNED IT?

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
Screw him... the dealership is responsible for taking care of these issues BEFORE they sell you the car.

Their loss

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, they were retarded in their business dealings, apparently to their own disadvantage. The GM is just trying to get off the hook for fecking this thing up.

When he says stuff like "I could've busted your balls over this" I would just respond that maybe he should have.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

g,

Their responsibility to take care of stuff. If they didn't like their options, they had ample opportunity to force your hand or void the sale.

They did what they needed to do to close the initial lease transaction with you. If it was worth money to them to follow up in a prompt manner, they should have done that.

I don't know a ton about this, but I've bought a couple of cars, and car dealerships rarely leave a single cent on the table anywhere, so basically I think he's full of [censored] and you should tell him, thanks have a nice life.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

the dealership is responsible for covering their ass before the sale. they knew they were taking a risk (and were idiots if they didnt) by selling you the car immediately. how often does a dealership want to get you in a car "today." they were probably in a hurry to sell a car to you to close the deal and if their rush to get a sale came to bite them, that's their issue.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

So apparently you guys think the fact that I conveniently forgot to return their calls for two months or so is irrelevant?

edit: Not that I think that position is wrong. I'm in agreement. I just want to make sure we're thinking this through.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
So apparently you guys think the fact that I conveniently forgot to return their calls for two months or so is irrelevant?

edit: Not that I think that position is wrong. I'm in agreement. I just want to make sure we're thinking this through.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, you could have just never called back and the situation wouldn't be any different. It's their responsibility to make sure everything is in order, they got greedy as car dealers do trying to make things happen, it's their fault.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
So apparently you guys think the fact that I conveniently forgot to return their calls for two months or so is irrelevant?

[/ QUOTE ]

usually in OOT, youre supposed to post how great you are, others call you a douche, and you argue w/ them. this is a strange turn of events.

not returning their calls is unfortunate but if the title was that important to them, they should have told you to hold on to your car and come back once you get the title.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
So apparently you guys think the fact that I conveniently forgot to return their calls for two months or so is irrelevant?

edit: Not that I think that position is wrong. I'm in agreement. I just want to make sure we're thinking this through.

[/ QUOTE ]

Listen to your own advice.

You say that if you told the story about the title people would respond with "wow, that pretty much sucks, but most responsible adults would have still managed to get the car titled in your name."

Well if this GM told me the rest of the story I'd say "wow, that pretty much sucks, but most responsible GMs would have gotten the car title before they forked over the money."