Can Hardly Wait Anymore

1288 Views 8 Replies 7 Participants Last post by rik, Jan 10, 2002

Peter Granchelli

Discussion Starter · Jan 9, 2002

It will be such a refreshing sight to be able to enjoy Mini Coopers on the streets and in the parking lots of the good old USA. I can't imagine how this car can not be an overnight hit here! And, coupled with the quite reasonable manufacturers suggested retail prices, well, the wait may be longer than I think. And, the anticipated popularity fans my fears of the dreaded dealer price gouging. I have heard that certain California types have been paying up to $30,000 over the suggested retail price of the new Thunderbird convertible! Unbelievable.... I fear something similar may happen with the Cooper. So, I suppose I may be forced to postpone my purchase until a time when the market settles down a little, the fine folks in Oxford boost production numbers, and maybe any possible quality lapses have been corrected.

Drowning in a sea of Yank Tanks, looking for Cooper-shaped life raft,

Pete

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PigLick1

· #2 · Jan 9, 2002

I'm with you Pete, and I too am worried about the price gouging. Every indication so far is that this car is going to be a huge hit here in the US (and really, how could such a great car not be...), which means they're going to become expensive, and hard to get ahold of =/ I live in the Los Angeles area of southern California, so around here there are a lot of people with a LOT of disposable income who I'm sure wouldn't mind in the least paying far over the MSRP to get their hands on a new MINI. Then again, given some of the quality issues I've been seeing on here, I'm not so sure I want to be one of the very first guinea pi...errr people to get a MINI on our shores, so perhaps its a blessing in disguise

(Try telling yourself that, it helps the sting of the idea that you may not be able to get a MINI asap, hehe).

PigLick

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BruceK

· #3 · Jan 9, 2002

A lot of customers-to-be have placed deposits at MINI-dealers-to-be and been assured they will be charged no more than MSRP. So some of us are covered.

Many of these dealers are following the same rules by which they sell BMWs - i.e. no dealer price gouging. (Some kind of strange reasoning about developing a good relationship with a customer who may buy more than one car over the course of time

).

Last summer when many of the first wave of MINI customers-to-be started contacting MINI-dealers-to-be, a basic rule of thumb was asking this question of the BMW dealer - "Do you charge a premium for the (high demand) M3?" If the answer was yes, it was viewed likely that the dealer would price gouge on the MINI too when the car arrived.

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PigLick1

· #4 · Jan 10, 2002

Well here in Cali, no dealers are taking deposits. Apparently its against state law to take a deposit when they don't actually have a product to sell yet, or something along those lines. I did ask a few of the dealers I talked to about prices, none of them had much to say though, as this was several months ago, so they had about the same information I did (or possibly less, thanks to this site, hehe). One did mention that although some dealers may charge a small "premium" (as he called), one of the main marketing moves for the MINI is its low price, so he said even if there was one, it would be small (though, what a BMW salesman considers small I don't know...).

That being said though, what car salesman wouldn't sell a car to someone who was willing to pay say $5,000 (or more) over the MSRP rather than to the guy who is holding firm at MSRP?

It probably comes down to the individual dealers. Some will probably gouge like crazy and completely ignore any list they may have, opting to sell to those who will pay most, while others may stay true to their list and offer the cars at MSRP. Then its just a matter of trying to figure out which is which

As with everything else, we'll just have to wait and see

PigLick

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Peter Granchelli

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jan 10, 2002

Yes, we will just have to wait and see.
Did anyone else notice the reasonable priced list of options (on the miniusa website)? What knocked my shirt in the dirt was the price of the A/C. I think the listed price of $300 for automatic air conditioning has to be a misprint. Air conditioning on my Honda CRX cost me about $1000, and that was 15 years ago. It just sounds too low to be true.

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MINIMiller

· #6 · Jan 10, 2002

Peter Granchelli said:
Yes, we will just have to wait and see.
Did anyone else notice the reasonable priced list of options (on the miniusa website)? What knocked my shirt in the dirt was the price of the A/C. I think the listed price of $300 for automatic air conditioning has to be a misprint. Air conditioning on my Honda CRX cost me about $1000, and that was 15 years ago. It just sounds too low to be true.

I believe that the car comes standard with A/C. The auto a/c (a $300 option) is the equivilent of climate control as I understand it.

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Yurinaut

· #7 · Jan 10, 2002

As far as the MSRP issue goes, I'm sure there will be some gouging in California. Happens to every hot car there. When I put my deposit down in North Carolina, I got an agreement for MSRP in writing. If you are planning to put a deposit down, make sure you get the MSRP agreement on the receipt otherwise, go to a different dealership!

Hopefully no one on this list will pony up more than that and those that are uninformed will help us retain our values by paying too much.

Really can't wait to test drive a Cooper. My dealer said that there won't be an "S" demo car since the demand is so high. I guess I'm going to kind of have to go on faith and word of mouth to determine how much stronger the S is over the Cooper.

Impatiently waiting,
-Mike

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mr.bill

· #8 · Jan 10, 2002

MSRP ($16,850, $19,850) includes the $550 destination charge. All other charges, such as tax, title, registration, license and options are extra. A dealer can commit to MSRP and still increase the price of the car. There is nothing to prevent them from adding a "dealer prep" fee or dealer installed options (body decals or stripes, window tinting, etc.) at a greatly inflated price. Somebody will be willing to pay a few thousand extra to be the first on the block to own the car. But, given the track record for build problems, perhaps waiting another year is for the best. The early bird gets the worm, but who wants worms?

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rik

· #9 · Jan 10, 2002

sorry just have to be a real bas?**@ and say my 8 week wait has almost come to an end and i pick up my Cooper in 3 hours 10mins time (approx)

going for a yellow cooper with a black roof, pepper option, leather steering wheel, and panoramic sunroof...

happy days

signed: Cooperman coming to Belfast!

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