Why is everyone so excited about MSRP? I know dealerships often
do additional dealer markups (EVO, anyone?), but I've always
regarded dealer markup as B.S. anyways. The recommended practice in
car purchases is to aim for a few hundred dollars over invoice, which
still gives the dealer a nice profit.

I realize the car is new, unique, has demand, etc., but I still
don't understand why people are happily putting down MSRP without
even considering negotiations.

 

At MSRP the dealer doesn't make an unreasonable amount of profit. Match that up with the whole "supply and demand" thing and MSRP is a happy place for me.
Vince

 

Just because it's new and everyone want to have the first hand on the car and everyone is willing to pay for it. We spent our money for luxury and we are paying a little more to be the first few lucky one to drive a new car. So MSRP isn't bad for those can affort the price and cannot wait. And I'm one of them.

 

haha. I think what you meant to say was:

"MSRP isn't bad for those who can afford the price
and CAN wait. WAIT A LONG F'ING TIME!"

Aaah, but we're almost there, almost there.

 

Have you seen the invoices yet? There is not a lot of market into the vehicle Mazda wanted to put this car out with as low of a sticker that they could. I am very happy with the price I'm getting:D

 

That's another way to put it. But if you wait long enough (after everyone else get their share), you might be able to get invoice price. And since we have been waited long enough, we deserve more than just the promised MSRP; oh wait, Mazda did send me a gift =)

 

What if first released prices, at MSRP, are lower than next years prices.

 

I stood my ground, not accepting MSRP. I walked out. For about a whole month. Got a nice little thanks-for stopping-in letter from the salesman about 2 days after, then, nothing. Period.

It's MSRP or NOTHING. Try it. Don't believe me. Try it.

Oh yeah, I had printouts by the handfull with dealer invoice & the whole 9 yards. He commended me for doing my homework. No dice. Didn't work!

 

You just need to understand the context and the perspective which a good portion of the long time posters are coming from. A lot of these folks started back in January (dare I say even much farther back than that) about approaching there dealers for a spot to get the car. So, not knowing how the car is going to be received by the public, how many would be built, etc... I think MSRP was a fair deal. It is very easy now, with hindsight, to say otherwise.
I totally disagree on this point. At MSRP the dealership makes a very tidy profit, somewhere between 8-10% over invoice!!
Yes, someone actually posted a scan of the invoice on this board.


In short, it's all about the waiting game and how the car will be received. If you are willing to wait, you can get a good deal. It seems that someone has already mentioned $500 below MSRP, which from what I've seen on this board is a good deal. If this car doesn't take off, wait until next year and pick it up cheap.

 

Depends on the dealership.. date.. amount of inventory.. etc.

My local Mazda dealer is getting 8 cars.. 2 are taken.. the other 6 are nicely loaded.

If you come in on 7/31 an hour or 2 before closing and don't drool all over one chances are they'll let it go for less then MSRP. They get another sale in by the end of the month and you get the car for less then MSRP. Yes, for a while it will be kind of tough to order one less then MSRP but pick one off the lot with proper tiiming...

I picked up a new Tundra for 1k less than invoice on 6/30 with an additional 2k off from Toyota. My wife told them that she was already approved at 3.49% (she was really approved at 3.99%) and they beat that rate at 3.29%. Yes I know a Tundra is not an Rx-8. Point is I most likely could not have pulled it off in the middle of the month. We had them there until 10 pm finishing the deal.

There will be people getting the car less then MSRP this month is my prediction.

RotaryStalker

 

There will be people getting the car less then MSRP this month is my prediction.

:D :D :D

but i am special.<br> i do have a question though. if after waiting this long and a dealer will not go below msrp will you still walk? i can understand not wanting to pay over msrp. unless you are in an area where you are stuck with only 1 or 2 dealers (hawaii) but would anybody still walk if not less than msrp? even after waiting 6 months?
i bet there are quite a few dealers that will mark up the price and not go any lower.

 

I already have a deal with my dealer for less than MSRP. $100 less to be exact.

I basically went online and got quotes from other dealers at MSRP. I took that quote with me and got $100.00 less and local dealer.

I have talked to alot of dealers and tried working better deals. Most won't even sell their cars for MSRP due to the hype.

IMO, if you can find one for MSRP and you can afford it. You are not getting suckered. Especially being the resell of the vehicle for the first 9-12 months is going to be high due to no previous model year.
Essentially you can sell your car in 6 months for roughly what you paid for it - mileage discount.

 

On your way out is when they will most likely agree. I don't think they'd immediately accept an offer under MSRP... You'll get the I'm sorry.. no way because blah blah speech... You say thank you and begin leaving. If they don't bite come in the next morning and buy it for MSRP or order one. You've tried your best.

My bud is an expert in buying cars. He says that when you're dealing with a salesman it's their option to sell you the car under MSRP if they want. Sure they'll go to the manager and make it seem like he's asking permission.. he's not.

The guy I bought the Tundra from confessed after the sale that this sale put him at the top for the month in sales. It seemed pretty important to him... maybe some financial reward? Point being is I could have got my truck for even less because he was willing to to take any reasonable amount to make the sale. I'm sure he really couldn't have given a **** whether the car was designed yesterday or 10 years ago. A sale is a sale...

