I made a deposit on a MINI Cooper S at Century BMW in Greenville, SC on April 11 in the amount of $1500. The salesperson asked me what I did and inquired nonspecifically about my income....I believe I said "I do pretty well, I could buy that Z3 over there if I wanted to....but I don't want to".....any way she tried to charge me MSRP plus 10%!!!! With my crack negotiating skills, and my ability to hide my excitement about the MINI (yeah, RIGHT), I got her down to 5%....I got the luxury and sports packages so 5% is $1200.....I'm still pissed off about it...but what can you do? Can't wait to get the car....

 

You can say "no thank you" and go to a different dealer - like in Nashville or Georgia where you can get a Mini with no mark-up.

 

Say no thankyou and email MINI about the gouge. I'm sure they would be glad to know what the dealers are doing against company policy.(charging above MSRP that is)

 

Actually, the factory does know that dealers are marking up their MINIs. They prefer that the Dealers don't do it but they cannot control the price because that would fall under the illegal act of "price fixing" To drive the demand for "over MSRP" down, one must just refuse to pay it. If everyone refused to pay it, you would see the mark-ups quickly disappear!

 

Maybe all of us Mini nuts should have made a pact way back in 2000. That none of us would be foolish enough to pay ANY mark-ups. In fact, we would all stand united and insist on paying 5% UNDER msrp. Yeah! Why didn't we think of this before.
gotMini?