If anything could make me feel good about my car running out of warranty soon, it's this news that did it.

 

Back to the subject of this thread......

Has anyone from the DCMM board officially determined the status of the cub members' discount at MoT?

 

We're working on it.

 

Hi guys, just to let everyone know, I was at MINI of Sterling yesterday and checked with them on this issue. According to my MA, MINI of Sterling continues to provide a 10% discount to DCMM members (now I need to sign up for sure!), though what exactly is covered under the 10% seems open to interpretation.

 

I called around including some Out of State dealers who offer MINI stuff @ discounted price w/o any membership affiliation.

What I figure out is that the discount is something that the dealership (parts department- nothing to do w/ sales or service) can get you a discount if they want to regadless the type of membership. I have called around for some GP accessories and I got different prices from each dealer. Most of them - once I mentioned that I belong to a MINI Club (no name) - said that could give me the same BMW discount. Some dealers and shops (no MINI) honor my SCCA membership at time as much as 20% on specific items.

TATE believe or not is not always the best place to shop for me as other dealers beat their prices even w/ my DCMM and my special PITA customer.


MD MINI GP
MD STREGA2

 

MINI of Sterling's 10% DCMM discount applies to parts, accessories, and yes, service labor.

Just be sure to ask for it, and have your badge handy in case they want to see it (they don't usually ask me for it but they have before).

 

Keep in mind that Sterling and Tate markup their parts MSRP before giving discounts. Only Towson used actual MSRP before their discount. It pays to shop around if you can.

 

Do you have evidence of that? I was under the understanding that the standard prices (at least at MoS) were exactly MSRP.

 

Yes, as a matter of fact. I took a survey a few years ago of all BMW dealerships in the area.
I rated Sterling 9th out of the 10 BMW dealerships.
The last time I bought something there, their retail price was higher than MSRP from Towson.

 

Hmm, interesting. Any time I've gotten a quote there and compared it with other MSRP quotes (including the official MINIUSA accessories catalogs), the quoted price has always been exactly the same (prior to the DCMM discount).

It's possible that either 1) they handle BMW & MINI parts differently or 2) their policies have changed since you did your survey.

In any case, it seems that more reconnaissance is necessary!

 

It is very possible they changed their policy.
I bought a MINI filter not long ago though. It was higher than Towson.
All dealers have a markup matrix. They can pick and choose which products to markup. Or not.
After my survey, club members questioned Sterling's prices. The parts guy couldn't understand how other dealers could be selling parts that low. He clearly did not have an understanding of the matrix system.

Some BMW dealership markup their over the counter parts but when it comes to club members, they discount from MSRP. I know Tischer does this. This is why it's always important to tell them you are a club member before parts are rung up or quoted.

 

deleted for redundancy

 

Whatever.

 

Is it possible that when you say MSRP, you actually mean the price they'd offer the average Joe if he walked in off the street? And that each dealer has the flexiblity to set whatever price they choose by marking up over what they pay **wholesale**?

And what MoS is doing is actually listing their parts at the price listed by MINI as the *manufacturers* suggested **retail** price and discounting down from there (which, of course, has lots of juicy mark-up built in already)

Just thought we might be dealing with semantics, even though the actual result is the same and your advice is spot-on - shop around for the best prices.

BTW - I used the 10% when I bought my car (I joined DCMM when it was on order) and got the discount off my aerokit and some other dealer-ordered/installed accessories. More than paid for my membership cost.

 

MOS had a long running arrangement for supplying discount parts to roadfly.org. They would clearly show the MSRP price and their discounted price in the forum. Here is one example http://forums1.roadfly.com/mini/foru...6262451-6.html

Intake Moulding P/N 51 13 0 395 502 N/A YET!
List $235.00 Roadfly Price $199.75

That was for the JCW CF intake. I got it for that price. In fact, when Roadfly switched to Crevier, Herb just said he knew me, name in DB, would always honor the discounted price ... nothing to do with DCMM

 

I am not sure what is going on MSRP before or after discount.. the bottom line is that the dealer has room for "discounts" and applies them regadless membership affiliation, in fact many of us don't even need to show DCMM card.

I agree w/ 1996 328ti MOT generally has lower prices that MOS and TATE so if they don't want to give the discount - while the other two dealers do- is because a "standard" discount is already factored in.
I shopped around when I bought my wind deflectors. I ended up bying them from a MINI Dealer in Colorado. He gave me a good deal, but w/ one phone call he sold: 2 Wind deflectors, 2 boot mats, 1 set of fog lamps, 2 set of rubber mats and even w/ the cost of shipping (we split it) I saved a few dollars. TATE even w/ my DCMM vard would have charged me more

I support TATE and I get some discount but not because of DCMM or SCCA memberships it's because I am a long time customer and I have a relationship w/ them, the same as Edge has with MoS. I am willing to bet that if DCMM memebrship expires Edge will continue to receive a courtesy discount.

