BMW Inventory Shell Games
I've never really trusted car dealers. Every now and then, I find an individual at a dealership -- sales, management or finance -- that is a person of their word and a handshake means something. But it is rare.
When I bought my last BMW (two cars ago), I had the pleasure of dealing with the general manager (Johnny) at Century West BMW in North Hollywood. I bought a very fun and cool BMW 325i Touring after a mix-up with a CPO 525i Touring. Suffice it to say that something that could have turned out as a disaster with a very unhappy customer (due to an ignorant salesperson) turned into a happy situation for all. I still don't know why Century West BMW doesn't show up on the dealer locator search from the BMWUSA.com website; but the dealership is definitely in business and prospering.
I also have a great relationship with a BMW sales associate at Beverly Hills BMW named James Bush (no relation and he's heard all the jokes). James is a breath of fresh air in a dealership that has its share of attitude and arrogance. BMW corporate brought him to LA from London where he sold BMWs. He has been very helpful with me in my search for my next car -- (the lease on my Audi A6 ends in two weeks).
The only car that fits all the criteria on my "next car check list" is a BMW. I want a coupe this time, just as a change of pace from the excellent but a bit conservative A6 four-door sedan format. So I was very excited about the new BMW 335i Coupe introduced last fall; however when I saw it in the metal, I was a bit disappointed with the styling.
I like coupes without the "B" pillar. The new Mercedes CL is a beautiful example of a coupe without a "B" pillar. Both the 3- and 6-Series BMW coupes have a "B" pillar probably for added structural rigidity. I think Dan Neil of the LA Times summed it up best in stating that it's "not the handsomest coupe on the market…" "The car doesn't look [to him] organically coupe-like". He even dubbed the 335i Coupe a "movie mogul starter kit". Thanks again, Dan, you are the best automotive wordsmith I know of. [See Dan's 21 February 2007 review of the 335i Coupe "Sure Money".]
I didn't abandon BMW over my disappointment with the 3-Series coupe because I think the new 3-Series convertible is one of the most beautiful coupes on the market today. And the automatically-retracting steel roof is a masterwork of German engineering. But as of publication time, BMW still hasn't publicly released prices. I threw caution to the wind and ordered the new 335i Convertible without knowing the prices.
On February 16th, James faxed me the just-received price sheet for the 328i and 33
5i convertibles. I really appreciate his follow up on the pricing issue. The convertible commands a whopping $10k premium over the coupe! That's a lot of cash if you're buying and it certainly adds to your lease payment if you lease. The base 335i Convertible is $49,875 (including destination). The car I ordered came to a whopping $60,670! Yikes!
My attention turned back to the coupe -- you know, it doesn't seem so bad after all and I'm not really looking for a convertible -- just a sexy coupe. But that's when the problems started. For some unknown reason, BMW isn't making many 335i coupes. You can find the 328i versions -- although not many of those either. James showed me the dealer's inventory, build and allocation worksheets. There were no 335i coupes in stock and the three coming in were all custom builds for existing customers. The Beverly Hills dealer had two more in allocation, but they were so far out from any build date that they weren't yet released for build.
Last Wednesday, James called me at 2:50 pm to tell me that he had a 335i Coupe that was ordered for a customer; but the customer decided not to buy it. He warned me that it would go fast. I took him at his word and told him I needed to jump in the shower and I'd be there in 30 to 40 minutes. I was in the showroom at 3:30 pm.
Another customer was just taking the car for a test drive. We waited around the showroom for the car to return; however, when it came back, the salesman and the customer spent a lot of time inside the car going over all the features. I turned to James and said that this guy was going to buy the car. Why else waste so much time going over features if you aren't going to buy it? Sure enough, when I got back from my short test drive (just around the block), we were told that the guy bought the car. Damn -- that was really fast!
I asked the usual question -- Can you find me another one like that at another dealer? And I was a bit surprised by the honest answer: No. I'll explain why below.
