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Should I "pay with cash" then switch to financing later to get a Model 3 in time?

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Newbie here. I ordered a Model 3 LR with an estimated delivery date of 6/2-6/30.

I definitely need the Tesla before 6/30, preferably to be delivered any date in June.

I have completed the "Delivery Location", "Registration", and "Trade In" sections.

Should I choose Cash as the payment method now, then reach out to my Tesla Advisor to switch back to "Finance" once I have a delivery date?

Or is my order official and I do not have to complete the Payment Method section until I get a delivery date?

Thank you all for the assistance.


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You could put cash now and "change your mind" later to financing. I dont think that is going to change your delivery date, though.

(welcome to TMC!)

Thanks!

Well, I'm happy with the estimated delivery date of 6/2-6/30.

However, when is an order "official"? Is my order currently official, meaning I'm in queue and Tesla will eventually assign me a car or must I pick a payment method before Tesla puts me in queue for a car and future delivery date?
 
Thanks!

Well, I'm happy with the estimated delivery date of 6/2-6/30.

However, when is an order "official"? Is my order currently official, meaning I'm in queue and Tesla will eventually assign me a car or must I pick a payment method before Tesla puts me in queue for a car and future delivery date?

Thats a good question. My thought is, it doesnt matter..... however... if I was in your shoes I would put "cash" now, just to be safe. People legitimately change their mind about finance vs paying cash all the time, so there is nothing at all strange about swapping to financing later if you "change your mind".
 
I'm in Canada, it might be different here, so take this for what it is. My Tesla Advisor told me that the order is not put in the queue until a payment method is selected. Selecting Cash and changing it to Finance later is an option that was proposed to me.

However, financing approvals are valid for 90 days here, so there is no real downside to just applying for the financing now and being done with it. That's what I did and I'm all set.
 
I ordered the end of March. FSD. Paying cash. But it still estimates an early June delivery. About 4 weeks after I was planning an extended road trip to visit family now that we're all vaccinated. 😭
It doesn't really matter when you ordered or how you are paying, most Model 3s arrive in June. The OP was asking whether he could leave the order without a payment method selected, which is different, and could result in getting bumped to September if left like that until the last minute.
 
per my advisor (I’m east coast US and ordered a SR+ on Mar 31). They only require your 100 and then the registration section in order for the order to be considered “placed”. They recommend that you do not mess with the payment section until you get a VIN assigned simply because most credit will only be conditionally approved for 30 days (sometimes 60) and quite a few people end up being super excited only to have to get another credit check (and ding) when it comes time for delivery.
 
One can always finance a purchased vehicle after the fact for usually far better terms than an OEM would typically offer. Excluding sometimes special financing discounts or credits that a manufacturer can often but okay aren’t really being offered and tesla has never really offered credits those anyway. Try online at some of the credit unions for best financing rates.
 
Hey all,

So, my advisor told me to select pay in cash, and he'll switch me to financing once I have a VIN assigned.

From some searching, it seems Tesla has maybe a soft match algorithm for delivery dates, where they may deliver vehicles to buyers sooner if they have all of the tasks done.
 
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I'm in Australia and am going through a similar thought process. Cars are shipped here from Shanghai every couple of months. I placed my order on 25 April and am going through the finance process now but the next available appointment is 3 May. I'm not sure if the finance process runs in parallel with the vehicle allocation process or one after the other. If the latter I'm a bit worried that I may just miss out on one shipment and then need to wait another 2+ months.

I know some people unexpectedly place an order then get a call to see if they would accept delivery much earlier than expected and I'm guessing that's what happens when a finance application falls through (or order gets cancelled for some other reason) when the car is already on the boat.
 
I am in the same boat. I ordered my car on March 10 and back then the deposit was $2500. The deposit confirms your ordered and a request is submitted for your car to be built. A few days after I placed the order I got an email asking me to log into the website and to complete the financing section. In Canada if you choose to finance the car, the approval is valid for 90 days, once it expires you will have to reapply again. I was told to make it cash for the time being as it can be changed later once you get a VIN. Delivery is roughly 2-3 weeks after the car is built. My proposed delivery date is in a few weeks so I changed from cash to financing and it took about 5 mins for the financing to be approved.
So I would not sweat it, its a very quick process to change it from cash to financing and to receive the approval.
 
I ordered the end of March. FSD. Paying cash. But it still estimates an early June delivery. About 4 weeks after I was planning an extended road trip to visit family now that we're all vaccinated. 😭
All domestic deliveries are done at quarter end, doesn't matter how you pay for it, you could have used bitcoin and instantly paid but you still have to wait. Beginning of quarter cars are all delivered overseas. This has been the way since 2019. Don't know if it's changed now.