Nissan Qashqai - Am I committed to purchasing the vehicle? PCP - m.amd
I’ve visited a dealership yesterday and was essentially persuaded into a PCP deal on a used car. I went in with my mind set on HP but unfortunately made the wrong decision. What’s happened so far;
I signed a check - filled in my details to send off for an application to check if I’m eligible for finance, this came back today and I was approved. I had a verbal conversation with sales manager and I said that’s positive and asked when the car will be ready. He said we’ll do a video appointment to sign documents etc prior to collection in the next week or so.
Now, spoke to someone who’s great with knowledge on the finances etc and was told I should definitely hold off making this commitment and should instead go with getting my mortgage application through first. Can I now tell the dealership I won’t be signing the documents and I am backing out due to this advice?
I placed a £250 deposit. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if I lost it as long as I could get out of the situation. Any advice please?
Nissan Qashqai - Am I committed to purchasing the vehicle? PCP - Will deBeast

There are two separate issues here.

Firstly the finance. You have 14 days to withdraw from the finance. So if you want to shop around and find HP or some other way of financing the car, that is fine. That is assuming you still want to buy the car.

Secondly the car. If you want to withdraw from buying the car, the dealership is entitled to keep some of the money to reflect the fact that they have to advertise again, keep the car for longer etc.

If you want to back out, just tell the garage. They'll have been through it before. They will likely want to keep the whole deposit. But you might be able to persuade them to return it.

Nissan Qashqai - Am I committed to purchasing the vehicle? PCP - Brit_in_Germany

Is there some kind of financial ombudsman you can threaten them with for their poor financial advice if they do not return the deposit?

Nissan Qashqai - Am I committed to purchasing the vehicle? PCP - Warning

and should instead go with getting my mortgage application through first.

It seems you want to buy a house or move up the ladder. if you have a car loan, they will take that into account your affordability. You need to think seriously about your finances. With interest rates and inflation agoing going up, you need to decide if you can afford both.