[Tattersky]

Speaking to my local BMW dealer in the UK, he is trying to sell me the idea that the i3 and options prices are not up for negotiation.
Has anyone managed to get a discount or some freebies thrown in?

Ta

 

[Paul]

I would say it's very unlikely to get any kind of (decent) discount as demand is currently outstripping supply.

What you may do (I've done this in the past with other manufacturers) if you don't have any particular loyalty is to get the car you really want specced up and then email that specification to any and all dealers that you would be prepared to collect the car from (so that could be a few miles, could be nationwide, up to you). See who'll offer the best deal.

IF you get a deal offered, you could then attempt to renegotiate locally, or just go with the dealer prepared to do the best deal from the outset.

 

[Brooktop]

What you may do (I've done this in the past with other manufacturers) if you don't have any particular loyalty is to get the car you really want specced up and then email that specification to any and all dealers that you would be prepared to collect the car from (so that could be a few miles, could be nationwide, up to you). See who'll offer the best deal.

That's the business model of these guys: http://www.buyingbutler.com/

 

[Jack]

You've two things working against you here - 1) As Paul says demand is way outstripping supply 2) i series are not sold using traditional channel. Your dealer is merely an agent for the i sub-company, so they only get a % of the sale paid to them, in effect this means its BMW HQ that set the price as your local dealer only has a very slim % available to them to both discount and record a profit on the sale.

In short your not likely to get any movement on price until demand levels out with supply.

You might luck out and get a cancellation order at a slight discount, but BMW are currently operating very strict rules on who can take cancellations of i3's, i.e. its the next in the dealers queue and so on.

 

[UKTechie]

In a word "no" they just get handling fee so nothing in it for them at the moment.

 

[Tattersky]

Thanks all. That matches up to my experience with BMW, VW E-Golf and Audi E-tron.
No discount to be found anywhere.

 

[fenlander]

I'm not sure if it stems from the interesting relationship between BMW and the dealers for the i-cars, but I have to say that I've been impressed with how any problems are dealt with.

BMW are very pro-active about calling and asking how things are going, we always (so far) get an i3 loan car (unlike Nissan who seemed keen for me to experience driving a Micra with no petrol in it) and a no-hassle offer of a hire car if we wanted it while our car has a minor fault.

 

[Mark J Constable]

i3 pricing is nationally set by BMW UK, and one of the conditions of being an i dealer is that it is not varied.

I assume the i8 is subject to the same deal. In another universe I'm sure that dealers are going the other way, as i8s are being sold on at up to 50pc over list, but not this one.

Having some insight into the relationship between dealer and the UK business, and having dealt with almost all of them, it's clear that the integration and workability of that relationship is second to none. Some UK OEMs practically have open warfare with their dealer networks, by comparison.