Maxie2U

Does anyone know for sure who is liable for the car once it leaves the Bowling Green Factory?

I know the transporters are but "if" something (God Forbid) happens does GM, the dealer or me have to directly deal with the transporters?


"Only The Paranoid Survive" - Andy Grove, Founder of Intel Corporation

Steve_R

You get to inspect it before you take legal possession. If anything is wrong, don't accept it. That means any damage, whether in transit or not, is not your problem to deal with.

RicK T

When a dealer receives a car they are supposed to do a visual inspection before signing off. Some employees do a thorough inspection, some don't. If they miss damage that could have occurred during transport, the dealer has to cover it and try to retroactively get the transporter to cover it, which is unlikely if not noted at delivery time. If you find something upon YOUR delivery that the dealer missed, the dealer has to cover it. Once you drive it off the lot, it's basically yours.

Red C8 of Jax

I know some have stated that they paid for their car before it arrived their Courtesy Dealer.

xp800

The car is delivered from Bowling Green to the courtesy dealer -exactly- as if that dealer ordered the car. Any damage during transport is the responsibility of the delivery chain of custody. Not the selling dealer or courtesy dealer.

Once the courtesy dealer signs for the car from the delivery driver (again emphasize this is the same truck that would have delivered retail cars to the courtesy dealer) it then becomes their responsibility until you sign and take delivery. This is in the courtesy delivery dealer program contract. The same as if they were the selling dealer. The courtesy dealer gets the PDI money from GM and any additional fee they charge for the service.

The selling dealer never takes possession and the car never passes through their control. They just take care of the purchase paperwork...and take your money.

Maxie2U

With courtesy deliveries we have to pay the invoice to the dealer (we ordered the car from) long before the car arrives. Does that play a factor?

mjw930

No, you DO NOT have to pay a dime before you inspect the car. Dealers ASK for the money the moment they get invoiced and many trusting fools pay but it most certainly is not required.

If your selling dealer tells you otherwise find another dealer.

But, remember you can't take delivery until the selling dealer gets paid so it will sit at the courtesy dealer for a few days while you process paperwork.

DAFFYDRUNK

Did MacMulkin. I owned my car before I ever saw it. Read enough positive comments about em I decided I wasn't gonna worry about it. Once I knew the car was on its way I turned on the insurance just in case. Sure, you can pay for the car after you inspect, but you won't be driving it home for a couple days. Then you gotta hope no one takes it for a drive at the courtesy dealer. I decided that I wanted to minimize how long my car spent at the courtesy dealer. In my case everything turned out great. Everything went like clockwork...

nmvettec7

The transporter will inspect the vehicle and provide a Bill of Lading. That Bill of Lading will have a diagram and checkboxes. The driver of the transporter (if NOT inspected by you or your representative) will check any boxes with damage and will circle and notate any damges like dents, scratches etc on the Bill of Lading.

The Bill of Lading will be signed by the person who inspected the vehilce before it goes on the transport and another person will sign the release once the vehicle is deliverd and unloaded at the final destination point.

The last thing any transport company or driver is to be accused of damage to the vehicle.

Once delivered at the destination point, the person at that point should also inspect the vehicle for any damage and cross check the drivers inspection.

I have had several vehicles transported and it is always completed in this fashion. The dealer whether the original dealer of courtsey delivery dealership will not release the car to until the funds are received and and paid whether a cash deal or via a finance company.

The selling dealer will provide the VIN and you as the new owner should contact your insurance carrier to make sure the vehicle is insured prior to loading it in the transport.

efarley

Why would you have to leave the car at the dealer for a few days if you don't pay ahead of time? Do you have to wait for a few days when you buy a car locally? It makes no difference where the dealer is located the payment is processed the same way, we get credit approval, I sign the loan documents, and they are guaranteed by the lender to receive payment. I'm not sure why you'd have to wait... even if you were sending a check to the dealer to pay for the car outright you could just mail the certified check ahead of delivery and tell the dealer not to cash it until you give the car a look. If it's a certified check their guaranteed to receive payment and again have no reason to not let you drive home in your car.

DAFFYDRUNK

I guess you can call MacMulkin and ask them about their process. Not sure about the other dealers.

In a nutshell, once the car is invoiced then it's time to do paper work and pay. In my case about 8 days after the car was produced. MacMulkin sends you all the paperwork to fill out with a prepaid Fedex return pouch. You send that back with a bank check minus the $2000 deposit you paid. Once the bank check clears, they send you the temp tag and the cert of origin so you can title/register the car yourself. In my case I had everything sorted about a week before delivery. This is the point where I called my state Farm guy and activated the insurance.

The courtesy dealer does not do anything but physically prep the car. If you asked to hold the check until inspection MacMulkin would at least have to overnight you the temp tag and cert so you can drive back the courtesy dealer and drive the car off the courtesy dealer lot. 90 mi away for me. This is assuming a bank check clears instantly. Perhaps you could talk your way into a sit down at the courtesy dealer and do a loan processing/wire transfer and maybe get some temp tags, but you're gonna pay dearly for that privilege I suspect. With anything there is risk, If you wanna save significant money through a forum dealer you will probably own the car before you ever see it. In my case everything worked out great, and with my GM dollars I got about $8900 off MSRP on a $63500 car.

efarley

How would someone in New Hampshire give me Oregon state tags? The local dealer would have to register the car I thought since they have access to the correct dmv.

