Very few dealers actually OWN any of their cars. Floor plans are basically the borrowed money used to pay for the vehicles on any given car lot. Pretty much the only dealers that don't have cars on floor plan are the shady ones that can't get credit extended to them even by the auto auctions (MAFS is Manheim's floor plan). I do know 3 totally liquid dealers that are really awesome but their owners are really old school & really, REALLY rich. That being said each dealer gets to keep the vehicle for a predetermined number of days before they start to pay interest on that vehicle's floor plan money. They also have to pay off the floor plan as soon as they sell the car. A huge reason that dealerships fail (new & used) is because they fail a floor plan audit. Next thing you know there are car haulers lined up out front because a floor plan got pulled and the bank is taking all the cars back. My last dealership lost cars all the time. I remember two times we had to write $600k checks to Chrysler for cars we couldn't locate. As far as time frame - can be as little as 30 days but that's usually small independant dealers. I worked for a large group that got 160 days but that was a little extreme. Many dealers try to keep a turn (average lot time until the car is sold) less than their floor plan limits. Hope this helps.