Waitlists in US legit?

[BMW3R]

Originally Posted by dab33d

Waitlists are complete bull, dealers will sell the car to anyone who is willing to pay the highest amount, regardless of position on the WL.

The dealers here are losing a lot of customers secondary to market and housing losses. I believe that if the US economy continues along this trend, US BMW dealers will lose a chunk of their business by Spring 2008. I would not pay anything over MSRP. There are other options that are much more affordable without undo mark-up.

[Jim4M3]

Originally Posted by dab33d

I currently have 2 Deposits and am on the WL at 2 dealers in pretty good spots #4 / #7 . One of these dealers who is in the middle of nowhere in CA , promised MSRP . Anyhow, I went to a dealer yesterday with my girl to look at 528's for her and talked M with one of the sales managers there. This is what he told me:

1) Waitlists are complete bull, dealers will sell the car to anyone who is willing to pay the highest amount, regardless of position on the WL.

2) The car will be marked up 10k-20k at initial release. If you wait 3-6 months, this amount will drop to 5Kish.

My question is , how valid do you guys think this is. Basing upon previous experiences with the e46, was this the case as well. Do you think my 2 deposits (which both have been cashed) will hold up and will give me a better chance to be first to take delivery ? ALSO, what about what this sales mgr had to say? Any feedback would be appreciated !

I put down my deposit for '08 M3 Sedan in early Oct ...I have a #2 fix on where I am 'in the line' at my dealer, with recent understanding from my CA that once the allocation and pricing come in, putting together my M3 order is "standard operating procedure" Pretty straight forward explanation... No line jumping scenario, and most important, a 'production build window date' is also assigned to my number. After my order goes onto the system, online tracking is available to me.

I trust my dealer going into this deal, but concerned from your 'post' I need to track my "position" better to assure my order gets into the system at earliest opportunity. My understanding with the allocation assigned to me is that I will have a "111" allocation "position" allowing up to 2 weeks to build my car with the dealer CA. After 2 weeks, that code goes to "097" allocation "position" which means I may lose the position but not the car. The build date is fixed on paper with the allocation numbers...real world dates may be another story.

Looking for M3 allocation update from my CA this week. Appreciate your comments.

Thank you
Glad to be aboard!