[Akshay1234]

Originally Posted by Bluebeem

The second we bought in March 2013 was a luxury line with custom saddle brown interior on which they restricted that discount as it had to be specially imported. This was 32.25 ex showroom.

Would love to hear more about this custom car, which was specially imported. Was it by BMW Individual?

[Bluebeem]

Originally Posted by akshay1234

Would love to hear more about this custom car, which was specially imported. Was it by BMW Individual?

Haha before I typed this I knew you would butt in. Old habits die hard. Seeing as you're pretty well aware of the car I have and all the details, I assume your above comment is sarcastic.

The saddle brown interior was only available in white colour at the time. For an imperial blue, I'd to send out a request to the BMW india head of dealer sales, who very happily agreed but I was told to wait 6 months as it would have to be specially imported and assembled. Eventually they got the car ready in about 4 months.
Mine was the first luxury line assembled in india with a saddle brown interior. ( and otherwise too I guess ). The luxury lines before this were direct imports/standard European kits with the low GC, 4 speaker system, no sunroof and no Bluetooth streaming among many other missing goodies.

[yash2424]

So will the dealers negotiate on this new pricing too? Because I had purchased my facelifted x3 (2015 model xline) when it was just launched around an year ago for a price little lower than what they have quoted as the 'reduced pricing' ex showroom.
BMW dealers are usually very open to negotiations and are keen to keep clearing stocks, Mercedes on the other hand negotiate very little that too after a lot of nagging.

[nik_kapur]

I don't get the point of this price reduction exercise ! You can walk into any Audi or BMW showroom and negotiate a fat discount to the extent of 3-6 Lakhs !
Mercedes is probably the only one who is very stingy with the discounts.
My cousin got an A6 2 months back with the Sline Package (2.0TDI) for 45L on road in Delhi. You can get a BMW 520d for that price as well on road.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by nitinmurali

I think BMW decreasing the price has more to do with poor sales than to do with local assembly. Speaking to the dealership here in kochi, they were desperate to get the vehicles moving.

Originally Posted by vasoo

I think they are trying to make all of us believe that the reduction is due to increased localization. If they mention that it is due to exchange rate, then they will have reduce it even more.

EXACTLY my thoughts. BMW is getting royally hammered in the market, all thanks to greed & an unreal hike in prices.

For luxury brands, cutting the price is a big no no (damages the brand and all that MBA stuff).

Thus, very conveniently, BMW puts down all the benefits to localization. Killing two birds with one stone ('make in India' image & cutting prices due to their weak market position). Even when manufacturers have actually localized to save costs, they've rarely passed the benefits on to us customers.

Originally Posted by yash2424

Mercedes on the other hand negotiate very little that too after a lot of nagging.

Good time, bad time, all depends on that. When Mercedes was down, my brother-in-law got 3 - 4 lakhs off a C250. That's 10% of the car's price. Mercedes & its dealers are on a roll right now, with production & sales peaking, hence they're able to plan the product mix to maximise profits.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by GTO

Good time, bad time, all depends on that. When Mercedes was down, my brother-in-law got 3 - 4 lakhs off a C250. That's 10% of the car's price. Mercedes & its dealers are on a roll right now, with production & sales peaking, hence they're able to plan the product mix to maximise profits.

Exactly, the E , C and B are built to limited stock, you can chip something off. The ML250 is the main stay You can get a discount of the ML 350, a freind of mine got over 6 lakhs of one. The CLA / A have limited stock sonce CBU

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by nik_kapur

I don't get the point of this price reduction exercise ! You can walk into any Audi or BMW showroom and negotiate a fat discount to the extent of 3-6 Lakhs !
Mercedes is probably the only one who is very stingy with the discounts.
My cousin got an A6 2 months back with the Sline Package (2.0TDI) for 45L on road in Delhi. You can get a BMW 520d for that price as well on road.

As far as I know, the road tax and the insurance are calculated on the Ex-Showroom price and not on the negotiated price. So if the road tax is 20%, for every 1 lac reduction, you save 20K in tax - a reduction of 5L in ex-showroom price reduces the tax by 1L , a negotiated 5L decrease will not.

[Bluebeem]

Originally Posted by nik_kapur

I don't get the point of this price reduction exercise ! You can walk into any Audi or BMW showroom and negotiate a fat discount to the extent of 3-6 Lakhs !

Mercedes is probably the only one who is very stingy with the discounts.

My cousin got an A6 2 months back with the Sline Package (2.0TDI) for 45L on road in Delhi. You can get a BMW 520d for that price as well on road.

Mercedes weren't like that. Not so long ago they were dying to sell off old E class stocks. I remember a Bhpian taking home a preface lift E250 in delhi in mid 2013 for 37 lacs on road. Even recently I've seen instances of good discount on the E class. Although here in North india, the ML has a long long wait list and no discount on either models.

Originally Posted by Aroy

As far as I know, the road tax and the insurance are calculated on the Ex-Showroom price and not on the negotiated price. So if the road tax is 20%, for every 1 lac reduction, you save 20K in tax - a reduction of 5L in ex-showroom price reduces the tax by 1L , a negotiated 5L decrease will not.

That's incorrect. Taxes are calculated on the invoiced price. No RTO keeps track of "ex showroom" prices. So they have no way of checking what kind of discount has been levied or what figure the road tax needs to be calculated on.
Unless the dealer specifically mentions X price on invoice , then mentions Y Discount and then final price is mentioned I.e. X-Y. This would be insanely stupid for anyone to do and I've never seen this on any of my car invoices.

Most states have now made it compulsory for dealers only to register the cars sold by them. There are certain dealers who are misusing this and cheating customers by telling customers exactly what you're saying I.e. Road tax is levied on full price not discounted price. Hence they charge the customer a higher tax figure than what they actually pay to the RTO and pocket the rest. Happened with me for one of my Honda cars but thankfully we caught him at the right time.

[Turbanator]

That's incorrect. Taxes are calculated on the invoiced price. No RTO keeps track of "ex showroom" prices. So they have no way of checking what kind of discount has been levied or what figure the road tax needs to be calculated on.

I think this varies from state to state , RTO have access to Price Lists and they demand tax on List Price in few states .

BMW Discounts are here to stay - they need to come out of this phase where they are being hammered by Mercedes , primarily due to some wonderful new models starting from S Class all the way to C Class and now new ML / GLE . I believe there current Head prioritized margins over turnover but than for getting margins you need to have some turnover at first place , BMW is not doing that bad overseas - have a look at June US Data , so something is not happening correctly in India

http://www.businessinsider.in/BMW-be...w/47961958.cms