RotaryStalker

 

Isn't there a 2% "Dealer Holdback" thing involved also? I don't mind paying what I am paying, however I'd like to know that I can tell them NO when they ask for the extended warranty and $600 worth of Scotch Guard and all of the little BS they try to tack on as I feel I've already significantly compensated them for their "Services". $300 to install a $400 CD Player - stuff like that.

The way I see it, I'm paying $3,758 over Invoice for my car, and it would be $4,459.28 if you include a 2% "dealer holdback".

That's almost $6,000 in "fluff" if you include taxes and MSRP. Quite a heafty profit margin.

 

I think MSRP is reasonable on this car.
Prior to making my final decision I had a (long!) pre-order on a 350Z, and I also looked at a Subaru WRX STi.

The 350 was at MSRP, and that was a GOOD deal, and the Subaru dealers up here are asking $5K OVER MSRP for the STi.

The price tag on the '8 seems fair considering that the package includes a LOT of stuff you can basically only get in other cars by buying a Bimmer, or loading up on extra options.
However, having said that, I would refuse to pay "documentation fees"

What other business charges extra to write up the bill for the products they sell?

That is a suckers game, and if you pay it, then you ARE a sucker!

 

MSRP didn't sound too bad too me when I first went in, but I made sure the manager signed a contract agreeing that the car would not be sold for MORE than MSRP. I'm hoping to get that $500 grad discount too. :D

 

Real Estate. Then you even get to pay a fee to have the bank determine whether they will loan you money or not.

Some may dismiss the comparison as an order of magnitude question, but I dare say that many of our parents paid less than the price of an RX-8 for the homes we grew up in...

 

I just put a deposit down and the dealer agreed to $500 under MSRP. In checking other dealerships, one other said they would match that and another said they wouldn't do it. Too much demand for the car.

I think it really depends on where you live. I don't think the car is in quite as much demand here in the Midwest, so if you can find more than one dealership with unclaimed cars, you may be able to talk them down a little.

 

Given that Canada is only getting 700-800 cars a year, negotiating less than MSRP might be difficult. Personally, I hate to pay MSRP. For the 8, I think I did ok. My dealership will let me break my Protege lease (2nd of 4 years) which I they claim the value-to-payment deficit is close to $2K, IMO equals $100-500 in the real world. That's for the first red GT (no moon/Nav) that comes on their lot. No deposit taken, and I only seriously expressed interest a couple of months ago.

 

Supply and demand...which is why I am not going to be buying for a couple of years (that and finances:D ) You can get almost any car for a few hundred over invoice if you wait long enough.

Also, I would like to see how the car holds up. I have great confidence in Mazda, but everyone screws up every now and then.

I am baffled at everyone's complaints about the wait and the pre-order system. Mazda is selling it as a 2004 model. They could have done like most everyone else and just waited until September and release all of them to the dealers in random colors with random options.

At lease with the pre-order they are not making the same mistake as the Mazda 6. They know how many Manuals to make.

If you look up a few dealer inventories (the trick is in another thread), then you will find the majority are 6-speeds. And they say the manual transmission is dead!

 

untrue.

 

that's a bit unfair don't you think? unless you happen to have data of the average price each of our parents paid for their homes.

 

actualyl i agree with wakeech. only becasue most people herre are younger and their parents did not pay as low a price of our parents from the older generation, where as my parents paid $20,000 for their house. the people who are younger herer their folks probably paid 100,000 for their houses, so it all depends on who you talk to......does this make any seinse to anybody, i tried to explain it but i think i confused myself somewhere......

 

hahaha... trust me, it's no where close to true.

i sincerely doubt that most of the people, who are now upper-middle class well-to-do people, came from Boonie Town Nowhere where the price of land is almost nothing to free (stake out your own lot)...

in any case i think there's a confusion between nominal price (the number of dollars) and real price (actual measurement of value).
muscle car (idiot) guys say the same thing all the time:
"This like-new '69 305 Boss Mustang is worth $30-$50 000 dollars to the right collector, and to think it was a quarter of that only 40 years ago" (numbers simply made up to prove a point)
... the price of the car HAS increased because of the huge reduction in supply, but demand for nostalgic toys is also pretty low, although those who like them often have an extremely high willingness (and ability) to pay, which ensures that their value appreciates.
but, when you adjust for inflation you'll see a different picture.

anyways, thread creep over.

i think that dealers are entitled to some degree of compensation... a few thousand per car on a low-volume vehicle like this is quite reasonable... but hell no, $300 for a 20 minute plug-and-play job for a CD changer is insane.

 

Why? What do they do? Salesmen should make money SELLING the car. Writing down my name and info and not calling me should entitle him to nothing. Maybe they should get paid for inspecting the car once it arrives, or perhaps the minor inconvenience of titling. But salesmen entitled to a few thousand?!? WTF! Maybe...MAYBE... a few hundred. Cars should be sold through the manufacturer - they spend the vast majority of the coin in R&D, marketing, etc - why should joe dealer reap the rewards?

Its because he had to ride along with you on the test drive wasn't it? No manufacturer could pay someone to do that in-house...