My local dealer (Global Imports of Atlanta) proudly claims to sell MINIs at MSRP. So they had on the lot the very car I wanted. Black over silver, premium pkg, cloth seats. MSRP listed at $19,995. I drive the little butt-rocket and love it. I hate the idea of paying MSRP, but I realize its a surface-of-the-sun hot car and that's what the market will bear. I say lets do the deal. I'll write you a check and you tag and title it to my name. I wanna drive it home right then. Salesperson is all excited. I'm all excited. We sit. Finance-boy sits with us. I say, "No need. I'm paying cash." Finance-boy says he has to go over some fine points with me. Suddenly he's hitting me with Dealer Prep Charge $595.00; Documentary Fee $299.00; Customer Guard $248.00. Suddenly the agreed upon price of $19,995 has jumped to $21,268. Just seems like $1,263 is a lot for a car wash. I say this is a deal breaker. Sad faces all around, but no movement. So I walk. Is this padding what most of you faced? Did you acquiesce? I just feel that if you want to sell the car for $21,268 sell it for that. Don't ask a lower price and then sandbag me later. Oh well nice car, not so nice way to do business.
And so it goes

 

paid 21,800 for my msc with package #1 and #2

no dealer prep charges no paint protection BS

i used to work at a car dealership, that might have helped

 

I'd say that was fairly typical of the way most dealers work. The finance guy is always the one that discloses all the surprises and tries to sell you extended warranties, Lojack, super polish jobs, etc. They count on most people not being willing to walk at that point. The dealer prep is usually already included on the window sticker but the doc fee is also hard to avoid, $199+ is not unusual. Even Carmax, which is a very straight dealing national outfit, has a $99 doc fee.

Most dealers of other brands would've tried to save the deal and dropped one the charges but the MINI is still in high demand and they know they can sell it to someone else. It's sad that state franchise laws protect these guys from real competition and having only 72 dealers in the USA doesn't help. The MINI would've been the perfect brand to sell direct on the internet and be delivered and serviced through service centers instead of the classic dealer model.

 

If it makes you feel any better, in Mexico we pay about 20-25% over U.S. prices in taxes for the same cars.
An MCS with leather, premium and sport packages runs at $28,800.

 

If you order a mini, here in Hawaii it goes MSRP all the way. Your wait is about 5 months or more.
If you buy off the lot then automatically you get to pay $395 for rubber floor mats,boot mat, & wheel locks which they call the appearance package. A dealer pack.

Dealer prep charge and customer guard are dealer packs. That's $850 worth of dealer profit.
Doc fee is sometimes legit. Maybe $199 for that not $299- seems high.
Any advertising fee is dealer profit.

In China (and in Bankok) the price of a base mini cooper is reported to be about $50,000 due to heavy import tarif/taxes. They still plan to see about 300 in China this year. Good thing you live in the USA.

 

You should have told them i will wash the car when i get home no need to charge me to detail it. you should pay MSRP and DOC fees (299 is very high though).

 

I recently got my MINI from Global.... You will not get out of the doc fee... but tell them you will buy Floor mats if they drop the dealer prep and refuse to pay the "consumer guard" you can tell them you KNOW Jason (picked up my blk/white copper just over a week ago) did not pay any extras except the doc fee....(yeah I bought floor mats but they are quite nice) are you working with Laurie????

Can't blame them for trying to up their profit but they cant blame you for refusing to pay all they ask for....

 

Is it different when you order as opposed to buying off the lot? Cause I paid straight MSRP for my MCS. No sandbagging by the finance guy--it was an absolutely painless experience. But I ordered mine...

I had a friend who was totally pulled together and prepared to reject every little $595 detail job the dealer threw at her. Her boyfriend, however, was not so experienced and ended up biting at every scotch guard and paint protection service the finance guy threw his way. They ended up paying an absurd amount of money for their Civic Hybrid just so coffee will bead up on the upholstry...

What a creepy game.

 

I bought my car off the lot at Hassel, no last minute BS and I paid what was agreed to over the phone, I bought rubber floormats after I took delivery because I wanted to, just read the dealer ratings and make your choices accordingly.

X2

 

Customer-Guard? What in the blue blazes is that? Ix-nay that.

$299 Doc prep fee for a non financed purchase is utterly ludacris. The Doc Prep is refering most specifically to the finance paperwork, not title and tax. Any consumer can fill those forms out. ). And I financed it, so that's industry average origination costs.

R

 

Global claims consumer guard is paint chip touchup and door ding removal during the free service period (if I remember correctly) but I park in the back of the lots and just got a touch up pen from a MCO sponsor for 2o something inc shipping.... lots cheaper than the 250 or so they want for Consumer Ream...LOL... Both dealers in the area have mixed reviews.... but it is nice to have a choice.... I contacted Globals rival but never got any call backs so Global it was.... I was happy with how it went.... Time will tell on service.

