SteveinArizona wrote

Well...I couldn't do it. The grille on the IX is just too ugly for me. I switched to a deposit on a Lyriq to back up my Lucid plan.

To me the grill on the iX was the opposite of the M4. On the M4 I wasn't too crazy about it in pictures but thought it looked quite good in person. For the iX I didn't think it looked bad in pictures but once I saw it in person I didn't like it at all. Like the interior, it looked cheap to me.

Moving the sales process to an online model is undeniably an advantage to the seller whenever the product is easy to understand; and made by a well known brand. Vehicles from BMW check both those boxes. BMW is smart enough to see this reality and is acting accordingly. Hope everyone likes interacting with customer service bots!

snareman wrote

I'm still able to negotiate. I got $2,000 off my M8 going through a broker. That's not going to happen if it all goes direct through BMW

Wow, you saved 2K on a $150,000 car. You must be proud.

racerbruce wrote

The elimination of the "sales stealership" business model has already been invented and is available to all....think Carvana, CarMax, TrueCar, Costco, CarsDirect, CarSense, etc, etc, etc

Not really, at least with Costco, all you do is set a price. It's not a great price, but its a good price and you don't have to at least fight over that...but dealerships still play all the games with rebates, mfr financing options, trying to push you into their local financers for kickbacks, offering ridiculous "protection" packages on top, and so on.

They play "dumb" when it comes to mfr offers and hope they can trick you out of applying/getting them.

RM7 wrote

Wow, you saved 2K on a $150,000 car. You must be proud.

Thanks for the snarky response, but yes these days that's a heck of a discount.

RM7 wrote

snareman wrote

I'm still able to negotiate. I got $2,000 off my M8 going through a broker. That's not going to happen if it all goes direct through BMW

Wow, you saved 2K on a $150,000 car. You must be proud.

The last time I checked, $2,000 is still $2,000!

snareman wrote

Thanks for the snarky response, but yes these days that's a heck of a discount.

Well I saved 2K on a 50K car by doing the Costco thing, so IMO the dealer model is doing you no favors…

RM7 wrote

Well I saved 2K on a 50K car by doing the Costco thing, so IMO the dealer model is doing you no favors…

Not sure how the Costco thing works, but I saved another $2,000 doing the USAA thing which I assume is maybe similar. I wouldn't have saved the first 2000 if it wasn't for the broker /dealer process.

snareman wrote

Not sure how the Costco thing works, but I saved another $2,000 doing the USAA thing which I assume is maybe similar. I wouldn't have saved the first 2000 if it wasn't for the broker /dealer process.

Yes, it should be similar, negotiating a price. But the % you are saving and the % as your disposal income is much less, given the value of the car. If you think this is doing huge favors for you, more power to you, but the majority of people are ready to shed the dealer model. The writing is on the walls. At this point with the success of Tesla and similar business models, it’s going to be adapt/evolve or die.

Eventually dealers will be like video rental stores.

RM7 wrote

Yes, it should be similar, negotiating a price. But the % you are saving and the % as your disposal income is much less, given the value of the car. If you think this is doing huge favors for you, more power to you, but the majority of people are ready to shed the dealer model. The writing is on the walls.

I'm not saying I'm in love with dealers. Heck I recently disowned my dealer that I had been blindly loyal to for 15 years and 7 BMWs because of horrible service from multiple people there and am now a free market buyer. I'm just pointing out that there are trade offs.

I have had some great experiences at dealerships and some bad ones...funny enough even at the same dealership. I am currently not a fan of buying many things online only, but have had to change my mindset. I could see that happening with cars. I had a great experience purchasing custom shelves online.

There are a lot people that have basically bought BMWs all online (getting an allocation, ordering, etc). There are a number of car buying options that are online only now. It is already happening. Maybe the dealership model will change to meet this new market.

