I was purposely waiting until summer to place a factory order for my next car to make it easier for everyone since when I shopped around two years ago dealers were at around invoice until June when it became easy to find 10-12% off a custom build.
In fact, I’m usually the type to shop around the entire Northeast to find the best deal possible. This time I decided that I knew what I wanted, that I’d have to do a factory build to get it, and what a fair price range would be so I wanted to visit one dealer in one day and get it done.
Imagine my surprise when the first dealer I went to that offered 12% off last time came back to me at $1,000 under MSRP. I intended to do the deal at as low as 8% to make it easy so I wouldn’t have to visit multiple dealers. I definitely wasn’t expecting production shortages to have such a dramatic impact on pricing, especially since it seemed like the automotive industry was booming post-COVID.
Now I’m finding dealers are telling me that I have to shop around if I want a deal and they’d beat it by $500. Thankfully I was able to find at least one or two dealers that will go under invoice without marking up the money factor pending an allocation.
Still, once I get into car shopping mode I find I can’t stop and it becomes a bit of an obsession. Normally I’d be patient but waiting for an allocation has been agonizing. Taking an in-stock car that’s missing the options I want wouldn’t even be a consideration unless the dealer was willing to beat that deal, especially considering how normally it doesn’t take a lot of effort to negotiate 10-12% off the sale price of an in-stock BMW.
I’m not even enjoying inquiring with multiple dealers and comparison shopping this time whereas in the past I did. I honestly did just want to get it done in one day with one dealer. Now this is all I can think about until I have a deal finalized.
When do we think the market will return to normal? I don’t mind paying 7-8% off of MSRP as opposed to 10-12% previously, but I wouldn’t go higher than that and some dealers are pretty firm at invoice at the absolute most. It’s making car shopping more difficult than usual, and I wanted the opposite experience for all parties involved this time.