Quote:
Originally Posted by phampau
I'm in the market for a 2009 e350 also. Dealers have been telling me around 14k off mrsp with the new 10k incentive. Still seems high to me?
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Well, realistically speaking,
NO dealership
WANTS to give you 100% of every single incentive/discount/rebate/etc they can throw at you (that's why there is the art of negotiation). Dealerships want to keep as much money as they can, because if they can sell the car for a higher price, they make a higher profit... period.
The buyer's "job" is to find out how low the dealership will let go of the car for, and so the game of negotiation is played. Some buyers will be content with a higher price (because they can afford it and would rather pay the higher price than waste more time negotiating a lower price since their time is more valuable to them). Others will haggle for months over the same vehicle until a dealership can meet their bottom-line price (and if the dealership can't, they won't buy the car).
And to make an even more complex and stressful process even more complicated, there are factors that both the dealership and buyer can't control, such as: the amount of factory trunk money available for certain model vehicles, the supply of a certain model/color/configuration of a certain vehicle available to the dealership, the popularity/demand of a certain model/color/configuration of a certain vehicle in a local area, the popularity/demand of MB to the populus in a local area, etc. All of these factors influence the price that different dealerships are willing to sell the car for.
If MB is extremely popular to the local population, and the dealership sees a HUGE influx of people, and has short supply of the vehicle/color/configuration in question, and no local dealerships have any available stock of the vehicle/color/configuration to sell/trade, and the vehicle/color/configuration has been discontinued by MB (like the W211 E-Classes), and the factory gives NO trunk money to work with (like with the W204 C350's), then the dealership isn't going to budge as much on the price of the vehicle in question.
However, if MB is extremely UNpopular to the local population, and the dealership sees virtually NO customers, and has a HUGE supply of the vehicle/color/configuration in question, and no local dealerships have a LARGE availability of stock of the vehicle/color/configuration to sell/trade, and the vehicle/color/configuration has NOT been discontinued by MB (like the W204 C-Class), and the factory gives every dealership a large chunk of trunk money to work with (like the W211 E350's), then the dealership is going to have a lot of flexibility to negotiate on the price of the vehicle in question.
My advice is to call around to various dealerships in your area and ask for their opening offer (although most will NOT give you their prices over the phone, so you'll have to drive to them in person). Also ask various people who just bought your model/configuration of car in your area the price they paid for it (web forums can be very helpful). And also do your research on Edmund's and other car research sites... that will give you a good idea what price you can "realistically" purchase the car you're looking at for in YOUR local area.