Re: BAY Area Sewer Check....Valley. (archive)

Unfortunately, living in Silicon Valley where a fast-food hamburger costs $7 (Kirk's in Palo Alto), paying far over sticker can become habit forming, especially with cars. Case in point: I tagged along as a friend of mine test-drove a Chrysler 300m. As he and the sales rep argued somewhere, I wandered through the showroom and saw a Prowler asking for $180k. It seems the last time they asked for $150k and had too many competing offers. Just the way it happens aroung here.

We are all tired of greedy, gouging dealers, especially of $75-130k cars...if you wish to speculate on "high demand" cars, go ahead, offer say $85k for an M5 and then resell it as USED for whatever you can charge to another buyer...but as an AUTHORIZED FACTORY DEALER of BMWs, hording allocations of the most in-demand NEW models and then over charging honest customers by extracting a heavy premium over factory MSRP is beyond shameful---its disgusting.

It seems BMW is unwilling to rein in its dealers. So in many cases is Porsche. re: 996 Turbo sales at $160k to $180k earlier this year.

Its really too bad.

We all wish we could convince the factory US sales orgs to penalize any authorized dealer caught by them charging a premium on new cars by restricting allocations of any vehicle being sold at over MSRP. After all, as I understand it Ferrari--a company whose cars are almost ALWAYS in high demand and certainly in higher demand than an M5 or Z8-- not only penalizes any factory dealer caught doing this, but CUTS THEM OFF IMMEDIATELY FROM NEW VEHICLES AS SWIFT PUNISHMENT.

Alas, we can't seem to convince Porsche or BMW to take this very logical step. BTW: The cars would still get sold and the factory would still make its stated profit if these allocations were simply spread out to other dealers who did sell at MSRP. And, IMHO BMW would gain by garnering increased customer loyalty. But its america, and they've decided to let you do what you want as a dealer...and you are, living large on your customers; too bad.

BUT WE CAN SUGGEST YOU TAKE YOUR SLEEZEY BUSINESS SOMEWHERE ELSE. WE DON'T NEED YOUR "BOARD" SUPPORT OR SALES PITCH. Guess what? There are plenty of legitimate dealers who do sell at MSRP--even M5s and Z8s. They seem to do just fine with the profit made at MSRP--which is substantial. So, we'd prefer to support them while welcoming their support of this forum.

SO John at Valley, TAKE A HIKE. Tell your sad sewer story to someone else, like your rat brothers that routinely walk into several dealers, lock up a supply of high demand cars with refundable deposits, take multiple deliveries, and then resell them immediately at huge premiums to the very people they've effectively shut out....We'd prefer that both of your kind stop selling to us.

Oh yea, trust me, soon--PROBABLY VERY SOON, when the supply of M5s/M3s/Porsche 996 Turbos and the US economy come into better balance, WE'LL ALL REMEMBER YOU. And, it ain't going to be pretty.

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