I have been waiting for nearly a month to be able to take home my new Mazda3, which was paid for on February 28th. The car finally arrived on Wednesday of last week; apparently it only arrived in port on the day I bought it (they sold me the car and said they could get it in a couple of days). I took a day off from work and I arranged to go pick it up the next day. I was just about to the dealership at the appointed time when the salesman called me and told me I would not be able to get the car that day because they did not have the title for it. It’s now after 5 PM on Monday, and apparently the title still hasn’t come in – although I received an email from them this morning telling me the rep said the title would be in today – and I’m officially pretty damn pissed off. I don’t even want to call because this, on top of everything else wrong in my life, puts me close to the breaking point and I am not in the right frame of mind to deal with this.
After all that, my question really is a simple one. Can a dealership actually accept delivery of a new vehicle without a corresponding title/certificate of ownership? That seems counter-intuitive to me.
I’m sure someone with actual new car dealership experience will chime in, but I always just assumed that new cars & their titles had to be shipped together. That the driver of a big rig car-carrier tractor-trailer must also always have all his vehicles’ titles in his manifest.
Eh? Vehicle titles are issued by the state. In some states, if a car is financed, the lender holds the title until the loan is paid off. in others (like Michigan, where I live,) the title is sent to the owner within x number of days of taking delivery, and any secured parties (lenders) are noted on it. When the loan is paid off, the lender(s) mail a release-of-lien document so the title can be transferred at a later date.
TL;DR- in my experience, the title is a document generated after you buy the car.
^This. I bought a brand new 2007 BMW for cash in North Carolina, and got the title about a month later after it was registered in IL. No title existed for the car until then. I dunno what the OP is waiting for, but I doubt it’s the vehicle title.
At the motorcycle dealers I worked at, the bikes arrived with “Manufacturer’s Statement of Origin” (MSO) that went to the state, along with a bunch of other stuff after the bike was sold. (Edit: Lots of dirtbikes were sold with just this, since they are not titled in my state)
As a service manager that receives cars I can assure you that you are 100% wrong. My dealership gets over 500 new cars a month and none of them come with titles.
The dealer gets a Manufacturers statement of origin from the car maker at some point after the delivery of the car. The MSO is submitted to the state DMV to title the car. Then a title is created by the state.
Now state laws might vary, but I can tell you for a fact that a car can be sold in California without an MSO in hand or a title. (Car salesman have a real bad habit of not selling one of the 800 cars I have in stock, but one of the nine that just came off the truck 5 minutes ago.)
Your state laws might vary.
I’m going to ntipick this answer for what I hope you’ll agree is a good reason. First, let me set up a parallel with real property. Say you haven’t had the deed to your house and the land it sits on since the fire that ravaged your kitchen, family room, and study back in '06. You still have title to the property, and can prove it via the County Clerk or Registrar’s records or the Abstract of Title.
The dealership holds title to those new cars – that is, it has legal ownership of them. What it does not have is a title certificate; the MSO stands in for this. As cars are sold, requests are made to the state to generate title certificates for the new owners.
Inthis case, something smells fishy. The dealership has both the OP’s money and the car for which it was paid. They should have completed the transaction by giving him his car, with whatever sort of paperwork is given for a new car in his state, Waiting after a sale is “complete” for the state to generate and mail back a title certificate seems wrong to me. He should either be able to take delivery now, or get his money — all his money, no non-refundable deposit scam – back. Then pick up his title when it’s generated and sent back. I refuse to believe that in the decades since titling became SOP for cars someone has not put into place how a new car being sold is first put on the road, not dependent on a state agency’s promptness or lack thereof.
(I’m not a lawyer, certainly not the OP’s lawyer, and only expressing an opinion here.)
Rick, would you find out how a new car is made street-legal for the purchaser to drive away? I suspect that might be the most help we can give him.
I think I was confused by the word title, as that implies ownership of the vehicle. Where this came right off the boat, it appears we’re actually waiting for the Manufacturer’s Certificate of Origin to arrive so that the actual title might be generated by the state and I might drive away in my car. Just seemed that it would have to be part and parcel of shipping the car; that it should be at the dealership at the same time as the car’s arrival or pre-dating the arrival. I’ve been told they just mail it to the dealership.
This is the first time I’ve not bought a car pretty much right off the lot, so it’s been an adventure. Getting a stick-shift in a car that’s not either a stripper or a performance car is sadly difficult. I got a good deal on the car, and I want the car, it’s just been frustrating.
The real estate comparison doesn’t hold true. When you buy a house a title already exists the prior owner had it. Even if it is a new house the land existed and there was a title for that. With a new car the car was built from nothing (title wise). None of the raw materials had a state issued title. Furthermore the car maker has no clue which state the car will be sold in and since it is the individual state that issues the title…
So the car maker issues an MSO which shows ownership but is NOT the title since the title is issued by the state from an MSO.
AAA can transfer titles. Take an MSO in there and they won’t touch it as it is not a title. Ask me how I know this.
