today's resurrection ....

thread is from late October last year ....

 

True - California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Montana and Virginia stick for the full new car price sales tax whether you have a trade or not.

 

I ordered my car on Saturday. What I did to get what I believe to be the best price was go on the miniusa website and build the exact car that I wanted. Next I emailed every dealer within 500 miles of me (8 dealers) and asked what the best internet price would be on my build. I was careful not to give a real phone number to limit the aggravation. I never protested or said that a price was too high, but just said thanks and compiled the data. In the end my local dealer offered me $1,500 off a new build MSRP and allowed me to couple that with the ongoing $1,000 factory money deal that is currently in effect. I don't have any advice on the trade in value, but they offered me $1,000 less than what the black book value of my trade was when I checked myself, and I told them I wanted to split the difference, which they did. So I got ~8% off of the MSRP of my new build and was within 3% of the value of my trade in. Hope this helps. BTW I am in Louisiana and I emailed all the Texas and Florida dealerships.

 

Yep, and the OP bought the car in late Oct. last year too.

 

Did the dealer you ordered from explain the $1000 offer? Or are they just giving you an extra $1000?

If you don't take delivery of your car by 5/15, the $1000 becomes $750, and if you don't take delivery by 6/15, it becomes $500 until 6/30.

 

I understand the rules of the factory money, and I asked the dealer about it, but they said your deal is for $2,500 off the MSRP. I did not press them and they did not explain. My car is still awaiting production (just popped up on the owners website today), so there is no real possibility to take delivery by the time the incentive expires. In the end I don't really care as my deal is made and I have a exact figure for both my trade-in and how much I owe on pickup of the car. Obviously if I show up in 6-8 weeks and they want another $1,000 I can just walk away, as there has been no deposit, but that would break my heart.

 

Interesting info.

 

Gotta read the fine print.

 

Also, I imagine there are a lot of dealers out there who said, "Yeah, here's $1000!" and took orders without explaining the offer.

Not a fan of bait-and-switchy sales tactics.

 

So, I should have my wife visit a mini dealer on her way back from Nashville and register even though we already ordered and are getting it from a dealer in Pittsburgh?

 

Seems like that offer is designed to move existing inventory, so Mini should be clear in the offer upfront as not everyone is reading fine print towards the end of the process.

 

If you have a good dealer they will make it right and take the hit on their side, if not I guess you walk. My dealer brought it to my attention but mine will be in before it goes to $750.

 

Find another dealer -- including dealers far away if needed.

 

 

Never pay MSRP for a vehicle. No matter what.
Even on a built car.
I just posted on another thread.

MINI dealerships make it seem like they don't profit off of these cars and will only budge $300-500 on their own without incentives.

I successfully purchased a 2016 MINI Cooper S $4,000 off MSRP.
With my options on my build
MSRP $28,000
Purchase Price $24,000

My first dealership only gave me $500 off my ordered car. After a week I pulled my $1,000 deposit and went to a different MINI Dealer. They were pissed but I didn't get a great deal.
Went to another MINI dealer and told them my experience and they gave me a way better deal on the same build. The trick is to do your entire order with the Internet Sales Manager. As the car is in production, you can continue to negotiate the price so its not all done in 1 standing. Especially through email. Continue to contact other MINI dealers and ask for pricing on warranty and car build. Bring the interest rate down, bring sale price down, push for incentives, and negotiate your warranty.
You can indeed negotiate warranties. Never pay $2,600 or whatever they charge for extended maintenance.
You can purchase your MINI at 1 dealership and purchase a warranty at another MINI dealership. So you can still browse for pricing as your car is being built.

It is a very "fun" process (not really). But you can definitely play with the numbers. $500 is not the MAX they can take off these cars. I was able to get $4,000 off MSRP (a ton of work i tell you), I'm sure anyone else can get at LEAST $1,500 off MSRP.

Hope that helped.

 

We got offered one of those extended warranties on a 2004 Mazda 3 in Phoenix and they cut the price to half and I still didn't buy it. It's like a freaking time share I swear.

 

I wonder why MINI is being so weird with pricing. I just saw an article that said the MINI HT sold 43% less in May 2016 than it did in 2015. Or something like that...

MINI as a brand is down for 2016. I got my 2016 which stickered at just over $24k for $22,700. Not a lot off MSRP but it was built the way I wanted in what seemed like an area with oddly limited inventory.

 

Their unreal fondness of their own product is hurting deals. As if $400-500 off is AMAZING or something?! Considering their pitiful resale, especially in year 1, why would anyone pay full retail?

 

Why is this thread still going? I bought the car 7 months ago.

 

Because it's no longer about you.

I'm about to be in the market for a new Mini, and messages like Johntotah94’s are hugely useful.

 

$4000 off MSRP?

I feel bad for the poor sales guy who got that deal. That's 14% off MSRP - MINIs only have about 6% on the hardtop models.

I mean there's fair deals and then there's just screwing the pooch.

 

Come on… if the deal was hurting them, and they choose to do it anyway, that's on them. Do you really think the dealer is going to do a deal that isn't good for them? They made a profit, if not on the car itself then on something else. At worst they broke even.

 

The more discounting they do when new, the worse resale will get. MINI's used to have outstanding resale...it wasn't until they started offering incentives and discounts that resale started plummeting. Granted there is a little more to their recent poor resale than that...but it certainly contributes.

 

Sometimes an extra unit nets the dealer an additional bonus from the manufacturer, where the losses on the car itself are washed out, but that's not a normal circumstance.

And of course sometimes you get a sales manager who refuses to give up a sale to another dealer.

But 14% off a new MINI is not normal, FYI.

 

There's a lot going on right now in the marketplace.

Gas is cheap again, everyone's buying trucks again, and the new F5x cars are not universally loved like the older MINIs, despite huge improvements in quality and reliability.

It's tough.