Get a car with no wait and a significant price reduction in exchange for few places showing wear (which is likely a matter of time anyway). And the car was already been tested so any initial problems out of the factory have already been identified and remedied. Seems like a reasonable trade off that would be appealing to many people.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
-
On today's TMC Podcast, we ask the question "What is the Tesla Cybercab?". Join us on YouTube live at 1PM and participate in the chat.
Trying to buy a loaner car has been rediculous for me.
- Thread starter Moparposterchild
- Start date
I agree. What mystifies me is where these cars with discounts can be found. Our local dealer sent us one inventory car (currently 50 miles on the odometer), and it was listed at NO discount. We're in Mpls, and car was in Ohio, so dealer was not limiting his search to stock on hand.
We are looking for an 85D with 19" wheels, tech package, and sub-zero package. Other options are optional. :tongue: Should we be calling other showrooms? Any advice would be hugely appreciated!!
No discount for an inventory car? I suspect they may have some sort of soft bonus structure happening for the sale where if they can sell it to you without discount, there is a bonus potential for the person you are dealing with. I mean, why not? Let them work for some steak rather than always paying in potatoes.
I wouldn't pay full window sticker price without the whole "experience" of ordering, waiting, delivery and sign-off on "my order". Inventory should always have a small discount, if not large.
I wouldn't pay full window sticker price without the whole "experience" of ordering, waiting, delivery and sign-off on "my order". Inventory should always have a small discount, if not large.
If the car is brand new, only 50 miles, and has what you want, pay full sticker and the bonus is you don't have wait. Its so odd that people are complaining g about the limited option in to buy from inventory in addition to ordering and waiting.
If the inventory car had been an exact match to our perfect config at full price, we still would have ordered new, since we are not in a hurry. I get we may be the only ones on this forum who aren't. but this is a huge purchase for us and putting off cutting the check by a few months is actually preferable. BUT, if we can get a discount now, or more options that increase the resale value down the road (pun intended) then an inventory car makes sense. Who doesn't like a bargain?
arijaycomet
Member
Just be prepared to NOT find the perfect car. Unless you're flexible on a lot of the options you're unlikely to get the "perfect" car from the inventory system. There are plenty of nice cars out there, but for example, most of the cars seem to have wood interior. The ones that tend to have carbon often are black leather combo. There are more cars with tech package and pano roof than without, though obviously that isn't always the case. It is just luck of the draw, and of course inventory is just that, what is available right then. So that will change over time, discounts will fluctuate too, etc.
Hopefully you're able to get a chance to work with a sales person who can help you search and find out if the right car is out there... but I agree, big purchase, and the discount is a nice bonus!
Good advice, I think we now need to go back and look at interiors. I was just assuming we'd end up with mostly the base interior choices so didn't spend time considering whether the others were our cup of tea. I don't think I'd mind wood, certainly wouldn't mind the pano roof, but I don't really care for the leather dash. I like the next gen seats, my husband doesn't care.
We both agree that rear facing seats, executive rear seats, and the smart air suspension would be negatives for us.
Our DS has now come through with a few options that have $5K-$6K discounts. Things are looking up, mostly thanks to the advice I got here, so thanks are in order.
If you are buying an inventory vehicle the bets advice I have for you is to be patient as you can oftentimes find a vehicle with about $10-12K in discounts if you wait for the right vehicle. IMHO just getting a $5K discount on a car that might not be exactly what you want is not worth it, especially if that includes options you would not have wanted anyway. Though not exactly what we wanted we've seen a bunch of inventory vehicles with over $10K in discounts and the discounts will likely get better the last 2 weeks before the end of the quarter.
Keep in mind cars with the larger discounts are going to be 2014 VIN #'s, anything with 2015 vin that I have seen has a much smaller discount. So getting a huge discount really isnt that huge when you factor one years depreciation.
The cars I have seen with anything over 2000 miles show lots of wear and tear, condition of the seats looks like a car with 20K or more miles.
If you are not anal retentive about your car then its probably ok for a vast majority of buyers. Any of the cars that I have gotten qoutes on with low miles and a couple with no miles sold right away, so its best to put some done one of those right away.
The cars I have seen with anything over 2000 miles show lots of wear and tear, condition of the seats looks like a car with 20K or more miles.
