Contract to promise to buy a car.

General Discussion
#1

So I am in a bit of a predicament here. I found a really nice 08 A4 on the other side of the country that I want to buy. The problem is, he has a local buyer coming to buy the car tomorrow evening. I could get the car but I need to beat the other guy to it, and the seller is not willing to let just a down payment suffice to hold the car when he has a local buyer with money ready to go, which I completely understand. I could show up, decide I don’t want the car and at most he has my deposit but at the end of the day, the car isn’t sold.

Can a contract signed by both of us someone hold me completely legally liable to purchase the car? If this were a possible thing, I could fill it out, sign it, and overnight it to him.

#2

I’d just wait. If the other guy gets it, just be patient and find another one. A4s aren’t all that rare so you shouldn’t have much trouble finding a good one.

Have you considered the B8 A4? Much improved in my opinion (having had a B6/B7/B8).

#3

The other buyer matched my price anyway, and I don’t want to go higher. Just hoping that guy doesn’t show to buy the car tomorrow.

I have considered the B8 but unless it’s a higher mileage 09, they are too expensive. Aside from that, I just love the interior and overall proportions of the 8E cars. My budget it around 11k

#4

Where’s said car located? Maybe someone local from the forum could check it out for you.

#5

if I were an American, and I were fixing to buy a used car, I’d DEFINITELY be loking up here in Canada.

Prices here haven’t changed in the last 3 yeras, generally being about 10% more than USD prices…however our currency has gone from par with the USD to now being worth 70 cents.

Moral of the story is you can probably buy a $20,000 USD car in the USD market for $15,000 USD in our market net of everything.

US dealer groups are coming up to our auctions and wiping out inventories. It’s pretty crazy.

This happened the other way the last time the currency moved this quickly (the other way) where our prices here didn’t yet reflect the move so it was WAY cheaper to buy a used car in America and import it. Which I did with my B7 S4. Dealers here were importing thousands of US market cars to Canada back then.

The pricing here takes a while to reflect the new buying power of the currency, good or bad. That’s something you guys should be exploiting.

i.e. check this out.

http://www.autotrader.ca/a/Audi/S4/Toronto/Ontario/5_26225432_20150521093747256/?showcpo=ShowCPO&orup=7_15_183

that’s a 2011 B8 S4 DSG with navigation, Bang & O , with about 95,000 miles

asking $22,900
You could comfortably get it for $21000 flat
Add in $2000 in importing costs so $23,000 CDN

That’s only $16,300 USD

http://azr.cdnmedia.autotrader.ca/5/photos/import/201511/0108/2913/7b3611c7-b6ef-4731-a405-6eb22b03f009.jpg?w=800&h=600

#6

Not a bad idea, are there any parts of Canada that received cars that come with MPH clusters?
**Edit: just read that a MPH speedometer is a requirement for a US car. I cannot register it without one.

It looks like the only extra importing cost aside from gas, tolls, etc. is the duty which is only 2.5%. That’s only $375 in tax on a $15,000 car.

Getting a small note as is was so now I need to see if my credit union is fine with buying a car out of country.

Edit again: The gauge cluster isn’t terribly expensive new. Depending on if the car has radar cruise or not, it’s about $700 or $900

#7

If you are interested try to PM CV he just bought a car like sakimano said. He just bought a car from canada. He said he saved over 10k after it was all said and done

As for the MPH most canada cars still have the instrument cluster with a MPH reading its just not the dominate number figure. You can also change most of the rest of the digital stuff in vag com.

#8

Although the US clusters have both MPH and KPH, the ROW clusters only have KPH. Even if I did have to buy a brand new US cluster and pay to have it programmed, it’s not that big of a deal but still a hurdle as far as getting it registered

#9

Given the amount of money you end up saving its well worth it. the only down side would be there are not going to be any non snow state cars in canada. I dont know how much better the roads might be in canada. Anything would be better then michigan roads.

#10

Yeah I hear you on that, the roads aren’t much better here in Chicago either.

I was looking for a car in a southern state but I gave up because guess what, nobody down there orders a car with quattro. It would be a different story with the S4 of course because they’re all quattro.

#11

Huh - so this is why my attempt to buy a 2007 Jeep for a reasonable price last month was an abysmal failure.

#12

I’ll sell you my b6 S4. It still has a number of parts from your old S4.

#13

I’m not sure if the reverse is true or not, but in Canada, a cluster that shows both mph and km/h is a pass for importing, regardless of whether mph or km/h is the dominant marking on the speedometer. Maybe different in US though (?).

#14

Yeah that will pass in the US too, but the ROW S4 clusters do not have MPH markings at all. Probably because the majority of the places they sell a car with a KPH cluster will never need MPH for any reason.

#15

The digital display in the middle of the cluster will show MPH won’t it? Is that good enough to pass?

#16

It might, not sure. I would think that the value that the digital display shows and the value that the needle gets are the same number.

#17

For anyone else reading this thread, a “ROW cluster” is a “Rest Of World cluster”. “ROW” basically being the country code for the car.

At Rosstech.com , it suggests that Canadian clusters are not in fact in the miscellaneous group of ROW clusters:

http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/Audi_A4_(8E)_Instrument_Cluster_(8EC/8ED/8HE)

0 = Germany (D)
1 = Rest of World (RoW)
2 = USA (US)
3 = Canada (CAN)
4 = Great Britain (GB)
5 = Japan (JP)
6 = Saudi Arabia
7 = Australia (AUS)
#18

That being said, I’m pretty sure that both Canada and USA are handled/distributed by Audi AG (Audi America Group), so the idea of having mph versus km/hr on the Driver Information System (color screen in middle of cluster) seems pretty likely for both vehicles. If the USA cluster can do both, on the premise of moving back and forth between USA and Canada, then I would imagine that the Canadian cluster has the same flexibility (?). It might be worth starting a thread in the A4 section to see whether or not any Canadian owners can bring up mph on their Driver Information System instead of just km/hr.

#19

Barring that, if you just want a solution for inspection which would be cheaper than a whole new cluster, there is a company that makes km/hr replacement dial panels for USA vehicles coming into Canada, and mph dial panels for Canadian vehicles coming into the USA. Only 30 Euros (approx $32.50 US).

http://moman.pl/eu/audi-a4-(b6-i-b7)-replacement-dial---converted-from-mph-to-km-h,89,374.html