Normal Deposit

Deposits are normally used to secure a place in the queue. Usually 5-10K for first timers, 0 for repeat customers. They might also be required for ordering oddball color combos, configs, etc.

But if they've already ordered the car for you, you should be past the deposit stage...

 

I heard that deposits can be as little as 3k, but as much as 25K...

 

It varies based on the price of the car.

 

Duane,

My experience has been the same as 911Fan.

 

10K here in Oregon

 

i have heard that the dealers wont even put you on a waiting list...they have sold out their allocations...

 

I agree with the $10k number.
I think they do it to make sure you are serious about wanting to be on the list.

As said in the earlier reply, the challenge is getting on the list in the first place. Most dealers have a constant 3 -4 year backlog on all of their lists, so they are not that anxious to add people to the end of them. They also have a number of repeat buyers - people who keep a new car for 3 years or so and then replace it with a new one. They typically trade-in their old car to the same dealership at a wholesale price so the dealer is getting something that is very important to them, which is, high-quality, low-mileage, known-service-history used f-car inventory that they can sell at a decent mark-up. So, adding too many new people to the waiting list potentially clogs up this pipeline. In the f-car world, there are many more customers than high-quality f-cars.

By the way, the wholesale trade-in price of a 3-year old F430 with 8000 miles on it will likely be close to the retail price paid for the car 3 years earlier. This has been true on the 355 and 360 due to the annual price increases for the new cars. Say you paid $190k for a 2005 F430 and drove it for 3 years putting on 8000 miles. The MSRP for the 430s is probably going to go up $10k year, so a 2008 F430 that is very similar to your 2005 trade-in car will have an MSRP of $220k and will be being flipped at dealers for $240k (to customers that are not on the list). The dealer can sell your used 2005 car for about $215k (just under the current MSRP), so you might get a $185k trade-in for it. Not bad, buy a car for $190k, trade it in 3 years later for $185k. Not all years have this same potential, but it seems to work this way for the first 3 or 4 years of a new model (looking back at the 355 and 360 price increases). This is another reason people want on those lists.

 

It's $5000.

 

toggie the problem with this deal is that you have to keep the miles low . I love road trips and can put 3 or 4 thousand miles on the car each road trip and take several a year not to mention the daily driving .

 

Sobe,

True. The miles have to be kept low. Even my example of 8000 miles in 3 years, some people would consider "high mileage".

The other issue is not having the model change in the middle of the 3 year time period. Trading in a 3-year-old 360 right now is not as good a deal.