[andrewinla]

Got my Cooper S at East Bay last week and wanted to report back.

Dealt with Patty most of the time. She is as nice lady and kept me up to date by calling me when she had info or needed info.

It took about 11 months for my car to come in. I felt that my name may have been pushed back a bit since I had deposit at 2 dealers at same time and 1 car came in 3 months earlier...kinda strange but I guess it could be allocation. But I never picked up the first car since it was on East coast.

Went in to East Bay MINi at noon on a friday to pick up car. Met Patty and she handed me off to Matt who has a EB S and knows his MINI's!

My car was in the showroom with the cool car cover I got to take off and it was very exciting! Then Matt went over the car. Then there was lots of waiting..a bit too much since my girlfriend was getting very bored! But finnaly I was sent to finance dept...but I didn't even drive the car and I was going to sign the papers. I was assured it had been checked out and was all OK. I was antsy with girlfriend driving me nuts now after 3 hours in the place.

So I go to finance with a check from Peoplefirst.com for a nice rate of 4.99%. Then the finance guy says "we don't take those checks but we will get you a good rate"

I have over 740 on my credit score and he says to me "I've got you through BMWFS for a decent rate of 8.7%!!!"

I was like screw that! I said please try another bank..then he says it may be an hour or two to get rates from other banks. I bought a Z3 at a local LA area dealer and they had rates from 5 banks in 20 minutes so give me a break..He knows I'm antsy to get out of there now that it's approaching 4 hours!

So I can Peoplefirst.com to ask them about the check not being accepted. They tell me that dealership has accepted 70 checks from them the last one 7 days ago!

So I tell the finace guy this, he says well you arent local so thats the reason. I guess if the check bounces he drives over to the persons house and gets the money in cash or drags them over to the dealership bounced check cell!

I call Avis rent a car to see if I can keep the car I rented for the one way trip and they say sure just pay more for it. I tell the finance guy screw you and your car and start to walk out. Suddenly he gets the idea of asking the manager...who in 5 min OK's it!

MORON is all I can say about this guy and his tactics! But Matt and Patty were cool and really stayed out of it since this is probably not the way they would conduct business!

But got the car for MSRP and my review of the car is under the Cooper S forum...I have 1300 miles now!

[minirossa]

andrewinla,
Sorry to read about your struggle with the finance guy
at East Bay MINI. We bought our Cooper there & were also treated well by Dan, Matt & Patti.

The finance people made us fill out their credit papers
before they would let us drive the car off the lot.

This turned out to a small hassle because they entered the wrong social security # for my wife & she came up as "deceased" on the credit agency computer!!!!!!

We got that staightened out & they actually beat the interest rate that our credit union quoted! However,
the credit union beat them later.

Overall East Bay MINI has been great to deal with.
We are having our Cooper serviced there as well.

[andrewinla]

He looked like a typical sales guy right out of the Sopranos.
Gold chains pinky ring and a great story about the vacation house he is buying out here on the beach in LA...

Like after screwing around with me for a few hours I want to hear about his fricking vacation house...

But the rest of the experience was top notch....Although I didnt get the T shirt most people are getting or mints or even a keychain...but thats cool I guess.

[DaveNagy]

Here's a little back-story, if anyone's interested.

I got on "the list" at East Bay MINI back in April. Since I live and work about a block from the dealership, I go in there about once a week just to chat. They're all good folks there. (The MINI folks at least. Sounds like the "finance guy" is a BMW employee.)

I started looking at financing options a couple months ago, and mentioned to Dan (the sales manager) that PeopleFirst was getting good word of mouth on the various car forums. He rolled his eyes and mentioned how it had been very tough in the past to get PeopleFirst to cough up the money after they'd made a sale. Apparently they'd been giving East Bay a bit of a run-around. I see now that PeopleFirst is a subsidiary of Capital One, so I guess I have no trouble believing that they're a bit slimey.

But in the end Dan said that yes, they can and do accept checks from PeopleFirst. Reluctantly. Dan says he will do what he can to match or beat their offer when it comes time for me to pick up my car. I hope he can match it since I'd rather my interest payments went to BMW/MINI, rather than to Capital One...

-Dave

[andrewinla]

I was willing to take up to 5.5% if they did not take the check. I know I qualify for that type of rate!
I got 5.3% a few years ago through Sanwa bank while buying Z3 and the dealer got me that rate and not in 2 hours but 20-30 minutes.

