Thanks for your comments and thoughts.
The stop payment along with a cashier's check sounds like the best idea to me. Will ensure they have guaranteed access to the funds, and will leave me knowing I've done the right thing. I'm actually surprised the car dealer suggested and accepts a personal...
We recently bought a new car (for the first time in 9 years!) from a dealer here in the Bay Area. We put a significant down payment for the car, and financed the balance.
We divided the down payment into a credit card payment for $3K - the max they would take on a card - and wrote a personal...