is it possible to buy a new E class in January for a discount?
i went to the dealers and got a quote for about total $65k w/ sport pkge, panaroof, navi.

 

yes, it is possible to get them in january for a discount.

Rock.

p.s. of course your next question is "how much discount" right?

 

There have been discounts in california of between $2-3,000 off MSRP in December. Given current economic conditions, I suspect that will still hold in January.

 

This coming week is a critical time for any business: end of month, end of quarter, and end of year.

I'd say TODAY is the time to go in and negotiate - if they have to build one for you they won't be able to deliver it til February anyway. If they have to trade stock with another dealer, that too will take a few days to arrange and so you're in 2003 that way too.

 

Good points. I wonder if they get credit for 2002 if the actual sale is not until 2003.I would think they actually need to complete the sale before getting credit from MB and for their business to realize the profit.

 

Nearly all the US dealers now input sales electronically, and the manufacturers/importers release sales info within the first couple days of the next month. There's little room anymore to backdate sales.

 

True, but it is that self-same eagerness to close the deal that you can use to your advantage. Its all about negotiation skills - right now *they* want the deal *now* more than you do. To the extent that you can negotiate them down and *then* they realize they can't deliver til 03, you can gain from them being focused on the here-and-now.

Keep a clear head and always be prepared to walk away from the deal.

My E500 should be ready for delivery in the next week, and unless the dealer makes me whole on the lux tax, I don't plan on closing the sale til 03.

I ended up a bit more than $3k *below* MSRP, ordered 18 october from the dealer's internet rep.

Edmunds has a story likening the internet reps to the fleet sales guys, ie more focused on volume than on crushing each individual customer in negotiation (YMMV) edmund's story

 

personally, i would stree the importance of walking away if you don't feel comfortable.

i have never (no, not even one time) heard of a guy who walked away from a deal and could not get it beat later on. and despite any salesman saying that the deal is good only for right now, i've never heard of anyone who actually went back later and was denied the deal.

one time i was shopping for a honda accord with my gf (now my wife) and the guys there were total scum. they were playing the old good cop / bad cop thing and walking in to see their managers with each price, making me wait for 10 min each time, etc. it pissed me off and i walked away and those guys were trying to stop me after i already got into my car, etc. they kept saying that they could easily just sell the car to someone else for their price instead of my lowball price...i asked them "if you could find another buyer so easily what are you doing here trying to stop me from leaving?" and they finally shut up.

of course i got the car elsewhere for a better price anyway.

Rock.

 

Good show!!!

High fives all around!!!

 

I just ordered my E500 and all through the process the salesman uses the MBUSA web page prices as his guide. He insists there are no "markups" nor discounts. I checked on Edmunds for average sales in my area and they seem to verify this, indicating that sale prices are running at MSRP.

Am I missing something? Are there some discounts out there? How do I tap these? What they have on the lot is 1-2 cars and not what I would be happy with. Are these the units with discounts?

We expect delivery 3-15-03.

I have bought several cars and trucks, getting what I think were some great deals, but I know I paid extra a time or two when I just fell in love with the car too fast. I want to get the best deal here on the car even though I already love it!

Any advice thoughts or comments?

 

Most of the texas dealers are owned by the same outfit, you'll see some discussion about price elsewhere in the W211 group that remarks on this

My advice is arrange the deal with a dealer in SoCal or in the northeast, and pick the car up and drive it home.

Paying MSRP is a sucker's game when you can get a few grand off.

Tell them you want to cancel your order, their prices aren't competitive and you'll be getting the car from another dealer. If they don't like it, too bad.

Its all about the numbers.

 

I agree. Call the salesman first thing tomorrow and cancel the order in no uncertain terms. Tell him you want your deposit back immediately.

Tell him you understand that the average discount on the E500 is between $2500 and $3000. and you want to shop around.

I ordered mine before the discounts became so common and had to go out of my area to get about $2500. off. Now it seems that every area is seeing discounts.

I would bet that if you firmly cancel the order you will get a call back offering you the price you want. If not let us know as many people are going out of area to get the car. It really is no big deal as the local dealer will jump at the chance to service it no matter where you bought it.

Ed

 

I live in Austin and started this process in late Sept/early October calling every dealer in Texas. Started with no discount, finally got dealer in Dallas to give me $500 off. Found out that in So. Cal, No. Cal and east coast $2K-$3K off MSRP or $800 over invoice was becoming common. Finally decided to order the car from a California dealer for $2100 off + delivery included. Also got $3K off MSRP from dealers in Connecticut (but I had to pay for delivery, so it was the same). Delivery to Austin costs about $800 per quotations I received. At last check, I know that Dallas dealers were giving $1K off MSRP and Austin dealers were doing at least $500 (I was offered this in early Nov.).

