Car dealership made a mistake, won't honor contract!

What is the name of your state? Pennsylvania

I went to pick up my new vehicle earlier tonight. A trade-in value was agreed upon for my vehicle and a sale price was agreed upon for the new vehicle. All the paperwork was signed and in my pocket along with the keys to the new car and I was just getting ready to go over the manual with the dealer when the finance manager realized that they had made a mistake on the appraisal of my current vehicle. I have a Chevy 2500hd pickup that is 2wd and apparently they had appraised it as a 4wd which is obviously worth a bit more. I had no way of knowing they had made this mistake. They had two different dealership employees appraise the truck and they had the vin number for the truck. On all the paperwork I signed the truck is simply listed as a "Chevrolet 2500hd". Nothing I signed claims the truck to be 4wd. They basically told me that they had made a mistake and either I come up with the difference between their appraisal and the "correct appraisal" which is roughly $3000 or the deal is off. Can they really back out of this deal after it is signed and done or do they owe me the car for the price in the documentation? I left the keys to the new car there, but I did take all the paperwork with me. As I was leaving the dealership the salesman attempted to get the papers back to be shredded, but I declined and told him that I wanted to have them looked over by a lawyer.

This is quite irritating and it's amazing how many "mistakes" car dealers make, but it sounds like a material mistake of fact.

That means: no contract.

You have no case, especially since you suffered no damages.

Yes they can.

I disagree.
Let's say you have a 1978 Pinto for sale. You make no further representations about it. You have a buyer (an automotive professional at that) come out to look at the vehicle. Then, he has his co-worker, also an automotive professional look at the car. They agree to pay for it and sign a contract, pay you the money and take possession of the car. Then, the buyer realizes that it's the 4 cylinder model and not the 6 cylinder model. Why would anyone think that they can back out of the deal? The seller made no representation and the buyer had ample opportunity to examine the vehicle. Furthermore, this would be an "as-is" sale from a private party to a dealer.

(Of course, our OP's contract may have a provision allowing them to do this...but that's a different story based on facts no given to us.)

Since the OP has not taken posession of the new vehicle yet, I don't think the sale is considered complete. When I sold cars, all paperwork had to be completed, all money changed hands, and the buyer had to have taken delivery before a sale was complete.

JustAPal00 said:

Since the OP has not taken posession of the new vehicle yet, I don't think the sale is considered complete. When I sold cars, all paperwork had to be completed, all money changed hands, and the buyer had to have taken delivery before a sale was complete.

Click to expand...

The keys to the new car were in his pocket...

Zigner said:

The keys to the new car were in his pocket...

Click to expand...

The car hadn't left the lot! If they had called him that night at home, I would agree with you, but in this case they still had the car.

In hindsight I think my best option would have been to just take the car and leave. Unfortunately I did leave the keys at the dealership. I have all the signed documents, but there is a clause on one paper stating that if I don't deliver the trade-in to them until the deliver the vehicle to me they will reappraise the trade-in at that time, subject to applicable law.

I'd love to see what would happen if this was reversed and I decided to back out after all the documents had been signed.

I also have the temporary registration and new plate number issued in my name. Even if they didn't submit their copy to the DMV would the vehicle be considered to have been registered to me?

I'm not holding my breath on this deal going through, but I will definitely be calling an attorney in the morning to get their opinion. I don't see how I should just roll over and deal with this because they screwed up.

AK4900PA said:

...there is a clause on one paper stating that if I don't deliver the trade-in to them until the deliver the vehicle to me they will reappraise the trade-in at that time, subject to applicable law.

Click to expand...

This is why you will lose this one.

The fact that you didn't give us the whole story before is why I said earlier: Of course, our OP's contract may have a provision allowing them to do this...but that's a different story based on facts no given to us.

I believe you have a case, this does not sound like material mistake of fact to me, because the dealers had a mistake in judgement of the appraisal price, they made the mistake of the of price being judged wrong, and because all the contract forms were signed agreeing to that price, they may be bound to honor the price listed in the contract, but it would be worth hiring an attorney to review the case if an attorney would cost less than the money the dealership wants you to pay. But the case may be completely irrelevant because of the clause i just saw you mentioned in a later post, and it depends on when the contract allows for transfer of title to the property, if title isnt transferred until after you take posession of the vehicle, since it is still on the lot you may be out of luck and have to deal with the dealer's demands, but get an opinion from a local attorney anyways

helpforfriend said:

I believe you have a case, this does not sound like material mistake of fact to me, because the dealers had a mistake in judgement of the appraisal price, they made the mistake of the of price being judged wrong, and because all the contract forms were signed agreeing to that price, they may be bound to honor the price listed in the contract, but it would be worth hiring an attorney to review the case if an attorney would cost less than the money the dealership wants you to pay. But the case may be completely irrelevant because of the clause i just saw you mentioned in a later post, and it depends on when the contract allows for transfer of title to the property, if title isnt transferred until after you take posession of the vehicle, since it is still on the lot you may be out of luck and have to deal with the dealer's demands, but get an opinion from a local attorney anyways

Click to expand...

Our OP agreed in his contract to allow them to reappraise the vehicle. He's sunk.