I find the level of transparency on car pricing extremely frustrating. Transparency on pricing is poor under normal circumstances but in this supply constrained environment, things are much much worse.
Some dealerships have the audacity to ask for $25k above MSRP on an inventory BMW M4 convertible that hasn't shipped from Bremerhaven yet. On the other hand, other dealerships are selling a coupe on the ship, at MSRP or something small above e.g. +$1-2K.
Many dealerships with these ridiculous mark ups are counting on the fact that they can successfully convince some dude with a high money/knowledge ratio that the market is so bad right now that these cars will be unavailable soon. When they move from $25k -> $10k this customer will be besides themselves with the great deal they got and just buy the car.
I wanted to share my learnings from 50+ calls with dealers, multiple showroom visits, long trips to LA and finally settling on a car for a reasonable price.
- In general: M3 >>>>> M4 Coupe >>>> M4 Convertible in terms of demand and is proportional to how much on top of MSRP the dealers are asking and, more importantly, getting.
- For a G82 in inventory, I would say 0-3k above MSRP is par.
- For a G83 in inventory, I would say 0-3K below MSRP is par.
- For a G80 in inventory - I would estimate somewhere between 5-7k above MSRP is par but I am not sure since I wasn't looking for an M3 and I don't know the market as well.
- The evidence suggests that the market is becoming significantly better. There are now nearly 40 unsold M4s in SoCal that are publicly visible on bmwusa.com and are in transit to the dealership.
- On top of that, a ton of people actually cancel their orders when the car comes closer to delivery. So there are a whole bunch of cars that you won't easily see unless you call the dealer and ask them. So - call the dealer, ask to speak to the Sales Manager or someone who sounds like they are familiar with the inventory and ask them if there are cancelled orders which are coming in soon. I promise you, it works more often than it doesn't.
- Then, a lot of dealers are flexible, they will publicly state they are looking for $10-15k above, but will negotiate down to $5k easily. Some dealers will just tell you they aren't looking to go over MSRP.
- Looking for cars that haven't reached the dealership yet is the best strategy because while it's easier for them to sell these cars once they are physically in the dealership, money now is always better than money later. Cars that are predicted to reach Oxnard in 1-2 weeks without a stop sale are the sweet spot.
- In order to avoid asking you to pay over MSRP, the dealers are often speccing the cars like crazy - adding unusual special colors, bits of custom carbon that not everyone would want and things like M Drive Pro. It means that some MSRPs are 100-105K+. One dealer asked me to pay $130,000 for an M4 the other day because they added $25k to the base price. This is more expensive than a 911 C4S. The point im making is that if a car already has a lot of very expensive additions that hardly anyone would want, feel free to point that out.
I hope that helps and happy to answer any questions
