[Shoretel]

After reading/watching reviews and testing driving the X5 xDrive45e, I've decided I want to order it as my next vehicle.

I'm aware of all the parts shortages, etc. but I've gone ahead and built the car on the bmw website.


What exactly are the next steps for ordering? (I typically have bought vehicles that were on the dealership lot. So ordering something custom is foreign to me.)


I'm located in California, USA. There are about 5 BMW dealerships I'm willing to drive to / work with. I'm also hoping to finance the vehicle.

Is there room to try and negotiate given the current market and that this is a custom order? When exactly does negotiating happen? When ordering the car or when it is delivered? If during ordering will the dealership respect the negotiated deal when the vehicle arrives?

[TurtleBoy]

The next step would be contacting the dealers with your build and see what type of pricing you get. In general, discounts are down from normal times. I have seen a number of folks getting quoted MSRP or near it for the 45e. Hopefully you can play some of the dealers against each other to lower the price.

All of the negotiating would/should occur before you place your order and they should honor that deal.

[RC_Hund]

I would suggest going to the Costco Auto program if you are a member and using their tool to configure the vehicle you want. They will connect you with a dealer who will honor their price, which is basically invoice and then subtract the incentives from there. $4k in CA with the PHEV credit and $2500 financing credit.
Say 4.5k difference between MSRP and invoice, 4k in credits and then 7.5k federal tax rebate, you're now looking at $16k off of MSRP. Possibly more if you are using military discount or other programs.

[H2ONarvon]

What is your time frame? Build allocations are getting scarce
along with options and standard features.
You may find something very close on a lot near you, but...

Don't rely on the BMW website build and area search.
I did a 100 mile radius for an X6 M50i build with 7 results.
Of the 7, 2 were 40i's and 1 was an M. WTF?!

I knew for a fact (I looked at each dealership website inventory)
that there was 12 M50i's in the same radius. Also, I did an exact build
from the closest dealership and it didn't show in results.

The CarGurus app was better at giving results for a search,
and if you ❤️ a vehicle, it would send an email when it was sold.
It also tells you how many days it's been on the lot, which could
help with negotiating, if it's not moving.

I'm currently a few weeks away from my order, but I started my
process back in early February. I was willing to wait for an allocation
which I got in Late March for a May build. If there's an allocation or
you can wait, I say get exactly what you want. Good Luck

[YuicyYumboYack]

Originally Posted by Shoretel

After reading/watching reviews and testing driving the X5 xDrive45e, I've decided I want to order it as my next vehicle.

I'm aware of all the parts shortages, etc. but I've gone ahead and built the car on the bmw website.


What exactly are the next steps for ordering? (I typically have bought vehicles that were on the dealership lot. So ordering something custom is foreign to me.)

When you build the car on the website, it should give you a build code in the summary page. You can actually give that code to a dealer and they can pull it up to see what you added. Alternatively, you can just tell them what options you added.

Originally Posted by Shoretel

I'm located in California, USA. There are about 5 BMW dealerships I'm willing to drive to / work with. I'm also hoping to finance the vehicle.

I think it's worth considering contacting more dealerships. When I purchased I ended up doing everything over email / phone.

Originally Posted by Shoretel

Is there room to try and negotiate given the current market and that this is a custom order?

As others have mentioned, it's difficult to get a good deal right now, particularly in CA. If you read through the forums here, you'll come across people who are getting 9% to 10% off, but in my experience these are outliers and not representative of what the majority are paying. Per RC_Hund, Costco is a good option right now. I believe it comes out to about invoice, plus incentives and tax rebates.

Originally Posted by Shoretel

When exactly does negotiating happen? When ordering the car or when it is delivered? If during ordering will the dealership respect the negotiated deal when the vehicle arrives?

Price is negotiated / finalized before they place the order. They will not change the price at delivery.

I tried getting dealers to outbid each other, but most didn't bother. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be a great time to buy right now if you're looking to get a great deal.

Lastly, make sure to ask the dealer if they have an allocation, and when the allocation is for. If not, you could end up waiting quite awhile.

[Shoretel]

Thanks for all the insight. This has been super helpful.

[phillydilles]

Originally Posted by H2ONarvon

Don't rely on the BMW website build and area search.

Just a heads up - this is pretty common with the BMWUSA site as it seemingly has issues with filter stickiness.

Next time you do that search, try 2 things after you search and come back with those results -

1) make sure you remove the 50i search designation (click the x next to the little black banner) and expand the models selection again, reselecting the 50i trim

and

2) click the zip code, change the distance selector to anything else and then change it back to your desired search

(both of these are why what happened to you did - it lost the model and distance parameters in your search, thus returning all G05s within 10 miles instead)

[H2ONarvon]

Originally Posted by phillydilles

Just a heads up - this is pretty common with the BMWUSA site as it seemingly has issues with filter stickiness.

Next time you do that search, try 2 things after you search and come back with those results .......

I think you're selecting from main BMW USA website, 'Shopping', then Zip Code, Shop New and selecting Model and Trim? I was doing a build and on the Summary page, I selected "See Local Matches". Build = 7 results, Shopping = 13 results (better), CarGurus = 17 results (best).

Either way (Build or Shopping), I can't get the website to show an X6 M50i on the dealership 4 miles from my home. I saw this model 3 days ago, built it to the exact specs on the website and it still won't show. The closest X6 M50i is 22 miles away.

Anyway, my point to the OP is too look at dealership websites or call to find out what is available on their lots. Don't rely solely on websites or apps..... Happy Shopping