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Originally Posted by justinnum1
inventory has been low on F30, and a lot of people are having to order the car they want
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People keep trotting out variations of the supply excuse, but it's just not valid for mainstream buyers. Check out cars.com and you'll see there's plenty of 328i supply all around the country. Search any mainstream zip code with a 100 mile radius and you'll see plenty of available cars. The 335i is harder to find in volume, but the 328i has traditionally outsold the 335i by over 10 to 1, so that's not much of a factor in the big scheme of things. Picky people will always consider ordering, but supply isn't holding back mainstream sales to any substantive degree.
The problem is the car itself (underwhelming to drive, especially for a BMW), the terrible packaging strategy and the overambitious pricing. It also doesn't help that BMW has made the leases less attractive in recent months. There's no question that BMW is losing 3 Series sales to Audi and Mercedes which can only be viewed as a failure considering the current A4 and C Class models are fairly old and the F30 is new. BMW should seriously consider moving the mid-cycle refresh forward a year or so as Honda recently had to do with the Civic to get sales back on track and adding sales/lease incentives in the meanwhile.