If you are not anal retentive about your car then its probably ok for a vast majority of buyers. Any of the cars that I have gotten qoutes on with low miles and a couple with no miles sold right away, so its best to put some done one of those right away.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
Just for another data point, I bought my July 2013 inventory car in March, 2014 with 8000 miles. The interior looked essentially new. There was one very minor blemish on the rear trim, but it was so unnoticable, I didn't notice it until after I took delivery. Otherwise, it was like getting a new car. So you really can't make blanket generalizations about inventory cars like this. Some are, some aren't. You just have to look at each one individually and make a judgement if it's worth the discount.
Tedkidd
Member
Did someone say they got a discounted 85d? Wow!
I wasn't expecting any of those freeing up for sale for another month or two.
I wasn't expecting any of those freeing up for sale for another month or two.
arijaycomet
Member
Actually I had thought it wouldn't happen until 3rd or 4th quarter of this year. But sure enough there are indeed some 85D inventory cars out there, with discounts as much as $6,500 ... mine came out of Chicago, and is now sitting at the Cleveland service center awaiting my deal completion. Should happen in the next 24-48 hours... woot!
This week my local SD gave me three options for inventory 85Ds. All were a little "over-loaded" but I was pleased to see that they are out there!
My husband and I went out to the showroom today to compare the air suspension to standard coils, and we asked about inventory cars. The store manager said there is a new policy that they can only sell cars within their own region. Has anyone else heard this? I'm disappointed to be limited to inventory in the Midwest.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
If true, that's a surprising and frankly revolting development. I find it hard to believe that's entirely true.
justaddsun
Member
I was told they would have to "get approval" ie pull some strings to transport an inventory car from outside the closest regions. I suspect that they don't need to sell these cars to make Q1 numbers at this point.
I was offered several cars as far away as Maryland and I am in Florida.
Inventory cars are slim pickings right now the best ones get snatched immediately, they probably didnt want to fight with other service center for the car you want.
Inventory cars are slim pickings right now the best ones get snatched immediately, they probably didnt want to fight with other service center for the car you want.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
I don't see why there would be any fighting.. The stores aren't in competition with each other like dealerships might be. Whoever places a deposit on the car first gets it. Simple. Once I found the perfect inventory car for me, I put a deposit down as fast as I could and it was instantly removed from the list. The only additional thing is that it needed to be shipped up from Maryland.
Maybe they now want buyers to see/inspect/test drive the actual car before purchase. I had to buy my car only from a dozen cell phone pics.
arijaycomet
Member
This is PARTIALLY true. My wife's car came from Florida and we, like you, are in the Midwest region (Cleveland, Ohio). Once we determined that no cars in our region met our criteria, we searched the entire county. At that point my salesman made it entirely clear that he wasn't going to 100% be able to get us cars out of region but was happy to try. Even once we found the car we wanted, before we could put down a deposit, it is standard protocol for the salesman to call the regional manager. He then gets in touch with the other regional manager and asks if that car can be sold. I believe the store managers of each store were also in touch.
There are a few reasons they do this, but basically they want to avoid the hassle of shipping out of region for logistics purposes. Actually, the first car we found out of region they called, and found out a potential buyer had been to see the car earlier that day. They gave that LOCAL buyer right of first refusal -- they gave them 24-hours -- and sure enough they bought it. So we found a second car the next day, also out of region, but that one we snatched up. Still my understanding was that stores are supposed to stay in-region, for logistics and cost purposes.
Something tells me this will change over time as growth of the company continues. Right now, Tesla subcontracts all of their transport to 3rd parties (the only trucks they own are their flatbeds/etc for the stores' service departments). I'm with you guys that it seems silly to force a person into a specific region, but for what it is worth, this is totally standard practice. When I've bought inventory (0-mile new stock cars) from Volkswagen and Audi dealers, I've purchased high-end cars (i.e. Audi S6, Audi TT-S) and when dealer-trades occur they are also bound to stay within a certain region. This is nothing new for the automotive world.
PS: My wife's Florida-based S 60 just arrived yesterday to the store-- so it took 2 weeks after deposit. My in-region car from Chicago arrived only about 1-week after deposit was made. So keep that in mind too!
- - - Updated - - -
Indeed if you buy an inventory car you're usually doing so sight unseen to some degree. You have a chance once the car arrives to look it over, but if you read the fine print on your deposit, you can't get your money back once you put that cash down. If you like the photos, but then the car arrives and you didn't like something you then saw, that deposit can be rolled into a new car order, but not refunded typically. This is their policy because they've already now shipped the car, taken time, etc. I think Tesla prefers people buy cars they can see, touch, taste.... but if you really want a non-local car, they seem to prefer it be in-region for now. Exceptions can be made, hurdles can be jumped, but protocol seems to force that to take slightly longer.
Similar threads
