Interesting. Thanks for letting me know. I may try Car Max. At this point (now winter), I'll likely wait for the warmer weather but it still appears that this is an option worth pursuing.

 

Hey guys...just an update though not much of one, really. The salesperson that I spoke to originally left and a guy took her clientelle. I did attempt to speak with him and see if we could possibly work on increasing the trade-in value for my car and that didn't much go anywhere. Interestingly enough, when I made contact with the original salesperson, I contacted her from my home and work email accounts respectively. When I reached out again and got the new salesman, I contacted him via my work account. This was about 3 weeks ago. Tonight, when logging into my home account I saw an email from the salesman. Ironically enough, he didn't put 2 and 2 together and realize that we had just spoke a few weeks ago. He was essentially reaching out to me asking me if I was still interested in a Mini.

This basically just got me thinking...is he bored, is business slow or is he simply doing his due diligence as a salesman? Not like it really matters as I am still not in the market but...

 

I just can't get past the low offer on the trade-in and to be honest, I am not motivated or passionate enough at this point to hit the private market to sell the Yaris

I totally understand your point of view. I too don't want to post a "For Sale" sign on my car and deal with jerks. IMHO, I think you're missing, and I don't mean to defend any dealer, that a MINI dealer will not offer you the absolute best value for your Yaris, because very few, if anyone comes to a MINI dealer to purchase a Yaris. They're going to probably sell it at auction. Like it or not that's the fact. To complicate your situation most new MINI's are sold at +/- a teeny bit of MSRP. I really don't have any suggestions, other than you can't compare a Yaris to any MINI. Good luck and thanks for sharing your story.

 

+1

No surprise that they would just give it a quick drive around the building and a quick walk around to make sure it didn't have any damage. It's a very new car, still covered under warranty... why do they have to bother to look under the hood? The car obviously runs ok if they were able to drive it, and if there are any problems it is still covered under warranty.

And "my car would be the cleanest on the lot"... I love hearing people say stuff like that. It's a used Toyota. There are probably dealers that have dozens of new Yaris' in stock, and your car is still a "used" car no matter how clean it is. Better yet, even a "dirty" car would look the same as your car on the lot after they pay their detail guy <$100 to wash/wash/polish the car as long as there is no body damage.

I agree with everyone else here... the car is a commodity, it's not a rare collector's car. You should certainly negotiate to get a fair trade value, but there is no reason to get emotions involved and get upset because they did not put enough effort into looking at your car.

 

I understand what you guys are saying. I am not bad mouthing the dealer or saying that I don't understand the reality of it all. I would just be more inclined to deal if they were more inclined to deal. The point in updating this was more along the lines of....he kinda sounded desperate for a sale. this, of course, translating to SLOW business or maybe I am wrong....I don't know.

Although not fluent on the business/tax side of things....you know these dealerships are fudging their liability on trade-in or auction cars. They NEVER lose money. Surely they are writing off loses that probably never were. There is a whole other dimension to a lot of this business process.

 

The experience I had last March when I bought my Clubman was that they came down about ~$700 on the sticker price. My MINI had a lot of options added to it and so possibly there was a bit more wiggle room since there was a higher cost involved. I also had my '98 Prelude offering it as a trade-in but I already expected them to low ball the trade-in and...they did not disappoint. The salesman also suggested I sell it privately. At around the same time I was purchasing my "ordered" MINI, they were having a sale on the in stcock MINIs - Giving about $1000-$2000 off the sticker. I did not want to go that route but they had hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, so I took advantage of that....So maybe I lowered my cost an addl $5.
I had planned to pay in cash. The thuing to always ask if putting a bunch of cash down is to find out how much they are willing to allow on a credit card (since you can get the ~1% back on whatever they allow on the card if you have a cash back or air mileage pt card ...and of course plan to pay it off within the 25 day billing cycle). I was also getting the extended warranty programs and so I was able to get with a bit of finessing additional monies put to the credit card versus the $3000 limit they initially imposed. So...it was not much but that saved another ~ $60.

There are other car makers dealerships that will be willing to negotiate more off the sticker price and will probably offer more for a trade-in but it was my experience at the time of my purchase that others on this forum were only able to get about $500 - $750 off the sticker price of an "ordered" MINI.