If the dealer in SA is telling you nothing off MSRP, tell him you are getting $1K off MSRP in Austin and you are considering taking back your deposit. See his reaction..., bet you get $1K off. Honestly you may want to start with $3K instead of $1K...

Apurva

 

Thanks for the advice folks! I decided the best course was to walk in the showroom and press the salesman eye-to-eye. He flinched! His I told him I was willing to cancel the order and look on the West Coast where I frequently do business, or in Dallas, Austin or Houston and that I am aware of some steep discounts. He told me his manager was at lunch ( it was noon) and he would call me later with some new figures. I told him I didn't mind shipping or driving the car a distance to save 5%.

He told me there is a 6% markup in the car (forgetting to mention the dealer holdback of an additional 3%). All I told him is that I have been in touch with some dealers on the West Coast and they are batting very hard at getting my sale and that I needed him to do the same. He replied-" I'll get on this this afternoon."

I will get on the phone Monday and start a search for a better deal.

Question- If you got an offer of say $3000 off from a California dealer would you fly out and drive it back? Or ship the vehicle and lose $800 in shipping charges.

$800 is nothing compared to 2 lost days of work, but then again it would be 2 days with my new E500!

 

I'm having mine delivered because I have 2 little kids and I don't want to drive almost 2K miles by myself, so it is just easier for my wife and I. Also, keep in mind that CA has some funky laws that if you pickup the car at the dealership, you MUST pay CA sales tax, which is not good because you will also have to pay TX sales tax. So if you pick up, the dealer will actually have to drive it to Nevada or other boarding state and you can take delivery there (you can be a passenger in the car, but the dealer rep must physically drive the car out of the state). Sounds complicated, but don't worry, most of the dealers are used to this because they have a lot of AZ, NV customers (when I talked to the dealers they were not surprised about this...some may charge $300 to do it, or tell you to buy them 2 nights in Reno or something...but negotiable).

The process will be, when your car is built, you will get a Purchase Order with a VIN number from the dealers Netstar system. You will take this P.O. to the TX MVB to pay your sales tax and tag fees, and they will give you the temporary TX tags.
When you get the car (either pickup or delivery) take your tags with you to put on the car....pretty simple.

BTW, tell me what deal your SA dealer finally comes back with. I am very interested to know what the going discount in TX is.

 

I'd look around on the Net to see if you can confirm that california info.

Most states can issue 'transit tags' which are 30 day temporary license plates (paper) for people who never intend to title the vehicle in-state.

Back in 83 a friend bought a car in New York, which we drove to Arizona with both temporary tags and a transit insurance policy, since the company in NY did not write auto policies in AZ. Then she registered it in Arizona, paid the sales tax there, got the plates and insurance policy, etc.

Personally, I'd drive it rather than mess with a 3rd party transporter. If the out of state dealer would arrange the transport and would have the vehicle prepped where it was being delivered, that might be ok. My concern would be the Calif dealer takes allt he pastic off, etc, and then something happens to the car while being transported.

I think a cross-country drive would be a great way to get past the break-in period - you just need to be careful to avoid the cruise control, vary your speed a lot, etc. You'd get to pass the miles seeing different things/places, which makes it go by faster than back-and-forth to work for weeks :-)

 

my research found that either the dealer had to drive it out of CA or driver had to be able to produce documentation that it was shipped out of state for no sales tax collection. I did not find any thing on transit tag, but there maybe something...

 

In reading this thread, I'm glad I got my car locally at a price we (dealer and I) were both happy with, although maybe it cost me a few bucks. That quick couple thousand miles can take a toll at trade-in time, not to mention what it does to a lease. I have to think buying locally is worth something to both you and the dealer---and they take good care of me in Service. Each dealer and customer are different, however.

 

whens the slowest time of year for car sales and when is it [peak time ??? anyone know ?

 

let me re-phrase my question and put some sense into it

At what time of the year are car sales slow and at what time of the year are car sales at the highest ????

 

Unless someone comes up with hard statistics, I think seasonal changes in passenger car sales are a fallacy, esp. in luxury category. There may be some truth in dealers being more agreeable toward the end of the month, as it has to do with holdback payment by manufacturer.

 

I am getting a varied response- Some say ok to the discount, but will not commit without an inhouse visit, and others have said "No" to any discount on an ordered unit. Locally, I have two dealers that are looking at some dcount in the $1000-1500 range but no hard facts yet.

I read a thread somewhere and am wondering- If I push them into a discount, does the dealer as a matter of pactice or spite- push your production back to make you wait?

Got a lot of calling to do Thursday- looking for discounts. If you got anything discounted over $1500 let me know what dealer/sales person etc.... If I can use your name I will and hopefully you will get a gift of some sort from MB I understand.

