C.J. Ichiban

pole position has a point- you're never really safe - from crappy salespeople /dealers.

but- if you're one sales guy's client and have bought multiple cars or you might (like me) than they have incentive not to F you over. the 25k over sticker cars are usually up for grabs which means any sales guy can sell it versus one sales guy taking his normal cut at MSRP and guaranteeing himself the payday. He's been taking your calls for 24 months while you flip flop on options, and would be stupid to turn down the $ he's gonna make on your porsche after all the work/effort put forth, especially if he's gonna lose you forever over it.

smart sales people sell cars for a long time, and get tons of referrals through having good word of mouth...the internet is the real sales tool now- all a good porsche/exotic guy has to do is make his customers happy and not bend them over on the first chance they get. Good cars sell themselves- nobody that posts regularly on the board was boxster shopping and just so happened to not know anything about a gt3. you probably researched the 996 GT3 and watched 20 hours of video on cup cars or whatever to understand homologation rules, random factual info about how light the ceramic brakes are, etc.

I've bought cars in 4 different states, and will travel or ship as necessary in order to deal with good guys/ dealerships. What's $1000 for shipping or accomodations when you're paying 120k (and up) for a car? if you're being treated really well, it's totally worth it versus having a dealer that always tries to stab you in the heart.

bad sales people can't afford to own the cars they sell.

rop3

You are safe without a doubt, if you document your position.

As Porsche can and will verify the allocations promised to the dealer once they exist. For example if your 1st-2nd on the list and you see two cars arrive your case is made.

This can be tied into a breach of contract, does not leave a back door for the car to be sold from underneath you without your knowledge.

It adds consumer fraud rights to the "contract" as you have a tangible as opposed to an open ended generalization.

Currerntly I am getting a very special and hard to get car @ MSRP.

With my E60 M5 my salesman told my "verbally" matter of fact I was second, when the car started appearing in mags 1 year before U.S. production I mysteriously went to # 6. With that car I should have waited to 2nd yr production anyway It was a lemon.

930man

i put a deposit on the GT2 like year ago... my dealer promised me they would probably not get an alocation for one. but i did it anyway ... what helped was my past history with previous purchases.. then they were told they would get an alocation.....

so put a deposit down and you never know what will happen

C.J. Ichiban

I was number 9 at the local dealer (that got one or two per month) and assured I was getting a GT3 or RS about 15 months before the actual delivery date. Not first on the list but definitely getting a later car. I had already purchased 2 cars from their dealership so I figured they'd be cool.

when my spot came up- they decided to spec it themselves and auction it off. I was informed that "I can as a deposit holder make the first bid on the car"

I had a full on printed out option list and everything- was gonna get black with black wheels, red stuff on the inside etc- probably 14k in options so they were gonna make really good profit as it was.

I got my deposit back and explained any chance I got to bad mouth them I would- and I have. I only deal with "in good faith" type guys now. I've now purchased a gt3 from one place and an RS from another- and for future models will go on the list at both places when I find out about something.

Rick in Colorado

BTW, this is nothing new. I'm 52yo and can remember when the 240z and the RX7 came out they also commanded big premiums. In some cases way more, on a percentage basis, than RSs or GT2s.

"The $3526 list price went up a few notches, too, thanks to dealer markup. Dealers also added stripe kits, air conditioning, and other knicknacks that would help bulk up the asking price. And people bought 'em. A six-month wait for cars sprouted. Once the cars were delivered, some people turned immediately around to resell them at an even higher price. In an age when the Jaguar E-Type cost $5800, some Zs changed hands for damn close to that when the craze peaked."

///Mous3

Wow...

daytonaviolet

so.. i guess they are still trying to close out all of the 08 gt3 or rs. but.. what if, these dealers know something that we dont know. what if they know there will be an 09 gt3/rs allocation. so before the public knows, they are trying to mark up there last 08 in fear that the 09 allocation will reduce there potential markups. thoughts?

pole position

I explained that some time ago in detail.................lets just say that I have real world experience over twenty years at various high end factory authorized (incl P and F car) dealerships, some of them were / are ranked in the top three nationwide as far as volume is concerned, so no mouse houses selling a handful of cars.

I was personally involved when a customer was denied a ordered car with deposit, vin and pro forma and it was sold to someone else not in line...after it finally reached a courtroom the jury did not side with him. Fact not fiction. PCNA will ALWAYS side with the dealer when push comes to shove. A dealership can do as they please once the vehicle is in their hands, lol, no verification by PCNA who is next in line on some dealers list. Newsflash : once its invoiced( actually done before it hits the dealership ) aka paid it is solely at the dealerships discretion who to sell to or not.

