I have a question for you. I want to keep this off the internet for now so please PM me. Thanks.

 

Thanks to those that responded. Here is my story. After shopping around Junior M. at Nick Alexander beat the other dealers by $300 but the price was only good for two days (Jan 30,31). I order the car on the 1/31 and waited for Junior to call me with a final cost. After waiting for two days I canceled my order. In less then an hour I get a call from Joshua Ross. and I tell him I am going to order from someone else and he makes me a better deal then Juniors. He text's and emails me the price and a production #. The car arrives in March and I call Joshua to see if I qualify for the .9% financing. My wife and I are at Joshua's desk and I ask him if I get the one free option and he said NO because I got a discount on the car, I said I thought the option came from MINI usa and he said no it's from the dealer. When I get home I checked on NAM and see other people are getting the free option so I email Joshua. I have talked Elizebeth A., Anderes N. ,Shep N. at Nick Alexanders and they confirmed that the option comes from Mini usa. Now Joshua said his manager told him the option comes from the dealer and they figured the option in when they gave me a quote back in Febuary ( this from a guy that tells me he sells 45 cars a month and did not know) B.S.!!!. I held off on filling out the owner survey and posting on NAM untill I talked to everyone at Nick Alexander and Mini usa. Mini usa called on 4/13/11 and said the dealers are a franchise and can do what they want. I am 48 and buy a new car every three years and I thought I had seen it all.

 

From what I know, MINI dealers don't have to honor those incentives, but if there is competition in the area why wouldn't they? I had two local dealers battling over my business because I told them both up front that Ive been talking to the other. Ultimately, I ended up buying from the dealer that I wanted to buy from initially, and got a deal Im happy with. I couldn't just buy from them because I liked them though.

 

shoe,

Don't sweat it. I had similiar experience in one of the Mini dealers here in the SF Bay Area. I learned pretty quick. Luckily, I has bargaining on a car they had on the lot. I ended custom ordering from another dealer. And getting all the terms I wanted written on paper. So I made sure that I get the best possible price.

Unfortunately, this is how the system works. They know you want a particular car. And they know how to play the mind game. And they are cocky too.

 

can't say i'm surprised. i wasn't ready to buy the day i took a test drive, but i was being offered a "good deal" - $900 off msrp. now mind you, i was just entertaining the idea of buying the car. when i got home and did some research, i realized that mini was offering the free option, which equates to $1575 off! so basically, the dealer was offering me a car $675 above msrp as a "good deal"...ha! well, once i figured that out, i never went back.
it seems like amanda has done some people right. maybe if i had dealt with her, things would have been different. who knows. anyways, i actually paid a few hundred more than the lowest price i could have gotten to get my car from crevier, but those guys treated me decently from the get go. no bs, no run around, nothing. to me, it was worth the extra money i spent.

 

well, my first post, and i haven't even introduced myself yet.
was at nick alexander on saturday (on a whim to check out the CM)
My wife and I noticed all the salespeople wearing t-shirts and I was thinking how hip do they want to be at this place? I can't even tell who works there.
Anyway, over the course of 45 minutes testing a CM and a CMS, the salesperson told me several fibs, and omitted several important pieces of info which would prevent me from ever buying a car from those people. Maybe there is no moral requirement to tell a sucker about deals they wouldn't have found out about, but it is no moral requirement to buy from a shady dealer that wouldn't disclose important info.
1. saleswoman claimed that they do not do or do not want to do special orders.
2. also claimed that the factory closes every summer and a custom car wouldn't be ready until Sept at the soonest.
3. we asked about the rock the mini or whatever promo, where she claimed they sold 20 cars by 12pm.
4. she omitted the $1000 promo.
5. i asked about the premium pack, said they dont order because nobody wants it.
6. told me that everybody has to have bluetooth and everybody asks for the comfort key. so... you don't order the package that has both???
7. never mentioned to common promo that mini runs for free premium pack

So, yeah, maybe a sucker is born everyday and she had no requirement to tell me any of that info, but since I wasn't buying that day, and made that clear, she really gave me absolutely no reason to go back there.

funny, that there's an advert for nick alexander on this very page.

so, hi everybody!!! i'm not nearly as bitter as this post sounds, and hope to talk my wife into getting something fun like the CM instead of a TSX,RDX,IS250 or some other bowl of alphabet soup.

 

the problem with a lot of these dealerships is that they take everyone that walks in thru the door to be an idiot. they start from square one of their script and slowly work their way up to your intelligence level. that way, if you happen to be a sucker, and end up buying like one, they score a good sale. i was working with a guy named george at south bay - attentive and responsive via email and i had every intention of buying from him. but on his day off, his finance manager stepped in and gave me the run around with the "come in and see what we have in inventory." i couldn't have been more explicit about what i wanted and my intentions to buy. by the time george was back in the office the next day, i already put a deposit down with crevier. i felt terrible for george b/c he did everything right. but i was so tired of the jumping thru hoops. crevier was a little more than south bay, but i'm happy with my purchase. if you're looking to buy, i'd highly recommend armond or dana at crevier, and certainly george at south bay as well.

 

When we looked at Bimmers there, they were a bunch of knuckleheads...I would NEVER buy from there.

We actually just ordered a CM from Long Beach MINI...Mark is cool. I actually tried to order one from Juan (super cool guy that we ordered our JCW from back in '06) up at Salt Lake MINI, but they didn't have any '11 builds left.

 

We ordered from Amanda at Nick and have been treated great. Timely response to questions and an AWESOME deal on the purchase. No issues, fair and honest.

 

If you do a NAM search you will see I am not the only one to have problems with Nick Alexander.

 

i think it depends on the MA you get. we were helped out by this one guy who seemed completely disinterested in making a sale. no surprise he's not there anymore...that dude was just awkward.