[Sideshow]

I’ve had a few people ask how I got the deal I did, so I thought I’d outline the process. A few disclaimers first:


- Never lie. ‘Nuff said.

- This is the deal I got. I took it, so I think its pretty good. Could I have done better? Dunno, but with the amount of time I put in I was satisfied. You may not think the same and that’s cool….its everyone’s own money and they can decide how to spend it.

- Out of respect and in the interest of fair play, I will not disclose where I got the various offers I did…this is not hard to do, go do it yourself!

- If I have any information that is flat out wrong….I apologize….but you’d better come with proof as I’ve worked hard to verify what I found out.

- All the stuff I did is outlined in the book Car Buyer’s and Leaser’s Negotiating Bible. If you buy the book and pricing package, you can call and talk to the author and get some good insight…..kudos to W. James Bragg for a well written guide.

The first step is to identify what you want, I will assume you have decided what car and equipment you want.

Next find out which dealers are within a radius that you are willing to drive, I decided to use about an hour. So I got the names of all the dealers within an hour’s drive from bmwusa.com. Once I got those names I called each one and asked for the name of the Sales Manager and the number of the fax machine closest to him/her. I wanted the sales manager because I wanted someone who had the authority to make a decision to get my fax, and I wanted the machine closest to him/her so that it had the best chance to get to that person. I identified 12 dealers that would get a fax. Typically you’ll get a response from 50% of those you contact. My response rate was lower than this at 33%, but it was still all good.

You’ll find the letter I sent to each of the dealers at the bottom of this post. Important to note is that I did not fax the dealer where I went to test drive the car….they put in the most work and would be contacted last and given the final opportunity to make an offer.

After you send your faxes, enjoy your favorite beverage and await the responses…I got my first response before I had finished sending all of the faxes.

You’ll get almost all of the responses you’re going to get within 24 hours. After I thought I’d heard from everyone I was going to, I called everyone who had responded…starting with the highest bidder.

I said “I appreciate your time and offer. My lowest offer was $xx,xxx, so I’m going to take that one…” Say nothing else. Sometimes they’ll thank you for calling back and sometimes they will sweeten their offer. The first person I called back gave me a lower offer and expected me to say “yeah, I’ll take that”. When I told him I’d get back to him, he said “I’m not going to play this game!”. To which I responded “I didn’t ask you to play a game, I called you back to tell you I was taking another offer and you’re the one who made a counter offer”. Of note, it turned out to be the lowest offer I got at $1260 over invoice.

Once I called everyone back, I called the dealership where I took the test drive. After re-introducing myself, I said that I was ready to put a deposit down on a car. I told them what my best offer was and that I wanted to buy the car there. My CA said “Wow, I’ve never seen a price like that, I doubt we can match that but let me call you back”.

She called back 15 minutes later and said, “Well, we’ll do $1400 over invoice price and include a detail, full tank of gas and the nice floor mats which are normally $140.”

I wanted to buy the car there because I will have it serviced there and its one of the dealerships closest to my house. Considering that and I would probably not have gotten the floor mats thrown in from the lowest bidder, I told her we had a deal.

I made the deposit over the phone by credit card…and I got my production number. Woot!

A couple final notes.

- Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. If one dealer considers invoice to include MACO and the other doesn’t, you won’t have a consistent baseline for comparison.

- It doesn’t matter which fees they want to pass on to you. You have a consistent base line (see above) for comparison.

- I never had to discuss MACO or any other fee besides regular documentation fees. It never came up because they were making offers, not me.

- All said and done I spent about 3 hours on the whole process, and other than the test drive, I’ve not stepped foot in a dealership.

The whole thing was a lot of fun. I was sure I had gotten the best (relatively) deal I could have gotten at the time because I had bids (or not, which is important) from everyone I had considered buying the car from. Could I get a better deal next week….maybe. It could also be worse next week.

I hope this helps you guys get your dream car at a price you can live with…..which is really the bottom line.

I will be posting pictures of my car when I get it, because you guys can’t seem to get enough pictures of BMW’s…..which rocks.

[D3R3K]

Nicely done. That is a great price on a car that is in high demand. I initially negotiated a deal of $1000 over invoice and put a deposit down. Unfortunately the sales manager later vetoed the deal. I was able to salvage it by doing an ED. $1400 over invoice is a great price!

[Mo]

Interesting.... Wish i would've had this when i leased my car, what's this book you talked about in your post? Is it for real?

[Aija]

nice deal! i got 1500 above invoice after dealing with 6 dealers. Second lowest bidder was 1600 dollars. I didnt get hit with MACO (i dont think...)..

With all the FEE's (including TTL fees) what amount was that?

[Sideshow]

Originally Posted by Mo

Interesting.... Wish i would've had this when i leased my car, what's this book you talked about in your post? Is it for real?

The book Car Buyer’s and Leaser’s Negotiating Bible by W. James Bragg is indeed real. Pretty interesting.

[TTG]

Wow, you did get a very good price..... You don't see that many NON-ED cars going for that low over invoice.

Great Job and Congrads on your new car.

[dmm325]

am i missing something? I ended up getting $470 over invoice on my 335.

Or does e90 335 and e92 335 make that big of a difference on what dealers are negotiating for.

[TTG]

Originally Posted by dmm325

am i missing something? I ended up getting $470 over invoice on my 335.

Or does e90 335 and e92 335 make that big of a difference on what dealers are negotiating for.

I think coupes are in higher demand than the sedans...... There are always 10+ 335 sedans on the lot avail at my local dealers but very very few 335 coupes.

[morgie2]

Originally Posted by Sideshow

The book Car Buyer’s and Leaser’s Negotiating Bible by W. James Bragg is indeed real. Pretty interesting.

I think it is still important to watch out for fees. They can still slide them in if you're not careful.

[yomash]

"Fax Attack" FTW!!

This is the same approach I used. I was happy with the deal I got for the time I spent as well. I got $1500 off of ED MSRP on a 335i coupe. I was pretty happy with it since people were lining up to pay sticker on these cars in this area.

A buddy of mine and I ordered the kit from Mr. Bragg. My buddy saved a ton of money on his Rav-4. Its really fun to put those faxes out there and have these dealerships "compete" for your business. The way it should be

[rpa]

Just curious but why use faxes instead of emails?

[samoe93]

Originally Posted by Sideshow

She called back 15 minutes later and said, “Well, we’ll do $1400 over invoice price and include a detail, full tank of gas and the nice floor mats which are normally $140.”

Has anyone out there NOT gotten floor mats? I've gotten them thrown in on both my BMWs so far, but in both cases it went something like this at the end of the initial conversation:

CA: Ok, think I got everything. Will you need floormats or anything?
Me: No.

[CA gets off the phone to get me an offer.]

CA: Ok, we'll sell you the car for $XXXXX and I'll throw in the floormats.

Also - I don't see where you want the car serviced as being a big consideration. The dealership will get paid for your regular maintenance regardless of whether it's where you bought the car or not. In fact I get my car serviced at the same dealer everytime, but it's not where I bought it. Never had an issue.

[yomash]

Originally Posted by rpa

Just curious but why use faxes instead of emails?

I ended up using a combination of both. They were both equally effective

[FaintReality]

Very good info. I have take a very similar approach, but via email instead of fax.

Dave

[Ateneo_BluEagles]

posts like this makes this forum worth visiting almost everyday

i'll definitely use your advice on my e92 purchase.