How I Scored a Fabulous Deal from the Comfort of My Easy Chair

[robert.payne]

Yes... great deals can be had on the 135i with very minimal effort. I just ordered mine for $2,795 below MSRP + tax & title, $0.00 doc prep fee, and no trade in. Like most people, I also got the floor mats free.

Here's how:

1. Know What You Want

It is imperative that you know exactly what you want and what the invoice price should be. How will you know you've gotten a good deal if you don't know what you should be paying? I've seen this exemplified on eBay many times when people bid more for an item than they could have gotten it for at the store because they didn't research what the cost of the item should be.

This very forum is a great source of information. Invoice prices are stickied. You can also go to websites such as edmunds or kbb.

2. Decide How Much You are Willing to Pay

Don't ask the dealer for his "best offer" or what kind of deal he can make. You control the deal. You decide what price you want to pay -- up front.

3. Prepare Your Offer and Fax or email it to the Dealerships of Your Choice

When you submit your offer to the dealer, make sure you are specific about what you want (remember step 1 above?) and what you want to pay.

You can get the fax numbers for your chosen dealers from BMW's website under "Dealer Locator".

Send your offer to several dealerships. Cast a wide net to enhance your chance of success. In my case, I faxed EVERY BMW dealer in the southeast region of the U.S.

Since I'm wanting to take delivery at the BMW Performance Center, I really don't care which dealer places my order.

Once you've gotten your chosen fax numbers, the process of faxing doesn't really have to take very long. I faxed all 53 dealers on my list in about 4 minutes. I signed up for a free 30 day trial account at myfax.com This allowed me to send faxes through email. Since I could address a single email to 9 different fax numbers, I only had to cut and paste to 6 emails; which as stated, took about 4 minutes.

Total time I have invested at this point: about an hour and a half.

As an example of what to say, below is a copy of the offer I sent out.



4. Relax in Your Favorite Easy Chair and Wait for the Dealers to Respond

About a third of the dealerships I sent my fax to chose not to respond at all. Guess they weren't interested in my offer. No big deal, that's why I cast a wide net.

Several dealerships let me know that they would not entertain any offers below MSRP since the 1 series is new, in high demand, in short supply... words, words, words. Again, wide net.

Other dealerships told me that my offer was unreasonable and that I had incorrect information on pricing. However, they would be willing to do me a favor and offered anywhere from $500 to $1200 off MSRP. No thanks... back to the net analogy.

In the end, though, I had one dealership come within $500 of my original offer, while two dealership's accepted my offer as proposed. The difference between the two was that one was willing to waive the $499 doc prep fee while the other wasn't. Guess who got my order?

So, to recap: I expended minimal effort and scored a fabulous deal all from the comfort of my easy chair. It took about 7 hours from start to finish and I never had to sit across from anyone at the negotiating table arguing back and forth while my blood pressure steadily rose.

Happy shopping,

-robert

[Motorsports_3]

Wow I wish i did this before ordering mine...

[happywalmartcustomer]

But now, you're going to get follow up calls and emails from 52 dealers for the rest of your life. Congrats on the deal!

[ARES45]

Congrats, I will definitely consider this on the next vehicle, though it will probably be a lease, it should work similar. This is of course if I don't buy a bmw through military sales.

[sadu77]

nobody likes a bragger.... or a jealous dude reading your post. well played pal. :respekt:

[mateo]

I would have given you the deal too, given your last name.

[larryn]

This looks a repost of the "Rizzo Method" from years ago. Google it, it's almost verbatim, but it does work in lots of markets.

[Red135]

The result is envious. Unfortunately, I ordered my car before I found this forum and the dealer told me that MSRP was their discount. He has offered me other items in return: the popular free floor mats, 1/2 price tinting and I will try for a travel mug!

[40yroldawakening]

ok, can you tell us who the dealer is ???

[1HungryMan]

Canadians have a very similar method, but I'm not going to post it publicly until I can confirm it will work with the 1 Series. Will report back.

[young1er]

No offense. I work in commercial vehicle sales and if I received a fax like this I would:

A. Not Respond
B. Respond, but tell you to pull your head out of your ass.

While I do sell vehicles for $800 over invoice and I will meet a customer's needs and be polite and respectful, but when confronted like this I feel that most salesmen would get a little offended.

That is just my 2 cents on why others may not have responded.

However, congrats on the great deal. Well played. Sending out that many faxes would assure you to find a dead market where they are not selling them like hot cakes.

