Hi! I’m new here and trying to lease a i4 or i5 demo/loaner. To my surprise, a “company car” i5 is available. Its original MSRP was $76,000 and now it’s $66,000. It has less than 1000 miles. My questions are, is a company car the same as a demo/loaner? Does it qualify for the $7500 off loaner/demos that is available this month? How much more should I realistically expect to be able to ask off the price? I don’t want to offend the dealer.
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Lol what is up with all these “brass hat” cars all of a sudden?
I’d find out first if the advertised discount is pre or post incentives and rebate.
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Do your research. Check marketplace on LH. Try to determine what others are paying in your market area. And don’t worry about offending the dealer. They’re not worried about offending you and others with their sometimes-ridiculous offers.
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You need to separate discount from rebate.
Check Marketplace to see how much discount is being offered on i4/i5 loaners and how much rebate they qualify for.
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Can’t disagree.
I seriously don’t know what that means or if it’s positive or negative. Please enlighten me.
I sent an email. Awaiting a response.
I legitimately didn’t know what this term meant until like 1 one day ago. And now it’s come up 3 times in three different threads.
The “brass hat” term is meant to describe car/builds that are made with the original intention to go to executives, marketing, promotional use, or whatever. So they are originally destined for someone at HQ to use for some purpose. I had known of these vehicles as simply “corporate cars.”
Eventually the cars get to a point where the vehicle is sold. Unfortunately it seems BMW-NA usually dumps these to auction.
Here is an example of 2 i4 M50 “brass hats”.
The problem as you’d imagine is that you don’t actually know what these were used for. Were they driven by a plant manager (unlikely since this Plant is in Munich). Were they used in a BMW Ultimate Driving Experience? Were they at the auto show getting farted in by 10,000 patrons? Did some VP of Marketing sleep in one during lunch?
My understanding is also that BMWFS won’t allow a brass hat to be leased or CPO.
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From what I’ve seen, the discount is between 8-9 percent on the i5 and 9-10 on the i4. I’m secure in knowing what to target for the i4, just waiting for the right loaner/demo to pop up. But after driving the i5, I like it too. I’ll take whichever I can get a deal on first that has what I want.
Agreed, I meant I don’t wanna offend them in a way that gets my offer completely ignored because it’s unrealistic. Not that I care if they don’t like a reasonable offer. I want to at least be able to get the negotiation going.
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If you push one of the brokers here, you will get that I5 discount before rebates closer to 11%. Keep in mind the incentives on a I5 demo/loaner may not be the same as new. Discount will need to be higher for it to make sense. I do think the I5 has a better value proposition, versus I4, right now. See
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As long as they are in new condition cosmetically and mechanically and heavily discounted, I don’t mind any of this lol.
Sounds like you’d really like a brass hat car. But it seems then you’ll need to find a bank other than BMWFS to do the lease.
Oh ok. This is what I need to understand because if it can’t be leased or isn’t considered a loaner/demo, I don’t think the $7500 credit applies.
Thanks for the explanation.
No, but a brass hat car’s adjusted capitalized cost should already be very low. It’s as if there’s $7,500 baked in there reducing the transaction price from the get-go.
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Yeah, I had a dealer that had a CPO i4 with 300ish miles on it. He said Ally bank would allow me to lease it, but then there was no $7500 lease credit available. Without the credit, I could’ve just got a new one built to my exact specs for the same price, so it didn’t make sense.
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I figure it’s in the $10k that is already discounted. It would be great if it wasn’t though. I’ll find out tomorrow for sure.
I thought cars like loaners had to have at least 5k miles or be sitting for at least 6 months if not to be allowed to lease out. Assume exec demos would be similar.