The thing with my '98 Prelude was that i wound up finding it hard to part with it even after I picked up my MINI. I held onto it. Then about 9 months later, my daughter was going to purchase a 2010 Ford Escape. She had negotiated the cost with 2 dealerships. She had a '97 Del Sol for a trade-in but there were some repairs that she had procrastinated fixing and basically neither dealership would have offered much for it. As a Dad, I offered to keep the Del Sol (it was in my name anyway and I was going to fix it up - play with the 2 seater and removable top for awhile) and give her the '98 Prelude for a trade-in sicne she would get more for it than the del Sol. The dealership that wanted more for the Escape offered hher $2500 for the Prelude (about ~ maybe $800 - $1000 less than I may have gotten for it privately). The dealer that offered her a new Escape for a lot less than the other dealership was only willing to give $700 for the Prelude. My daughter indicated the other Ford dealership offered $2500 (but she did not tell them what the Escape would have cost them at the other dealership. The dealership then offered her without batting an eye - The same ($2500) to close the deal on the Escape. All in all she got the Escape for a good price using my '98 Prelude as a trade-in.

So....if you want to buy an American SUV chances are you are going to get a pretty good deal off sticker and more for your trade-in.....but it's not at all like a MINI.

 

Mflossin, maybe it's your approach?

Please understand I'm not criticizing you here, but I have a few suggestions.

First of all, there's more to owning a car than the payment book, there's the pride and satisfaction you get from having a car you truly enjoy, not just ride to work in. On top of that, there's the MINI community - as you've already found out by posting here - that you can become a part of, the events put on by the dealers and clubs are also part of the ownership experience.....

Your Yaris will not be worth more, or even the same as you continue to drive it, that's part of the consideration the sales manager was using when he gave you the trade value, not just whats it's worth right that second, but what it will be worth when you bring it back in a coupla months with more miles on it too....and when he tries to sell it on.

Here's the bottom line, I think if you had been sitting in the dealership with your checkbook and trade-in title ready to order the car when you made your last offer (via email), you'd be driving a MINI now instead of a increasingly devalued Toyota - who could have known they'd be going thru what they are today? But be assured, it will affect the trade in value of every Toyota on the road, regardless of whether they're involved in the recalls or not. Trying to do this over the phone or by email is usually not the best way, even tho the consumer would like it if it was.

So where does that leave you now?

You can still order a car (BTW, get it with everything you want, deleting the cold weather package would have been a mistake given the winter we've had, wouldn't it?) and get what you want, but it will probably cost you a bit more now than it would have then.....

Here's how to do it successfully......

Have a positive attitude.
Be prepared to sign on the line and write a check.
If you're not getting what you want, don't walk out - walk in - ask to see the sales manager, and be friendly about it, not angry.

Sit down with him and tell him you want to buy a car, and that if he can be a little bit flexible you can too - then be exactly that.

Deal done, no hassles, no emotion, just business.

One word about salespeople today. Frankly, I don't understand how most of them make a living. If you had been my customer (I was in the car bidness for 30 years) you would not have left the store without a signed deal and a check in my hand. And you would not have felt pushed, rushed, lied to or taken either. All you needed was to meet a real saleman, someone who knows how to make a customer happy and make a deal.

Today, they seem more like order takers, with no real understanding of the sales process or their relationship with the customer, it's no wonder people hate to buy a new car......but let's not forget the customer's side in this either, they come in looking for hard numbers so they can take them down the road to the next guy and get a better deal (as recommended by one poster in this thread), and they want the cheapest deal, then they don't understand why you're not falling all over them for allowing you to make $50 on them. It's a two way street......that's all I'm saying.

I once had a customer walk up to me at the Porsche dealership and the first thing he said to me - not hello, not my name is, no handshake - was "I don't expect you to tell me the truth, but...."

Pissed me off, I can tell you!

So, we had a five minute conversation about that first, then I sold him a new car.

 

Couple of things:

• Not all Car Max screw you on the buy. I think we actually got over on them. We dumped my wife's 2005 91k plus miles, read end accident ticking lifters Honda Accord for 8k. KBB on it was 7.4k.
• I have found women sales people are tougher to negotiate and will not deal with them because of experience. Men are easier to get off topic. Women are usually smarter than that. And have been negotiating all their lives. They are masters.
• BMW dealers. Yup own one and they are butt wipes to put it nicely. There are exceptions.
• Mini dealers although an offspring of them since mini dealers get their sales people from BMW and vica versa imo are much more low keyed.
• We bought ours off the lot with add ons for 2.5k under msrp with goodies. Don't know about orders.

