BMW's (and MINI's) DO NOT have holdback, and never have. BMW centers do participate in a program called CSI (Customer Service Index) and if they rate high enough through buyer surveys, they get scheduled bonuses, a type of rebate, but they are not assured of it. MINI's do not get the same love from BMWNA. The invoice price you can find at Edmunds is what the dealer pays for the car unless there's a factory incentive running, like the free option packages that ran sometimes in 2010, and closeout incentives, i.e. trunk money, on year end models. I don't think any of those existed prior to '09, up until then MINI's had no problem selling at MSRP or above all over the country, and didn't have to use discounts to lure buyers in. Things have changed, probably forever, with the new economy, but they still don't have holdback, and I guarantee there's no factory incentives on a brand new model at this time.

 

I wonder if this may be one of those situations where if a dealer wishes to participate in Costco's program, they must agree to do so across ALL products, not just the slower-selling or less desirable models?

So while a dealer may be ecstatic to sell cars that have been sitting on the lot for weeks or even months, the tradeoff is that they also agree to sell the hot, new cars in the same fashion?

Maybe it's a dance with the devil, but the dealers may consider it the lesser of various evils.

Just a thought...

 

I don't think so. As I said in my earlier post, when we bought our Element through Costco, Honda wasn't dealing at all on the just refreshed CR-V.