They keep quoting they have a 6% markup. Thats EXCLUSIVE of the 3% Dealer Holdback ( and never mentioned by them)

Is the percentage of profit the same on packages, options as it is on the base vehicle etc?

I guess I am trying to figure out what they are making, What motivates them to sell at discount, and what is the best way for me to secure the most discount...

Sound like a lot of people.....

 

it is all a game. Stay focused and deal with the delivery FIRST. What is the slot they have for the build, do they have the car in your config in stock or tradeable with another dealer in the US.

This is not rocket science, it's *exactly* like buying any other car - that's what seems to cross so many people up.

knowledge and determination are the only tools either player needs to win.

know the invoice. - if you did your research on this you'd know where the markups are - in the base car, not in the options. See Edmund's or other car research websites. The base car is up about 7% from invoice (invoice on an E500 body is like 50-51k, sticker is 55,515).

work from that UP.

screw their margin, that's not your problem -neither is the holdback. On a new car they're not likely to invade the holdback anyway.

knowledge of the facts.

1) compute invoice price of your car including options and the 665 destination charge
2) add $750 (a respectable number, you won't need to go much higher).
3) take that in as your starting position. You've done your homework, you know what the car is worth to you.

When you get to something like invoice+1000 (they'll doubtless start higher than invoice +750) then you're ready to lock it down and do the deal.

Any temporizing from the salesguy about "no other dealer in this area is offering X" is *irrelevant*. You don't care about how bad other people negotiated, you only are concerned with your deal.

It's business. Don't be a smart ***, don't be emotional, don't be snide. Stand your ground and walk if the deal is not right. It's not personal - it's business.

Call a high volume dealer in california or New York and don't waste more time with the dealers in central texas if they're not in the game. Buy a ticket in advance and it'll only cost you $300 to fly to either coast to pick up the car. Search this board and you'll find sales contacts in california, or PM me and I can point you to a connecticut dealer.

You should be able to conclude this in about an hour, max., particularly once you're serious about getting your config down.

Don't fool around with 5 different configs. Decide *before* you start talking to these guys what options you want. If you're windowshopping you're not going to get decent results. Remember, you want *them* to be as focused on the deal as *you* are. If you're scattered and amaturish, or not ready to pull the trigger, you're gonna get blown off or fleeced.

Be prepared to bang out a (refundable) deposit on plastic immediately upon receipt of the faxed quote.

I got 3400 off msrp on the config you see in my signature. This dealer came to ME with an opening bid of about 2500 off msrp (i had placed an order with another dealer before I could get a test drive with this one. When he called to set up the test drive, I told him I was ordered already, and he from a cold start offered a 'huge' discount. A few days later I came up to his shop and we talked to the final number, wrote the order up and I'm getting the car this friday :-) ).

It's all a matter of going into a volume dealer and making it clear that you're dealing. Use a contact from this board, or go in through the internet dealer contact. Or call the dealer and ask to speak to the fleet manager and see what they're offering

Weakness and uncertainty, a lack of knowledge and/or confidence - these are the flaws that a good negotiator will exploit.

the overview:
1) know your config, rattle it off.
2) find out what the dealer has that's close and know beforehand what additional options you'd be willing to buy to get the car in the next week or so (ie from stock)
3) expect a build to take 3 months from order to delivery if your dealer has a production slot in the upcoming 3 weeks.
4) walk away from a bad deal.
5) get your financing squared away FROM SOMEONE ELSE **before** you go to the dealer to negotiate about price. Let them know if they ask you've got your money lined up already. You should be able to get under 5.5% these days from anywhere. see eloan.com for auto rates nationally
6) dont' talk about trade-ins til you're done with the pricing of the new car. Nothing, no make no model no decision about it at all. Be a blank slate.

all this is car buying 101 actually, which is why it probably sounds really familiar.

for samples of who has what in inventory, see http://www.prestigemb.com/ for a rather extensive inventory (about 80-90 e-classes) of cars. This should help you get a feel for what dealers are pre-ordering. Silver/charcoal and black/charcoal are, as youll see, massively popular color combos

hope it helps.

 

Awesome advice ! Thanks!
I will work on this from your perspective afresh.
Happy New Year

 

jposhea....outstanding job of putting it all together in a short and basic form. It is almost point by point of how I have always bought cars (both business and personal) but I don't think I could have put it together like you did.

I almost always start with the fleet manager...although I haven't found any MB dealers that have "fleet manager". Usually just get turned over to a salesman..so no advantage with MB

With other manufacturers I usually just email the fleet manager of the the dealers in my area with a complete description of what I want down to color and ask for their best price. I make it clear that it is a form request that is going to many dealers..(just business as you say)...then they can shoot their best shot or just not reply. Works very well most of the time.

Good job...I am sure that many will profit from your outline.

Ed