The dealer can return a deposit at will and take you off a allocation or orderbank, done all the time with speculative cars, I have done it and heard a lot of noise about " lawsuit" after deposits were returned but that was the end of it, all talk no action, wonder why.

You seem to think that you have everything down pretty good, ok, then it should not be a problem with all your "paperwork". You also must be higher up than the current Governer of CA, afterall , FCNA told him to go pound sand when he tried to muscle them for something similar.

YellowDragon

DTLA

PogueMoHone

Not reality at all. I have had Dealers screw me and PCNA bend over backwards to make it right! Why?

No matter what you read, or imply, I can tell you (personal experience) that PCNA''s primary interest is happy customers serviced through a responsive Dealer network. Sometimes, in the short term, their hands are tied e.g. US Franchise laws.

PM me for more info about the "offending" Dealers.

///Mous3

That's sound true. New cars are the property of the dealership financed through banks and therefore the dealer may "reserve the right to refuse service to anyone."

However, I am surprised to know that an agreement, legal or not, between the buyer and dealership is broken due to high demand on the car such as the RS. Commonsense tells me that it is reasonably wrong but there is nothing common about commansense, especially when it comes to law.

P.S. Are there any RS' on Barrett-Jackson? If no, why not?

///Mous3

What is "DTLA"?

djb_rh

I bought an M-Roadster and then was on a list for almost a year for the first E46 M3 Convertible at Performance in Chapel Hill (NC, a Hendrick dealership). I really wanted a 996TT, but was told their entire allocation, and then some, was already taken by deposits (with no offer of one if I paid over MSRP). I was always told there that getting on their list was gold and cars would be MSRP no matter what other places were selling them for.

A couple months after getting my M3, my salesman calls and says he's got a build spot for a 996TT that I can have. Another customer had it, but his wife found out "in time" to cut him off. He said I could have the spot if I wanted it and needed to spec the car within a week. It didn't occur to me at the time that they really should have moved down the list to the next person (I never got on that list because at the time it seemed silly to get on a two year or more list for a car that they might not even be building then). So I spec the car and get the order going and THEN my salesman shares the story with me that he had put the other guy on the list under an alias because the guy's wife had some other in at the dealership and might find out and nix the deal. She found out FROM THE HUSBAND instead and the salesman had never told anyone who the alias really was, so since he wanted it to be HIS CUSTOMER instead of the next guy on the list (which was some other salesman's customer), he just swapped it to me. Great. I got my car, but I've been paying for it in bad karma since then, apparently.

How? Well, I was standing in a bookstore when they were putting out a new batch of one of the big car mags (forget which one, but it was whoever got to print with news on the CGT first). I saw the car, scanned the article, and went straight to my dealer with it. I asked if they had any deposits on them and they said no, they weren't even sure if they'd be able to get one. I said I'd like to put a deposit down in case they did. They happily took my money and said I was numero uno. Sweet. Time passes, I check in occasionally, I'm told all is well but they have no idea when/if they'll get one. Might be a first year car, might be a second. Might be just one, might be two. Whatever, I'm numero uno. That's all I can do. Meantime my salesguy gets canned, but I check up the line and I'm still good. Then I hear people are getting allocations. I call in. Oh, sorry, we're only getting one first year car and you are second on the list. WHAT?!? Oh yeah, we have one guy who is on the list for EVERYTHING all the time or some such nonsense.

I'm pretty sure who it is and he's definitely bought a TON of cars from them and will continue. But a guy like that could have gotten a car anywhere. I was first on the list, dammit. I got so soured on that experience plus the fact that the car went from speculation of being $250k all the way to $440k MSRP, so I gave up on it. I'm actually sort of glad I never ended up with one in a way, but still will never do business with a Hendrick dealership again.

Fast forward to news of the RS and I do the same thing at Foreign Cars International. I'm told I'm first. Then pretty much the same scenario happens, except this time the salesman leaving causes them so much grief they have no idea I even exist for a while. No first year RS for me. I'm so pissed at that I decide to get my Cayman up to RS performance levels at Farnbacher. (A Maryland dealership put me on their early list for one of those and I got one of the first cars. No shocker that wasn't a big deal, I mean it was a massive production car instead of a limited one.) At this point I'd rather have my Cayman than an RS anyway, so I guess it all worked out. But two dealerships have now lost any chance of doing business with me. *shrug*

I don't know how you get to be someone who has bought all those cars over time if they don't let you start...


--Donnie

mooty

downtown LA.

long ago i was an LA boy

nkhalidi

You start at the bottom. You buy Caymans, Boxsters, non-GT 911s, other brands if necessary, and work your way up. You get to know the guys in sales, service, and parts. You get to be the kind of guy who the dealership wants to sell cars to because they know you're going to be nothing but great PR for the dealership.

Nobody said this would be an easy or inexpensive proposition