Moral of the story: Decide first how much you are willing to pay for an item (sometimes you must go with MSRP), try to combine purchases and always ask for a discount... and don't take NO as a final answer.

 

Excuse my confusion?? This is about MINI of Towson's discount policy, correct? Has Tate dropped their discount as well?

 

You can just use Classic, a NAM vendor, and get the best price anyway.

The discounts worked best on LABOR ... that was where the real savings came from.

 

Generally speaking, Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price is what BMW sets. It's a fixed price. MSRP might also get adjusted to the Euro from time to time.

Retail prices can be MSRP, a percentage below, a percentage above.
It can also cary from part to part. Completely up to the dealership.
Some dealers base their discount from MSRP, others off their retail price.
Sometimes it's the same, sometimes it's different. This is why I found prices to be so different among the BMW dealers.

Wholesale plays with the same rules except dealers have different requirements for wholesale accounts. Wholesale is typically 25% or better off MSRP.

 

Sorry, late to the party here. I can only confirm that one of the techs at Towson actually suggested and recommended the work I had done in Feb '06 (flywheel, clutch, LSD, short-shift). The parts didn't fail, but Towson's work--and an amazingly simple oversight--caused a few serious issues that required two return visits to address. Ultimately, I fixed it myself. I can post the details if anyone's interested, it's just long-ish. Short version is I had a squeaky flywheel, was still under warranty, and the mods were suggested as a means to get the part fixed and get some 'go-fast' fun on the cheap.

I should note that at all times my SA and the tech were gracious, apologetic and I had free loaners, even though I bought my '02 in California (my '04 MCS was purchased at Towson).

Relevant upshot: I don't blame Mini of Towson for not doing aftermarket mod work anymore--while first-tier sort of mods (intake/pulley/exhaust) may be relatively safe, they're still after-market, and obviously cut into JCW. I'd imagine it also introduces training issues for their techs, as well as customer requests for specific techs, both of which have got to make it tough on the service manager.

Having said that, I just hope they don't start getting testy about those of us who've already had mod work done by them (especially when they recommended said work), or worse... that they start blaming problems on unrelated modifications (Mag-Moss type of stuff). Moot now, since my car is well past warranty, but I wouldn't have done the flywheel/clutch/LSD if I'd known the problems their work was going to introduce, and they suggested it. If they've stopped doing it that's certainly their prerogative, I just hope that doesn't leave some folks out in the cold. They've always been great there, and I'd hate to see the Mini community's opinion of them diminish because of that.

 

MINI of Sterling feels your pain for the loss of your club discount at MINI of Towson.

For the month of January and February MoS has raised their club discount on parts and labor to 15%.

This is only for the months of January and February - please don't ask if it's retroactive for the first 5 days of January - I didn't ask.

I am not an employee of MINI of Sterling but I am on the board of DCMM.



Sam

 

A little bit of math using the generous 15% discount and the prices listed in Steven's PDF still keeps MoS at near the highest prices in the area.

11.20 after 15% discount for an oil filter is 8th place
17.59 after 15% discount for an air filter is 8th place
112.70 after 15% discount for a battery is 8th place
68.74 after 15% discount for a brake rotor is 9th place

MoS would have to offer a discount that exceeds 30% in order to get to the Russell price on brake rotors as an example.

Percentages can be misleading unless you do the math. If the info Steven has collected is accurate, MoS is close to the most expensive place in the area to buy parts even with an additional 5% discount .

 

Steven's analysis is 3 years old going on 4. A lot has changed at MoS since then.

Russell? where is Russell? this is a DCMM thread.

Anyway it's better than the discount you get at Towson

 

Russel is a LOT closer to many of you than MOT. And pretty big too, one of the last Dinan places around

 

Yes it's an old analysis. It clearly says the date in his PDF.

1st you said that he couldn't back up his analysis... see post 38 as a quote from you (post 37).
Then you delete it for redundancy? Nothing redundant about it, it was simply a wrong assumption on your part and he proved it when you "respectfully" tried to call him on it.

He did the leg work for that info at that time which is a somewhat timeconsuming task.

You have provided nothing to support your claims of "A lot has changed at MoS since then." Like I said, I did the math based on his numbers. I realize they're old numbers, but you have provided no information as it concerns pricing, other than a 5% discount increase.

Since you're a DCMM board member, I would at least expect you to be less arrogant in your postings as I'm quite sure it doesn't represent the DCMM club well at all. If you didn't like my apparently incorrect spelling of Russell (sp) then say so. No need to try to be the all knowing always right in your attempt at defending MoS "Russell? where is Russell? this is a DCMM thread.". See post 39 for clarification.