I planned on waiting until February to order, but some things I've been reading have me slightly concerned and thinking I might want to move ahead sooner. Anyone know anything about when dealers will stop taking orders for the '06 model year? Maybe I need to think about a big christmas gift for myself? I'm in Florida and planning on an MCS if that matters.

 

If i had to take a wild guess, id say since 07's wont be out till later, you will probably be able to order 06's up till about july-aug, unless they cut orders off early to setup for the retooling of the 07's

 

It may vary from dealer to dealer. When we ordered ours, the salesman told us that each dealer is allocated so many orders that they are allowed to place. Most they try to hold for customer's specific requests but they also have to keep cars on the lot ready for sale so some are ordered by the dealer. After placing our first order we decided to add options, but we could not change an existing order. With approval from the manager, he decided that the first order was something that they could sell outright to another buyer and allowed us to place a second order. But he did have the right to simply refund our deposit or force us to accept it as originally ordered. I'd talk to my local dealer and explain your situation. See if he can 'reserve' an order slot for your future use. It may require a refundable deposit. But it's still early in the production season, and sales won't pick up again until tax return season so you've got time. Our dealer was really easy to work with, and all dealers want to sell, so if you want to buy, you can work something out to your satisfaction...

 

Another consideration to order it NOW is the fact that all MINI's delivered after March 1st will have a $500 price increase. If that doesn't matter to you then I would think your safe until May or June depending on the dealer allotment.

 

I could be wrong (and often am), but the recent articles I have read about the 2007 models have made it sound like they will be released closer to the end of 2005 rather than late summer 2005.

But what do I know about what it takes to switch from one model to a new one?

 

The prices have already been increased by $350 since the first week in December. The MCS base price was $20,600 when I ordered mine on December 9. The base price when I checked this morning is now $20,950. I was told earlier that the increase was going to be about $300. Anthing ordered now most likely won't be delivered until after March 1, 2006.

 

Not true, if you're on the East Coast you could probably order anytime before the new year and take delivery by mid Feb.... However if you're on the West Coast or Hawaii you won't see the car until after March 1. Unless of course you want Space Grey cloth... Heck last year MINI of Towson was promising me delivery by the end of the second week of Feb '05 when I put my deposit down on Dec 30 '04. I actually had them push the order back a month to ensure the car was delivered when I was ready for it... And it still arrived a week sooner than expected, the order was finally placed the last week of Jan and the car arrived at the dealer March 12.

Either way if you wanted to wait until Feb '06 you'll still get an '06. From what it sounds like from reading MF, you could possibly wait until early fall. However until the late winter/early spring auto show season starts up (Frankfort, Geneva, Detroit etc) it's going to be hard predicting just what's going to happen... Even then we may not get any official news on the schedule until the summer...