Greetings,

This forum has been helpful in my endeavor to decide upon a new car. I'm getting to the point that the car that I want should be a solid piece of engineering and last for many years to come (10+), as I'm not a big fan of replacing autos every few years.

I've been thinking about buying a E350 and have a few questions to ask the forum members to ensure that I get the best deal possible and "play" the game to my advantage. Although a few nickels here and there might not make a big difference at this level, every nickel does count and there is no reason to leave something on the table when it could have been yours.

Background: Most likely looking for E350 with black leather and P1 or P2. With this in mind, have the following questions:

1. What is the best strategy to employ when dealing with MB with cash? Do you tell them that you're going to finance and then just pay cash after you negotiated the price? How do you play this?

2. What should be target on this car in reality? I know these various sites have a target value, but they are all between MSRP and Invoice somewhere, which seems a bit high in this soft market.

3. Is there any holdback/trunk money available? What is the most reasonable way to come up with a target value for this car

4. If you negotiate a European Delivery (just considering) has this historically been priced advantageously? If I can do this for less than the best price available domestically, this could be an option. I'll disregard the travel/expenses for this in the comparison and put these costs against vacation budget (might help the wife buy off on this...)

5. When do the incentives come around? I've got time to kill on this one. I've read in previous times you'd see 8 to 12K off MSRP, when does this typically happen?

6. Any other pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance

 

Boy, this is exactly the kind of question that makes me wish this forum had the same kind of dealer participation as Bimmerfest...

Generally, my experience is to play this straight. Pulling a financing/vs cash switcheroo at the last second is dirty pool - as the buyer you'd be pissed if the dealer did that to you. I'd recommend being up-front about whether you're going to finance vs pay cash.

Be honest, get honesty in return. Your best weapon when buying a car is to make it clear from the first minute that you are informed, prepared, and don't want to dork around.

On Bimmerfest, the BMW dealerships that participate over there KNOW that us customers "know the numbers", so they don't dork us around at all and the lease/purchase negotiations are simple and even fun.

HEY, MB DEALERS THAT MIGHT BE TROLLING THIS FORUM - ARE YOU LISTENING TO THIS OP'S QUESTION AND WILLING READY TO WORK WITH HIM, AND EVENTUALLY ME?

Over at Bimmerfest, just about everyone is able to get $1,000 over invoice, whether that is US delivery or ED invoice. Getting below $1,000 over invoice is difficult unless there is trunk money, and frankly not fair to the dealer. They need a profit, too. OTOH, paying north of $1,200 or so over invoice is paying too much in this market.

Aye, there's the question. Again, on Bimmerfest, we have ready access to this information. Not sure how to pry it out of people on this forum (not much traffic, and nobody coughing up the info), but if buyers would unite and share their stories we can get more potential MB buyers - I hope to include myself in that category next year - more well informed.

I don't have the solid numbers, but yes, ED invoice is about 4-7% less than US delivery.

Again, on Bimmerfest, every month someone always posts the "confidential" invoice price sheet online so we can all see it and know what we have to work with. This isn't really all that "confidential", since these are actually numbers made readily available to banks and insurance companies. Still most automakers don't typically volunteer that info but if you ask for it they'll show it to you.

Hey, MB Forums, can we get some users to participate/share? Power of the Internet, you know?

Gonna depend on the sales cycle, but incentives tend to shift every 2-3 months. Currently the automakers are trying to dump 2008 inventory, so they aren't going to discount 2009 models as aggressively. Also depends on where the particular chassis you're interested in is at in its "life cycle" (typically 7 years).

1) Ask your local dealership for a copy of their US and ED invoice price list for the model you're interested in.

2) If the dealership won't cough it up, check with your bank or insurance company.

3) When you get your hands on that, post it on this thread, or start a new thread, and get others like me talking about it.

BOTTOM LINE: we gotta find a way from the user/ground up to get potential buyers like you and me talking and sharing the information that will help us decide on a model, purchase/lease decision, and how we'll approach the negotiation phase.

In the meantime, I suggest you check out this BMW forum (http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=20) - TONS of information about how leases/financing work (yes, the discussion is centered on BMW, but the tips and info apply to all makes). It will get you very quickly tuned in to the answers to your questions.

Happy Shopping!

 

best tinming to negotiate at a dealer is within the last 2 days before the month ends, because the dealer/saleperson wants to/has to meet is quota.

As far cash pr finance goes...

Never tell them what you'll go by...negotiate first and never tell them you might have a trade in...get the price they are willing to sell you for..once u have it,then use hidden cards ;-)

you can negotiate on a brand new car even..if one dealer won't deal,go to the next MB dealer.
Bottom line, they need your buisness,you do not need theirs!
thats with every business!!!