Also since they never even see my car why would they have the cert of origin, wouldn't bowling green send that with the car to the dealer? It originated in Kentucky not new hampshire.

Maxie2U

OK, now I'm confused.

You say, "the car is invoiced then it's time to do paperwork and pay. In my case about 8 days after the car was produced." While others state they were not required to pay until they accepted delivery.

So I don't know who is right?

The fact is, I don't want to hand over $63k+ in cash for a car I will not get a for another six weeks after it's built and BEFORE I get to inspect it.

Setting courtesy delivery aside for the moment, no dealer asks customers to pay for a car before it has been delivered to their lot. They only ask for a deposit upfront.

nmvettec7

The car is invoiced to the dealer and the dealer pays GM. Then the car is put up for sale. The dealership then owns the car until it is sold.

If you're an out of state buyer and have the car delivered via transport direct to your home, there is no way to inspect the vehicle. That was my case when buying my Jaguar XKR, Porsche 981 and Corvette C7. I wired transferred the funds, the dealer released the vehicle to the transporter and was delivered to my home direct and unloaded in front of my house. The titles showed up within one to weeks later.

Easy transactions.

RicK T

A lot of confusion being thrown in here.

With a Courtesy Delivery, the dealer that has your car isn't the dealer you pay nor the dealer GM sends the MSO (Manufacturer's Statement of Origin) to. The money and MSO go to the selling dealer.

So if you want to wait to inspect the car before paying, that's fine but then you have to wait for your payment to get to and clear with the selling dealer. If you send a check, any kind of check, the selling dealer will wait usually 10 business days for the check to clear before sending the MSO to you or the Courtesy Dealer. No Courtesy dealer will release the car to you without that MSO. That's how my Courtesy delivery went.

You can short cut that by arranging a wire transfer of the money the day you inspect the car but you'll still have to wait for the MSO to be overnighted. So no matter how you work it, you can't go inspect the car and drive it home the same day.

DAFFYDRUNK

You don't have to pay up front, but I'm not sure there's a (legal) way to inspect, pay and drive off the lot all in the same trip on a sold order with a forum dealer delivered at a courtesy dealer. They have to FedEx you the temp tags and the cert of origin. Dunno, I suppose you could wire the money and risk the drive home with no tags. I felt it may be too much temptation for joy riders to leave the car at the courtesy dealer for a couple days, so I paid up front. Drove off the lot and the car only had 2 mi on it.

mjw930

That's fine if it's going from a dealer to a dealer or a dealer to you but a courtesy delivery is putting on a truck / train from BG and shipping it to the courtesy dealer as if it was a car they ordered. Nothing at all like shipping a car privately.

mjw930

There is a broker exchange where a dealer can send paperwork and have the DMV work performed in any state. Some dealers do this as a service, some charge for it and others give you the option of handling it yourself.

The Certificate or Origin is sent from GM to the SELLING dealer, not the delivering dealer. Where was built is irrelevant, GM sends Certificated of Origin from a central location to dealers for all cars they produce. It's simply a piece of paper that allows the dealer to prove ownership and allow them to title / register the car once it's sold to a retail buyer.

Those of us who have purchased multiple cars, both new and used, from out of state dealers are very familiar with the process and I prefer to perform the DMV work myself so I'm assured it done correctly and I'm not paying a dealer any extraneous fees they may bury in the "tag work" section of the sales order.

nmvettec7

There should still be a Bill of Lading that the courtesy dealer should get or some kind of paperwork. Rest assured that car coming from BG was inspected before being wrapped and loaded on any transport. Most of the time they never show it to the customer, because destination and transport fees are built into the price. The customer never asks for any shipping documents. The delalr will have some type of paperwork, that and the dealer will ultimately sign off (a release) from the transporter, whether its from BG or not. The transporter is not going to just unload the vehicle and leave.

The guy doing this transaction can easily ask for it, if they are provided.

mjw930

Yep, I've done that many times myself and in those cases you absolutely pay for the car before it leaves the selling dealers lot. The big difference is any damage done during GM to dealer shipping was handled by the dealer long before you entered the picture.

With a courtesy delivery it's delivered to your courtesy dealer as if that dealer had ordered it and no one except the truck driver or rail car attendant has seen it, no one knows the condition.

That's not even the real reason many, including me, wouldn't pay until it shows up. The real reason is cars shipped beyond 500 miles of BG can take weeks, sometimes months to show up and I for one don't want to be the owner of the car (and be paying interest on a loan) while it sits in a rail yard in Omaha waiting for the next train west.

BTW, most dealers don't actually buy the car form GM, their floor plan finance company does. Most GM dealers floor plan through Ally so it's a simple ledger transaction. Interest on floor plan begins after a certain period of time, usually 90 days from the time the invoice is delivered to the finance company so the dealer isn't out a dime until 91 days after the car is invoiced.

If I were taking courtesy delivery I would simply inspect the car once it arrives then overnight the signed paperwork and checks to the selling dealer. Then wait a couple days for them to overnight back to me the completed paperwork, certificate of origin and temporary tag. From there I make an appointment with the delivery dealer and pick up my car. If you've waited months what's another couple days? If the courtesy dealer is 90 miles away then oh well, it's 2 trips. Well worth the effort to make sure I'm getting what I paid for.