RichinPeoria

Good morning everyone,

We were at a MB dealer in the Chicago area on Saturday. We looked at a number of cars. It turns out that the company I work for has an "...affiliation.." with MB. The sales guy said because of that I could buy any MB for $500 over invoice. Then he said he would beat that and sell us the C-Class we are looking at for "..invoice..". Does "invoice" sound like a good price or is there still some room for negociation?

We are planning to order the car. The sales person also said we needed to put our order in no later than March or we would have to wait for the next C-Class build cycle. He said that if you order and they are building that model at that time, your car is built within a week and will arrive in the US 2 weeks after that.

Rich

Buellwinkle

In some parts of the country, invoice is good, in So Cal for example, $2k below invoice is more common. Good luck...

ClayJ

invoice beats 'sticker' or MSRP by $3000 to $11,000 USD depending on model. I would be happy to pay invoice on a new MBZ.
And yes, if your dealer is able to find a build slot (car which is to be built at the factory) which is imminent, it does take them about a week to build the car, and two to three weeks for the car to get here to the USA depending on whether you live on the East Coast (Ft Lauderdale) or West Coast (Long Beach). Sometimes it takes the car a whole week to clear customs, the port, and the VPC (Vehicle Preparation Center) and be delivered to your dealer for your taking delivery of the car.
Anyone else?

pookie

and although 'invoice' might be below msrp and therefore be preceived as the invoice value the dealer obtained the car, the TRUE invoice is much lower since dealer do have numerous amount of incentives allowing them to actually be able to go below the 'invoice' they mention to you.

in other words, you can negotiate below the invoice value he gave you of the car.

ClayJ

There is another $4K or so there..but it is not necessarily an easy thing to do, to get a dealer to go below invoice on an ordered car -- especially if it is an AMG. They don't get an unlimited allocation of AMG's, and they are going to want to make money at the sale off of the ones that they get.

Untouchable08

Could you tell me what the acual price he is giving you and where yor located?

RichinPeoria

We will be buying a C230 6spd man.

Rich

ClayJ

On a C230 I would say that at invoice is a good price....

MB-BOB

I agree with ClayJ. When the car was a new model, in 2001, the dealers were asking -- and getting -- full MSRP at every dealer in the Midwest I called... and I called a boatload of them. I got $1K below MSRP by going through a broker. That was the best I could do.

The same broker told me he wouldn't insult any dealer by asking for any of the holdback or other moneys a dealer has below invoice. They say it's done on the West coast, but I have always remained skeptical of that.

MBZFAN55

How could you ever insult anybody who sells cars ?

ClayJ

OUCH!

Buellwinkle

That's funny. I'm upfront, I'll tell them invoice less any incentives less half of holdback. Some dealers say yes, some not. I've even done better than that. Recently we bought a Wrangler, another DC product. The local dealer would do invoice less 1/2 holdback, yet we found a dealer that did invoice less all holdback to clear inventory.

velvet fog

You can find all incentives for all brands for your location at edmunds.com

Looks like nothing available on the C Class in my locale.

MBNorCal

i would like to see a purchase contract with a price for under $2,000 below invoice. sorry, i have to see it to believe it.

Outland

There's still plenty of 05 C240's sitting around. 6-8K off list at one point. Wait till summer, by July I'm sure he'll find another 2K of wiggle room.