 

Total ********. in MD they won't allow dealers to have over charges like that, so I bought my car there.. you usually dont find msrp on the ot but usually that has to do with dealer installed options and labor cost which are always over priced anyway, but at least you're getting something for them. I walked in with a printout of what I saw online and that is the price I got. save destination charges, but I had mine built and shipped so i didn't mind, if it had been on the lot I would have refused to pay destination charges. Find another dealer, you can akways get it serviced at the mini near you ( as I have foudn out recently). BTW make sure your at an authorized MINI dealer there are a few scam dealerships like the one in alexandria VA. check the website or call mini to fidn authorized ones.

 

I paid $45 doc fee in San Francisco.

 

MSRP + tax and tags. Don't pay more than that, you don't have to and if no one does it will send a message to these jack@##es who want to overcharge despite the fact that MINI doesn't want them to. (It is suggested that they charge MSRP but I don't think MINI can do anythin)

Oh and I paid cash by the way and had no extra hidden fees. Look in the dealer ratings and hopefully you'll find someone in your area.
-Chris

 

Call Kadie at Ferman Mini in Palm Harbor,FL.
Ask about cars on the lot and pick one...get
a price and they'll stick with it. That has been
my experience 3 times.....
They wash it up for free.....and your break in will
be almost done when you get back to Hotlanta.

 

I got my 03 MCS from Roadshow MINI in Memphis, TN. Picked it up in January.

MSRP all the way, no added packages.
I did pay a document fee (I think under $200), most of which I believe went to the separate company that did the licensing for an out of state purchase. I just picked up the car, drove home with temp tags, 2 months later got my tags in the mail - done. No hassles. Great experience. I can fully recommend Roadshow MINI in Memphis. My motoring advisor was Dorian Geraci. Thanks again Dorian for a great experience!
Markus

 

At Northwest MINI in Tacoma, WA I paid MSRP + $395 ADP. The $395 was disclosed at the time of ordering (7 months before delivery). That was it plus tax and tags. No document fee, no Scotchguard hard-sell, no $400 floor mats, no surprises at all on delivery day. Very straightforward way to do business. I've never paid ADP on a car deal before, but then again I've never before closed a deal without running the stupid gantlet with the finance guy shilling for rustproofing, undercoating, etc... so on the whole I preferred the MINI experience. I would absolutely get up and leave if a dealer tried to push through a $299 doc fee on a cash purchase.

 

the only extra charges other than msrp and tax for my mcs on order are luxury tax of $75, doc fee of $20, and inspection fee $10.... not too much to ask for i think...

 

>>You should have told them i will wash the car when i get home no need to charge me to detail it. you should pay MSRP and DOC fees (299 is very high though).


funny you said that...because i told them that..and he comes back "dont be silly, we will wash it"

 

Bought mine at Flow Mini in Winston-Salem and paid MSRP plus a modest doc fee. No other charges or add ons. You were right to walk - there are other dealers out there.

 

Consumer guard involves etching your vin number into the windows and the aforementioned door ding thing. It also saves you 10% off your insurance premium if you use USAA. Destination charges you cannot get out of. That's a charge to the dealer by BMW. Dealer prep involves a detail, putting oil, gas, coolant, wiper fluid, a battery, etc. in the car. Basically makes the car drivable. I suppose you could probably get them to absorb this cost into MSRP on an MC, but not on an MCS.

Doc fee = addition dealer markup, but good luck getting out of it.

The Global people are more or less incompetent, but they've got a captive market and they know it.

 

Ask them what they'll charge if you finance it since it seems they tacted those on upon learning it was a cash deal.

Then, give it 24-hours and pay it off.

Might be worth checking it out.

 

That's a bit excessive.. at Towne MINI in WNY, it was an extra $500 for dealer prep, but that also included cloth or rubber MINI floormats, so it wasn't that bad.. and they were all up front about it, no shuffling to the finance guy to spring anything on you....

but :
Depending on how the dealer hands out emergency spare keys, this may be a bad thing.. Dealers can make spare keys if they know the VIN #, and it has happened that a non-owner has called in a VIN, picked a up set of keys, and stole a car.. it's not the most common, as you have to plan ahead for the theft, but it seems like if you really wanted to steal a MINI, having a VIN number so visable might be helpfull in your quest...

Not to mention that how dare they force something on me that will alter the look of my MINI.. maybe I don't WANT to have my vin etched into my windows.

Rocketboy_X

 

Most VIN numbers are visible on most cars. Usually it is displayed near the dash. The MINI VIN number is, as well, isn't it? I think so.

Anyway, at Century MINI in SC, I noticed that my window etching was not my VIN. When I asked them about it, they said it was an encoded number that they keep on file, so no worries there.

As for dealer add-ons, some states have caps on documents fees. Others don't. A lot of dealers are charging in the $200 range for document fees where there are no caps. At least that is the case in NC and SC.

I paid a small add-on fee, because it allowed me to get a car 4 months earlier. I also got the etching, floor mats, etc., so it wasn't the end of the world.


See ya,
JS

 

If everyone would take the time to post in the dealer rating area of MCO, there would be a lot fewer nasty surprises like this. I definitely would have walked out on this deal as well. I bought my car from a notoriously scummy dealership (Herb Chambers in Boston), and all I paid above MSRP was a $160 "documentation" fee that included the registration fee. I think they were scared of me by then, though, and just hoping to get me out the door before I talked to any more of their customers...