Here's how this works. The 335i Coupe is in very short supply. Supposedly no dealers in Southern California have any (not true). And this is a car that no dealer will trade (again, not true).
At first, I asked to look online at other dealer inventories and that I'd go to the dealership to check it out? That doesn't really work either, so I found out.
The dealer-only online search is something you can't do this from home. You actually have to sit down with a salesperson and hope they will show you the screen. The cars on the screen are sorted between Category 1 and 2. Category 1 cars are supposedly pre-sold or built for a specific customer. Category 2 is everything else.
But the reality is that many Category 1 cars are just dealer speculation orders that they want to have to sell as high-margin cars. All they have to do is put a name by the car from their computer terminals and it becomes a Category 1 car. Any name will do. I wouldn't be surprised to see Donald Duck as a buyer. It's assumed that a dealer can't or won't trade a Category 1 car. But that's not necessarily true as I found out. Apparently it is true If you are doing business with Santa Monica BMW or Beverly Hills BMW. No one will trade with them because they won't trade with anyone else! If you go to another dealer, there is some horse trading that goes on.
If you try the consumer route, you have to do a lot of work as not all BMW dealers put their inventory online. About 50% of the dealer websites I checked have inventory online and the rest make you call or email them for inventory details. I hate doing that. BMW should take a page from the Porsche USA policy book and require dealer websites be uniform and include a full inventory.
But there is more to this. Any dealer is able to "hide" inventory on-lot simply by marking the car as "sold" or putting a customer, salesperson or manager's name on the car -- just like the dealer-only system. And then there is the lazy factor. I found a couple dealers updated their inventory daily while most dealers were a bit more lax, so what you see may not be what's there.
If you are shopping for a new BMW, I have some suggestions. First, if you go to either the Santa Monica or Beverly Hills store, be prepared to buy what they have on their lots and don't expect them to search beyond their own parking lots for you. If they don't have exactly what you want, I suggest finding another dealer/salesperson.
What you have to do is sit down and do a dealer search from the BMWUSA.com website. I use a 100 mile radius to start. Find a dealer other than Beverly Hills or Santa Monica and go there or call them. Go to at least two dealers so you can compare facilities and customer service. Try to find someone willing to work with you and that you're comfortable with. I even used a San Francisco zip code to search for dealers.
I checked websites and made a few calls and found a few dealers with inventory that came very close to matching my specifications. All the dealers I talked to said that if I flew into their local airport, they would pick me up at the airport and make the whole transaction fast and easy. I did this once before for my Nissan Murano in 2003 and it really worked well! However, I wanted to try other LA-area dealers to see how it worked locally.
I called a contact at Nick Alexander [http://www.alexanderbmw.com/] Imports (BMW and MINI) and got some very different and better answers than James Bush at Beverly Hills BMW was able to give. Now I understand why James told me truthfully that he wasn't able to help me with my specific request. When one dealer is shunned by all the other dealers in the area, you aren't going to be able to horse trade for the car your customer wants. I appreciate that degree of honesty.
The salesman I called at Nick Alexander offered me a sit-down in front of his "secret" dealer computerized inventory screen. Alexander BMW has been around (albeit in a very strange location) for decades and it seems to have been able to maintain good relations with just about all the BMW dealers in California, Arizona and Nevada -- except, of course, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. They are willing to trade one hot car for another and, surprise, other dealers are willing to trade a Category 1 or other hot car on their lots for another. It's good business, and that's the way it should be.
All imported BMWs on the West Coast enter through BMW's vast preparation center at Port Hueneme -- Oxnard, CA. The turnaround time from the port preparation center to most So Cal BMW dealers is 3-4 business days, although some deliveries are made on weekends. The BMW in the color and configuration you want may be out there for immediate trade or maybe just a short wait for it to come to port and be processed. But it may take some time-consuming footwork and phone work to make it happen. Don't give up! I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I may be able to find a 335i Coupe, in the color and configuration I want, without the eight-week lead time it takes to order one in exact spec from Germany. I may win that shell game yet!
