Scenario: I have a particular car & color in mind with specific options I want.
The car is not on the lot. The dealer will order it for me.
However, I know if he searched his BMW database that he could probably find the car I
want somewhere. So why do they usually seem so hesitant to do this? They kind of make
me feel bad to ask them to do a search for it. They rarely offer to do so.

Can anyone explain why a salesman behaves this way? Do they get screwed by trading for the car I want.

Mick

 

This is their process as I've observed:
First check their lot for whatever they have, they will always try to sell you one they already have in their lot and will be willing to throw an incentive, like a bigger discount.
Second, what is on their pipeline, what do they already have ordered and it is being built/in transit, etc
Third, check around (Other dealerships, etc....)
Fourth, place an order on a new one from scratch. At least that has been my experience.
If you initially approach them with what you want, you can save sometime.

 

When a dealer trade is involved, depending on what kind of car it is, sometimes the trading dealership will be very hestitant to make the effort to go thru the process simply because it's a hassle. Easy cars such as a 3 series or an X3 are easy to trade because most of the time the dealership can trade away something similar in return. If the car is a very hot or rare car like a 335i coupe 6spd or an ///M5 then the chances of getting a trade is almost impossible. Your dealership has to give up a similar car, or sometimes 2 different cars to make up for the one car that he's getting.

The dealership will always resort to the pipeline to see what's coming into inventory, what's on the water and what's scheduled for production and they want to push those cars first. But if the customer can't wait then a trade is next in line. Just tell your dealership that you want them to find this car now otherwise you'll go somewhere else to buy.

There's also the hassle of shipping if they find a car that's really far away, like out of state which in that case the dealership will try to "sneak" the shipping charges into the whole deal and make you pay for it, sometimes even marking up the shipping cost.

Hope that helps!

D