 

Ordered car discounts depend on where U live, the density of MINI dealerships and competition in that area, and dealer inventory. If you're in an area of America with lots of dealers to choose from, that can be a great negotiation tool. If not, like in areas of the Intermountain West where there are only 4 dealers in one time zone (mountain), then ordered car discounts are not so likely. Then, there's the dealer's lot stock.

If they have a bizillion cars sitting around, then why should they discount an ordered one? I sure would not if I owned that dealership.

And if you MUST have a discount on an ordered car, keep your request reasonable (no more than $500 off msrp) and you may get it.

but if gas zooms back up over four bucks, the whole MINI sales dynamic will change--again.

 

And that's about right. I got $500 off my ordered 09 because Im a repeat customer. But NAM is full of tall-tales and one-upmanship macho myths about those who allegedly get discounts of $1K or more on ordered cars. I, and many others, have called them out as BS, and guess what?

Most of them disappear. The only person I know for sure that got $1K off msrp on an ordered car was due to the original orderer backing out of the deal when his car was already built and on the boat.

 

Because they never offer more for a trade-in than they'll be able to get for it. And they'll probably be selling it at auction, to another dealer who won't offer any more for it than he'll be able to get from a buyer. I'm no dealer so maybe I'm missing something, but that seems pretty straight forward. Basically they have to low-ball you to keep from taking a bath on that car. I don't buy the argument that they can use accounting magic to make the loss go away.

Nothing against the Versa, but it is getting long in the tooth and it competes against the Fit, which gets better mileage and has more interior space, and the Cube and Soul, which have new and distinctive (if polarizing) styling. So it has to compete on price, which drives down the market for used Versas.

Unless Mini starts having a hard time moving cars--they do seem a little more motivated lately--I don't think they'll deal much. And once the Countryman hits the showroom, forget it.

 

Dave,
Understood. Please understand that I am a car guy and come from a car loving family. I own an e30 M3 so driving experience is important to me. My father has a 63 split window fuelie that is concours quality and a few other American Muscle cars. I love to drive.

Truth be told, I should have taken the Mini more seriously when I went to buy a "commuter car." That is what the Yaris is for me...a commuter. I didn't think that my vague Mini itch would manifest into something more than just that....an itch. Knowing how I am though...I should have been more cognizant of that fact that I would dersire more even for a daily driven car.

So, here I am with a Yaris (great little commuter btw) really wanting something more but saving for my retirement and attempting to put 2 kids through college while paying today's day care bills. I also plan on adding onto my home within the next 5 years. This all plays into how much I want to spend and well, realistically what I can afford. In short, I can probably only afford the Yaris. With my taste, I will not be able to keep from dumping atleast $5-$10K into the Mini anyhow.

Well...enough of my rambling. I just hoped, in the back of my mind, that I would be able to make something work. I figured too much perhaps, that a slowing economy would better position me as a new customer but, in reality...it appears as if it's pretty status quo out there. I don't see or hear about many people getting really, really good deals. That doesn't mean that they are not out there and surely it depends on want/needs/saviness etc. So...no harm, no foul. I just figured to update the thread as I thought the situation was a bit interesting...well to me anyhow.

I may still end up in a Mini at some point...I think that for now, I'll be happy with what I have. Thanks again for everybody's comments and input!

 

I'm beginning to realize how lucky I am. I ordered my MCS February 15th. I shopped around via telephone for about a week before finally speaking with a salesperson who agreed upfront to give me 1550 off my ordered/custom MCS along with a trade-in. Over the phone he told me he could offer between 16,500 to 16,800 for a used 2008 Honda Element. I called him twice to confirm this since I'd have to drive 4 hours to get there. Once there they offered 16,500. I tried to get back to 16,800 and then a little while later after actually calling Honda dealers he said they realized the vehicle is actually only worth 15,000 now. They were amazing, though. They agreed to honor 16,500 if the Element was left there for them and I still got the 1550 off the order.