BobBMWX3 wrote

I have had some great experiences at dealerships and some bad ones...funny enough even at the same dealership. I am currently not a fan of buying many things online only, but have had to change my mindset. I could see that happening with cars. I had a great experience purchasing custom shelves online.

Buying at a dealer can be compared to getting married.

Some people like to use online dating apps and others prefer to meet the old fashioned way, in person.

Some people have good experiences with marriage and others have had bad ones.

I have been married 3 times and all of the above applies to me.

PS, it never hurts to go for a test drive!

itrocks4u wrote

I have yet to meet a sales rep who is knowledgeable enough to tell me more about the car than what I can find via Google search ams these forums.

Ordering online, with all sorts of options and being able to track it is all one needs.

Yep, my sales rep didn't even know that the HK radio was available and had a customer waiting for it to be available to order. This forum provides so much more valuable info that the dealerships.

What about my precious discounts

DocL wrote

So no more hard sales pitch from the salesperson about the paint protection plan for $900 that they already put on the car? I loved calling them out on that BS.

Nope! Now those will be added automatically, with one of those light gray boxes right next to it that are already checked, but for some reason you can't unclick it.

No matter how hard you try/ what you do.

Then you see you are about to be timed out on your order, but you have already waited in queue for an 390 minutes, plus you got in the "special allocation" queue, which is even harder to get back into.

So you can roll the dice with calling BMW HQ to get that removed, but ya know, then you end up in a phone tree and never speak to anyone.

Eventually your car arrives and they forgot to do the $900 PPF AND you paid for it. Sales manager says contact BMW HQ because they did the order - BMW HQ says contact local dealership because they have the car.



I think I will stick to classics from now on haha.

pr0gi wrote

What about my precious discounts

Install Honey for all your coupon code needs!

jp1984 wrote

Nope! Now those will be added automatically, with one of those light gray boxes right next to it that are already checked, but for some reason you can't unclick it.

No matter how hard you try/ what you do.

Then you see you are about to be timed out on your order, but you have already waited in queue for an 390 minutes, plus you got in the "special allocation" queue, which is even harder to get back into.

So you can roll the dice with calling BMW HQ to get that removed, but ya know, then you end up in a phone tree and never speak to anyone.

Eventually your car arrives and they forgot to do the $900 PPF AND you paid for it. Sales manager says contact BMW HQ because they did the order - BMW HQ says contact local dealership because they have the car.



I think I will stick to classics from now on haha.

Checkmate. You nailed it.

This is going to be hard for BMW because they're going to have to further reduce capacity inorder to keep remaining factories running.

Automakers make money floorplanning. They loose that with Direct Sales.

F32Fleet wrote

Automakers make money floorplanning. They loose that with Direct Sales.

Banks make the interest income from floor-planning. Manufacturers generally eat that cost under delayed-billing programs to get dealers to take surplus production or slow-selling models.

BMWCCA1 wrote

Banks make the interest income from floor-planning. Manufacturers generally eat that cost under delayed-billing programs to get dealers to take surplus production or slow-selling models.

Interesting. I was led to believe that the manufacturers provided the financing through their financing arm (ex BMWFS).

Thanks for the clarification.

F32Fleet wrote

Interesting. I was led to believe that the manufacturers provided the financing through their financing arm (ex BMWFS).

Some do and some don't. And dealers are not obligated to use the manufacturer if they don't want to. A bank is still a bank.

SpartanFan wrote

Yep, my sales rep didn't even know that the HK radio was available and had a customer waiting for it to be available to order. This forum provides so much more valuable info that the dealerships.

Last summer, I called a dealership in the South that had a few of the last M2 Competitions in transit in the US. The one I called on was already sold, but they asked if I wanted another they had coming. I said no thanks, I don't want DCT, only manual. The salesperson said, no, the M2 Competition doesn't come in manual, only the regular M2 does. I suggested it was the G8x M3/M4 that is like that, not the F87 M2, but he wasn't having it. It was at this point I just thanked him and gave up.