PS. The nice thing about commercial vehilces is that invoice pricing is not plastered all over the internet like retail car sales so we do not generally deal with these situations.

[robert.payne]

Originally Posted by young1er

No offense. I work in commercial vehicle sales and if I received a fax like this I would:

A. Not Respond
B. Respond, but tell you to pull your head out of your ass.

While I do sell vehicles for $800 over invoice and I will meet a customer's needs and be polite and respectful, but when confronted like this I feel that most salesmen would get a little offended.

That is just my 2 cents on why others may not have responded.

However, congrats on the great deal. Well played. Sending out that many faxes would assure you to find a dead market where they are not selling them like hot cakes.

PS. The nice thing about commercial vehilces is that invoice pricing is not plastered all over the internet like retail car sales so we do not generally deal with these situations.

Absolutely no offense taken. In fact, I did encounter both situations A) and B) above. No big deal. Fortunately, not every salesman felt the same.

[SCA1]

Robert -- I'm just getting ready to order mine this week when I read your post. Damn! I'm going to give this a try! :w00t:

[young1er]

Just looked at your specs. That is going to be a good looking car. I briefly considered that combo, but way too much up keep for me to keep it looking nice.

[robert.payne]

Originally Posted by 40yroldawakening

ok, can you tell us who the dealer is ???

I'll tell you that the dealership in Fayetteville, NC was very agreeable. Valley Auto BMW.

-robert

[BMW Dreamer]

SO I guess you didn't trade in a car? Thats where they would of got you. I HAVE to order the 135i at the dealer close to me. I always take in all the papers on invoice and MSRP. Plus the dealer gets 3-4% back at the end of the year from BMW. So if they sell it for invoice they still make a profit of $1400 on a $42k car.

I will probably have to trade-in my car because I have nothing else to drive. I will take in KBB and Edmunds examples, plus adds from dealers of what my car is selling for on lots. I am sure they will low-ball me on my car and try to get MSRP on the 135i. Thats how it always is. Even when I knew salesmen, the sales manager makes the final OK.

[crzy4135i]

Originally Posted by happywalmartcustomer

But now, you're going to get follow up calls and emails from 52 dealers for the rest of your life. Congrats on the deal!

That's easy.. fax them all back and say thank you for your consideration but I was able to purchase the car from dealership xxx.

[crzy4135i]

Are there any benefits from buying the car from the same local dealership that will service the car? I always thought they might be more helpful down the road if I bought the car from them. I'm going to my local dealership after work Monday to order the car. I would be more than happy to pay $1k below list price. If they say "list price only" I'll inform them I'm willing to wait for awhile until the market cools off a bit on these cars. I'm not going to spend 5 hours in there talking the price down like I did the last time.

[jeremyc74]

Originally Posted by young1er

No offense. I work in commercial vehicle sales and if I received a fax like this I would:

A. Not Respond
B. Respond, but tell you to pull your head out of your ass.

While I do sell vehicles for $800 over invoice and I will meet a customer's needs and be polite and respectful, but when confronted like this I feel that most salesmen would get a little offended.

That is just my 2 cents on why others may not have responded.

However, congrats on the great deal. Well played. Sending out that many faxes would assure you to find a dead market where they are not selling them like hot cakes.

PS. The nice thing about commercial vehilces is that invoice pricing is not plastered all over the internet like retail car sales so we do not generally deal with these situations.

There are two ways to look at his.

A) Look at this cocky bastard thinking he can get a deal
B) Here's a sales lead I didn't even know about when I rolled out of bed this morning that I had to expend ZERO effort to obtain and the dealership can make a quick easy $800 on with nothing more than a paper shuffle and a couple of phone calls.

Anyone who doesn't take option B has the wrong approach IMO. This is a sale that fell out of thin air and you'd be crazy to not at least make a counter offer.

[raisemyrent]

Originally Posted by robert.payne

Yes... great deals can be had on the 135i with very minimal effort. I just ordered mine for $2,795 below MSRP + tax & title, $0.00 doc prep fee, and no trade in. Like most people, I also got the floor mats free.

...

-robert

nice. I guess some people don't like it, but it comes down to this: there are 10,000 1ers going to the US this year... somewhere, someone will see things the way Robert did, from the other side, and go with it. There is nothing wrong with that.

Now, Robert Payne eh? I went to junior high with a guy with that name; he was from Iowa, though.

[InsaneSkippy]

I'm so glad I found this thread before I paid/traded my car in.

[Matt60158]

Great thread almost good enough to be stickied.