The MA I worked with felt bad about the element deal (even though I was perfectly happy with it), so he even threw in a pair of rubber Cooper mats.

I probably lucked out because Florida has a plethora of MINI dealers, all of which I was willing to drive to, and I let the MA know up front I'd gotten so and so offer from this dealer. But wow, after reading this... I'm counting my lucky stars.

 

Sorry, I didn't read all the replies, the OP post was long and so are many of the replies but my experience for what it's worth is

1. Carmax will offer on average around 1000.00 more than BMWNA for your trade, but you should still be able to make more selling it yourself.

2. Never Order a car, decide what are must have options for you and make your dealer find you a car because you will be able to negotiate a much better deal. My one exception to this rule is if you are doing a Euro-Delivery on a BMW then you can order it exactly the way you want it and will still save Big $$$. I really don't get why we can't do Euro-Delivery on JCW's since they are assembled and shipped for Germany, and they already have the system in place and you could pick it up at the BMW Welt. That place is totally awesome.

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0WTefTvI5...t_04_88353.jpg

 

another thing to consider about trading the car in is that you won't have to pay sales tax on the trade in value (at least here in washington state)

for example:

car price: 20,000
trade in: 5,000

you'll only pay sales tax on 15,000 compared to 20,000 if you didnt trade the car in

here in seattle where sales tax is almost 10%, it's almost like i'd be getting 5,500 for the trade in (5,000 x 10% sales tax rate)

 

As a former New and Pre-Owned Sales Manager for BMW and MINI, I can assure you that I regularly sent cars to the auction and lost money. It's not fake. I can't even count how many cars I took in trade over the years where I ended up selling them at the auction (or even to a retail buyer on my lot) for less than what I paid for them. I don't get why it is so hard for you to imagine that this is true?

It's a business decision... they're investing hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars in used cars and they are buying and selling cars on a daily basis, so they have very accurate information regarding what cars are worth. You are paying $0 to go to KBB, Edmunds, NADA, etc. to have the website tell you what your car is worth. Who do you think has the more accurate information about what your car is really worth?

 

I believe you completely. There's no great mystery why you don't get top dollar on a trade-in. The buyer (that being BMWNA in this case) needs to get it cheap enough to have a reasonable chance to sell it for a profit and there are lots of expenses along the way. I would guess pretty much all the ones that end up at auction go for a loss.

 

One important correction... the buyer is your dealer, not BMWNA. Dealers are independent businesses, they buy cars from BMW and sell them to customers... and they are the ones buying your trade, not BMW.

 

At this point I think what it comes down to for MFlossin is see if the dealer will discount off MSRP to make up for the low trade in offer on the Yaris. With the poor economy, this is not out of the picture, unless you are dealing with a snooty dealer. Trust me, I can get into that regarding my experience at one BMW dealer in particular, but I won't in this post.

I had the same dilemna last year, where they were playing games with my trade in and the purchase price of the car. It was the seesaw effect, where they would give me more for the trade and not take off MSRP or the other way around.

In the end I ended up selling my Honda to a family member and had the dealer take a considerable chunck off the MSRP (1200 off). I know you would like to order, but you can really save some serious cash if you order a vehicle that the dealer has on the lot.

 

There is another option, sell his car by owner and buy a low mileage MINI from a private owner or even a dealer. He can maximize his cash in and minimize the cash out that way but it requires more work. I got the car listed in my sig below from a MB dealer who took it in on a trade for a Smart Car of all things. It had 2840 miles (with a 55k mile Mini warrany) and they accepted my low-ball offer for 12k off sticker That was a 30% discount and it had all my must have items (JCW, Nav, Xenon, and Premium) but I had to search for awhile and ship it from FL to CA.

 

Guys,
Thanks for all of the replies. One thing to keep in mind...I am not trying to position myself for the "BEST" deal per se. My intent was to get the most for the least amount of effort and time, otherwise I would sell on private market. I just figured to give it a shot...see what I could get or what they would give me and if it all was sweet enough and I felt good about it, I would do it.

I am still not sold on the used car trade-in deal with the dealer losing money. Surely the dealer can lose money because he brings cars to auction but I can't imagine that the purchase price vs sell at auction price is not written off. Essentially, they lose no money. I can't see how they could stay in business with all of the cars they trade-in if they were constantly losing money that they could not write off as a loss.

