Many years ago I had the unfortunate experience of going to a new home subdivision where the builder had a sales agent sitting there, I talked to them, then came back to buy with my agent and the seller said, “No! You talked to me, therefore you cannot bring an agent.” Or more accurately, you can bring an agent, but they won’t get paid.
Is it similar with a car broker? Can I go to (or at least call) a couple of dealerships (to find the details/features of a car they have on the lot †), and then hire a broker to help me lease the one I choose? Or if I talk to the dealer first can I no longer use a broker and/or a broker won’t get paid?
Looking to lease a new BMW X4 M Competition in SoCal.
† Why-the-heck don’t all dealerships make all the window stickers available? So annoying!
I don’t see why not. New home sales is a bit different because of the size of commission but dealer vs broker has more variables (the broker may not even be using the dealer you went to).
At one dealership I was surprised because one manager was aware of the LH deals and was very transparent and said show him the numbers I like and he will try to match it. Gave me the MF, Res and incentives and numbers were very close.
That strategy is the wrong way around. Decide what features are must-haves for you and then contact brokers from the Marketplace to see if their inventory has one such car.
Despite what “broker” may imply, no one here is going to negotiate for your chosen car for you. Brokers are moving the inventory that dealers want moved, at pre-negotiated prices. No one is wasting time trying to make bespoke deals for anyone. Slightly unflattering analogy but think a suit at TJ Maxx, not a Savile Row tailor.
This is probably going to be one of the worst leases of all time on LH, FYI.
I would recommend you do not do that. At least with my dealers, that usually creates a lead conflict. At the end of the day, the retail/Internet employees at dealers still get paid a commission for helping walk-in / call-in customers, and when you make contact with them, they put you in the CRM as a lead. When you then go use a broker to get the same car, the broker presumably uses their own contact in the fleet department (which is different than retail / Internet sales), and then you run into an issue of who gets credit for the eventual sale of that car to that customer. And often times, the dealer will not want to give the customer the fleet price when they’ve already been quoted the (often worse) retail / Internet price. My advice - choose a path and go with it. You create issues when you do both. Good luck!
It’s a relatively low production model with a high msrp with an “ok” mf, a pretty rough RV ( at least on 36/10 that I checked ), most likely not a large dealer discount and limited incentives / rebates. Pretty much the opposite of a “hackable” car and most likely why @max_g forecasted his prediction.
The upside is if this one of those “the heart wants what the heart wants” type vehicles you are in one of the most competitive markets in the country and their are no shortage of BMW dealers and brokers on LH that service that market. Check the marketplace section of LH for options. May also want to see what the costs are on a CPO purchase of one of these as a comparison point.
So what you’re saying is, if you choose a broker you should not review a live vehicle? How does this make sense? How do people learn what they can live with or not without seeing it first hand? Go simply on internet research or their own experience with a particular model?
The OP is asking about calling or enquiring on a car at a local dealer himself, then having a broker try to negotiate on the exact same car from the exact same dealer. That is what is not recommended.
It is of course completely fine to go to dealers and on test drives, get your hands on the car, figure out what you want, etc. But when it comes time to talk numbers and make offers on a specific unit at a specific dealer, either do it yourself or use a broker, not both.
No, that’s not what I’m saying. If you have your eye on a specific car and want it, and if you’re considering using a broker, then go down that path and don’t contact the dealer directly yourself. A broker can still assist you in whatever review you need to do for the car before getting it, whether it’s sending you photos of the car, the window sticker of the car, and if absolutely needed, arranging a test drive of the car (though I’d say if you’re going to use a broker, test drive a similar model at a local dealer to make sure you like it before contacting a broker to help you with a specific unit).
The point is — have the broker help you review the car if you’re going down the path of using a broker, because if you contact the dealer yourself, it creates other issues that may prevent the broker from assisting you due to a lead conflict.
Great programs (RV, MF and incentives) from the lessor can lead to great leases. The rest is a negotiated discount on behalf of the dealer.
Terrible programs are guaranteed to lead to terrible leases. It doesn’t matter what discount you negotiate, all that’s asking for is a little less shit in a shit sandwich.
Investigate whether buying brand new or CPO/used is a better proposition before signing anything.
Would you contact 2 or 3 brokers to try to get a deal on the car you want or just contact one broker? What is the etiqette there? This will be my first time leasing so would like to know
That one honestly gets a bit touchy depending who you ask.
If a broker doesn’t have what you need then of course that’s a sensible thing to do but if your aim is to pit brokers into a bidding war then it can be seen as unserious and create an adversarial working relationship – At that point, is it really any different than doing the same with dealers directly?
Just be forthright with us and we’ll do what we can to assist if it’s a reasonable ask.
How rare is the car you were looking for? For example, every single Honda and Toyota dealer has dozens of EXL and XLE crossovers and sedans; that’s like 90% of their inventory. In that situation you only need to contact the one broker with the best value from the marketplace
On the other hand if you’re looking for something that’s very rare in a rare spec then you need to contact multiple brokers just to figure out whether they even have the car in stock or not.
