Agreement to buy

I was at a car yard today and was asked to sign an agreement to buy a car, before they would let me know the price of the car.I believe the wordsused on the form were " I agree to buy this car, if we can agree on the price". I refused to sign it as I was interested but not yet committed to that particular car, consequently don't know the deal I was about to be offered.Is this usual when buying through dealers!Last time I bought a car (5 years ago), the dealersall negotiated verbally, without signing such a paper.

I wouldn't go back there again.ever. Good on you for refusing.

Name and shame.

Ummmm, not sure that is fair .

was it a toyota dealership!

Hang on a moment. --On first read I thought thats wrong.
Then I realised what had happenbed(I think)
Did you look at a car WITHa price on it !
Im guessing you didand said you wanted to buy it if the price was right.
So that piece of paper should have been your offer to buy at $XXXX
I get the signature bit too.
You are making an offer to buy which the salesman has to take back to his boss.Some dealer managers don't look at offers unless they are sighned.
The reason being that the buyer isn't showing commitment to purchase but is in fact on a fishing trip.
Its not how I do things but I understand that its done.
So to clarify what should happen.
-You look atsit in ,drive a car.
You say you want it if the price is right.
You are taken to a room and the window price is put on a piece of paper.
You say you aren't paying that much.
Salesman crosses out the first price slides the paper over to you and you put down the figure you will pay (including any conditions of sale)and sighn your offer. The salesman then might talk about it with you if he sees it as a silly offer to get you to make a higher offer.
The salesman can't negotiate on behalf of the dealership (make a counter offer)but he can try to get a better offer from you.
When he thinks you wont budge then he takes the offer to his manager who if he agrees will countersighn but if not will come back with a counter offer.

Not exactly , but close.
It had a price in the window. We have a car as a trade in.I wanted to know the price including the trade in price.The best offer available - which is never the sticker price.
We didn't get to see any figure from the salesman, since we wouldn't sign the agreement.
I feel like it was too much commitment, as although we were seriously interested in the car, we were not 99% sure that it was The car we wanted, it was just a contender.
I prefer to decide on a car from more than one option, agreeing to this would have eliminated all the other options.
Perhaps this was what you termed a fishing trip.I considered it thestart of our car buying .

Incidently op--if you weren't ready to make an offer to buy then the salesman had it all wrong. You werent ready to have had that piece of paper shown to you.
I again would put big money it was an inexperienced salesman. If he was experienced you would want to sighn your offer to buy