I believe that there are still instances where the quality and cleanliness deserves to be rewarded. This would be my case in particular but again, I am not so passionate that I just HAVE TO HAVE the Mini at this point.

 

I just don't get how you don't get it. Do you have experience in any type of business setting? (meant as a serious question... not trying to make fun of you)

How do you propose that they just "write it off"? As in, they give you $9000 for your car, are only able to sell it for $7500 at auction, and magically someone deposits $1500 in their bank account to make up the difference? Or that the other independent used car dealers at the auction feel bad for dealer XYZ because they had to give you too much for your car to make a deal, so they magically pay $1500 more than the actual value of the car to help the other guy out?

It is real money. Dealers send cars to auction and hope to break even, but most often lose some amount of money but occasionally get lucky and make a few dollars. At the end of the day, they hope to be as close to a break-even in their wholesale department as possible. If they are losing money (trust me, I had plenty of months where the bottom line in my wholesale account was in red ink) they hope that they have sold enough used cars at a profit to retail buyers so that their overall used car operations makes money. Not all do... and some dealers really go out of business because of this type of problem.

On another (somewhat unrelated) note, I'm sure you'd be amazed to see how little money a dealer ship makes on the bottom line from all the revenue they generate in sales, service and parts. With net income being such a smaller number, a bad month at the auctions can easily mean that your dealership is in the hole at the end of the month if you do not have a large/profitable service department. After a few months of this type of problem, there is a good chance that your dealership won't be in business anymore.

 

I highly doubt they won't be in business anymore. BMW/MINI dealerships are notorious for not discounting off MSRP. I understand the dealership is trying to maximize profit, but if they wanted an easy sale, they could easily take off a little bit off the MSRP of the purchase price of the vehicle and not budge on the trade-in or vice versa. If they did that I'm sure the OP would be more receptive to signing on the dotted line and ordering his MINI. Since they are not willing to do either, the OP should go to a different dealer.

I think you are looking at things too much from a business standpoint rather than as a consumer, which is completely understandable based on your background. The consumer's main goal is to get the best deal for him/herself, not for the business.

When I purchased my MINI, I had a sales person shout at me in astonishment because I would not purchase a vehicle from her over $200. She then told me ,"I guess we don't have anything further to discuss." She was absolutely right, because I took my business elsewhere and got a better price on my vehicle.

 

So, at the time you went in and wasted everybody at the dealership's time you weren't really interested in buying a car.......

unless it felt right or seemed sweet.......

And how do you determine those things?

This is how most cars are sold - impulse purchases. The deal "seems good" or it "felt right" or they just wanted one.....it's the worst way to buy a car. Many of those buyers suffer serious buyer's remorse the next day too....but that's how it's done......most of the time.

Your car is always worth what someone will pay, no more. If the dealer says it's worth $x, that's what it's worth to him, and chances are that's it's real wholesale value anywhere on the street or at any other car lot too. But if you really want to know what your car is worth, take it to the Toyota dealer and ask for a purchase bid - THAT's what your car is worth - period. Armed with that fact, then you go to the dealer and there's no "it sounded sweet or it felt like a good deal" to it, the numbers are black and white, and either they make sense or they don't.

People who make up their mind about a car deal by "it sounded sweet" are fooling themselves, they're just justifying their purchase....

You sound like you knew what your car was worth and you certainly knew what the MINI was priced at, and you were by your own accounting $500 away from owning the car. I fault the salesman for not realizing this and finding a way to make the deal. But you weren't serious either, otherwise you would have made your counter offer while you were there and made the deal....

But you also can't say there was no emotion involved or you wouldn't have been so passionate about your trade value and the condition of your car. Now tho, you're faced with a declining market value for your trade due to forces beyond your or the dealer's control.

Cars are strictly an expense, and how you value that expense is why we have so many choices of cars, trucks and vans and I'm certainly glad we do, but it does muddy the waters when it comes time to trade.

Beats the heck out of the alternative tho, where everybody in the world drives a white Yaris......

 

I totally understand what the consumer feels like... I was just commenting on his statement that he really doesn't think that a dealer loses money if they sell a car for less than they paid and that they can just "write it off". On second thought, I'd love to hire him to be my accountant some day. His creative math would make me feel much better about my finances.