[Sejanus]

What a pain! I bought my car at East Bay about three months ago, dealt with the same finance guy and used PeopleFirst without any problem and while I don't live as far away as you, I'm hardly local at about 100 miles away. Admittedly, I had checked about PeopleFirst before I went in, but I was told it wasn't a problem. Nor did we have to wait, in fact the finance guy kept paging us while Matt was going over everything about the car with us. I hate to say this but it almost sounds like they thought they could take advantage of you since you had come so far to get the car, especially when you consider the ridiculous rate they offered. Very disappointing to hear this about a dealership that until now has had a great reputation.

[andrewinla]

I told the guy straight out. After waiting all this time and having such good service this was like having a long piece of hair in my gourmet meal. Why screw it up for me and make yourselves look bad at the end. Everyone else was so good!

But I am happy things went well and probably been very upset if I didn't drive away with my car.

[gt4pete]

Were you carrying any debt?

That lowers your FICO score significantly if you have any outstanding contracts, even as a cosigner and perfect payment history on every line you've had. Finance people use a debt/income calculation, and if you're not inside the percentage that they use, your rate shoots up very easily.

No offense, but that may very well have been the best rate that they had.

Internet financing is a pretty shady business. For one thing, you never sign a credit application, yet they can ding your credit history even if someone else submitted your name. For someone who has recently run their credit bureau and scores over a 780 and carries little debt, it's usually a formality. But if you carry any excessive amount of debt or score below 720, they issue you a low rate with conditions that the dealer has to come up with after the fact.

A friend of mine went through e-loan and the dealer kept calling him back for proof of income, proof of residence, etc. after he already had the car. It was weird, cuz he had already signed the contracts and given them a check that eloan gave him to give to the dealer. The finance guy explained that eloan was not paying the dealer because they had not gathered the proper approvals (which is odd, because eloan had already given him a check to give to the dealer).

The whole finance process is all smoke and mirrors anyways, regardless of who you finance through. If you take the low rate from credit union, that established history is meaningless if you buy a house. There's never a gimme any way you try it (it is a business I suppose).

That's why I always just pay the contract off early anyways.

Just my two cents.

[DaveNagy]

Things turned out pretty well for me at East Bay MINI. As I had mentioned, I had a PeopleFirst check in hand but was hoping that BMW could beat their offer. (They hoped so too.)

They did. By a full percentage point. Now, if that dang car would just get here. (Shouldn't be more than another week!) I know not everybody lives close to their dealers, but if possible I'd recommend going in beforehand and getting all the financing taken care of. Get all the potential surprises and ugliness out of the way.

-Dave

[RedBackFur]

It is a amazing that you had so much trouble with the Finance guy, as I was paying cash for the car (Well, a personal check). I didn't even want to talk to him at all....they made me go over there. His job was to also try to sell me the Pac's. I did go for the Extended Warranty (Let us not fool ourselves, this is a British vehicle), and the extra year of service, which seems it would pay for itself. I didn't go for that silly Interior Protectant deal.

He did have me sign quite a few papers, as well as some information that was almost a credit check, which I objected to, since I was NOT asking for credit. He was pleasant, however, not pushy. I do not remember his name, just that he did wear the jewelery and crap.

If I was going to finance it, I would have gone through my Credit Union, that, for a Non-American car, has always been the best deal.

(Often we see these zero-down, low percentage rates for cheap American cars such as Chrysler LaBarons, other Rental-type crap)

[minimao]

Could someone mind telling me that what's the sales tax now(Jan 2003) from the East Bay MINI? 8.50% or 8.75%??? Thanks.

[andrewinla]

When I get home. But I don't live in that area and they either charged me the tax for my area or it was not charged. I will check.

[gt4pete]

In California, vehicle sales tax is based upon the county that the vehicle is registered in. Otherwise 7.25% tax is collected on any new vehicle driven off a car lot in the state.

[minimao]

So, a vehicle sales tax is based on where you live or I should say where you register your car.
Then I live in San Jose-Santa Clara County and the sales tax is 8.25%.

Here is the link of sales tax in any California city.
http://www.boe.ca.gov/rates/citycnty.htm

Thanks gt4pete.

[BJA]

My cousin Wayne ran by East Bay to see the little car I am talking about buying and he said they were really nice to him and made him think of a MINI himself! I want him to test drive one so he'll fall in love!!!

[minimao]

Since I got my MINI from East Bay MINI, I guess these questions should be posted under this thread.

Does anyone from the dealships answer them for me? Thanks.

1. For the "Enhanced Mechanical Coverage ", does this cover the mechanical parts ONLY? Actually, the new MINI has lot of electrical parts inside and I don't want to misunderstand of this title "enhanced mechanical coverage".

2. Is this "enhanced mechanical coverage" transferable?

3. Could this "enhanced mechanical coverage" apply at any MINI dealerships in the US?

4. Could the MINI optional alarm system be programmed or I should say "armed and disarmed" with the MINI original remoted key?