Congrats..... how soon do you get it?

 

Last October I was in the same situation: I was very specific which options I wanted and which didn't want, in addition I wanted specific exterion/interior colors. That car couldn't be located in my home state of CA or anywhere else in the western states. The dealer I ended up working with located the car still in Japan slated to be shipped to a dealership in San Antonio. He contacted TX dealership and arranged for a stock swap, a month later I got the exact car I wanted. I paid $450 over invoice, which I thought was a very decent deal at that time, 2008 model was still fairly new then. No extra shipping charges or any other crap.

So there are ways to get exactly what you want, you need to find a dealer willing to work with you to make a sale.

 

Well I started searching on the internet and found a dealership 230 miles away that has a suitable car. I called them to confirm and they do still have it.

I was a bit wary, but we negotiated a price over the phone - MSRP is $38,835 (premium, nav, splash guards, cargo net, trunk mat). Invoice is $35,456 and the price before t/t/l would be $35,500, so $44 over invoice.

It sounds promising...

 

I got the same exact car for $34.5k here in Dallas a little over a month ago. That price includes wheel locks, tint and a cargo net. The dealer made about $800 + holdback on the deal because there is a $2,000 factory to dealer rebate if you don't use the 0.9%. You might ask them if that price includes the 0.9% or if that's "bring your own financing" price. Since we were trading a clear title car worth 32k, we just paid the difference in cash, so the financing wasn't an issue.

They had to swap with a dealer in Houston since there simply are not many 6MT Premium Navs around any more. We didn't get our first color choice, but got a good color (IMO) since we wanted the graphite interior.

 

They have it... just not in their lot. They located mine about 500 miles away, and it only cost me 300 to ship it to me. That's not a lot to have the color and options you want in your new 30k+ car... The fact that your car is coming from another dealer shouldn't affect how much you'll be paying by much at all. Just negotiate the price and options first, then talk about the color. Once a sales person has closed a sale, they won't let it go just because the car isn't in their lot.

 

The price I was quoted was with 0.9% financing (which I'll be doing).

So are you saying that your dealer's price would have been $36.5k if you had wanted the financing rather than paying cash?

 

This is a little off topic, but earlier someone mentioned everything the dealers charge you for is negotiable, even things they say aren't. It reminded me that they chopped the price of a maintenance plan for me significantly. I only mention it because you should be able to negotiate that when you go to buy very soon. i wasn't interested at their regular price, but then they chopped the price almost in half and it made much more sense. I think it ended up being ~200 a year, which I figured more than payed the cost of oil changes.

 

Yes... but then again, I didn't really negotiate since I didn't want to waste the time over $4-500. I got what was a fair offer for the car, a fair trade offer and my wife was pleased with how well the dealer was treating us after the horrible BMW experience she'd just gone through.

All told we saved around $12k versus the BMW she was going to buy... and frankly I think she likes the car better.