Buying from your local dealer makes servicing the vehicle a bit easier. I know I get better service where I purchased our X5 from, vs. a couple other local dealers.

I would also think about how much your time is worth. For example, if you are willing to drive 3 hours each way to a dealer to save $500, after you back out $80 in gas, you are saying your time is worth $70 an hour just to break even on your $500 savings.

+1 .... small discounts to travel are not usually worht it. its psychological. you feel like your getting a better deal but you have to calculate it out as said.
also my local dealer gives a car when in service only if you bought it there, actaully all the local dealers, so factor that in to if thats the case in your area. I would literally have to get a super huge deal to get it from somewhere else. but you can use someone elses price to haggle with yoru local boy.. if you are not getting anywhere tell them you wnat to see the invoice and speak with the GM. make your demand to the GM not the salesman. also tell them of your plan to buy your wife.girlfriend mom brother whomever, a car soon.

^ plus you'd be taking delivery from a further-away place (yet even more time spent)... and have to drive highway speeds during its break-in period to bring it home. It'd have to be at least $1500 savings for me to consider going over an hour away.

unless you're leasing the vehicle, i drifted out of the dealer parking lot :)

It all depends on where you live and the number of BMW dealers in your area. Here in SoCal, there's so many BMW dealers that saving 1K on a deal does matter since you can take your car to any dealer. I did not purchase my E70 from my local BMW dealer (10 min away from my house) but they still treat me as if I bought the car from their dealership as far as service is concerned. I get loaner cars each time and the service is actually much better than the dealership where I bought the car from.

Thats a shame. you probably dog out loaners and test driven cars too.

I work with one dealer who I have bought a bunch of cars from. They do a nice job taking care of me, and I got more than a reasonable discount on my 08 X5, no haggling needed. My time is too valuable to drive 25 miles and save $100 as I am sure it is with anyone on here. I made the realization that car dealerships are for profit organizations, and if you get a good relationship with a top sales guy, they will take care of you if they know you will come back and buy more cars. *shrug* but that is just me.

Scott

My tactic when working with car dealers is to encourage them to show their best price whilst also telling them I won't shop their price around. Basically I go to two or three dealers tell them exactly what car I want with the exact spec, I then tell them that I am only going to give them one opportunity to show me their best price. I tell them I won't haggle I wont shop their price to another dealer and I will simply shake hands with the dealer that shows me the best price. I also make it quite plain that if they aren't the best price they will not hear from me again, they will not get a second look.

The most important thing is that you need to do this in person. The salesman needs to be looking you in the eye.

I have found that dealers respond to this by putting their best foot forward first time. Through my job in the financial markets where I have made prices to customers for many years I have learnt to understand how these pricing markets work. We would never ever show our best price to someone who we felt would simply shop our price to the competition, you can tell very easily by how someone approaches you how serious they are.

yep. even cars that I buy I usually leave skid marks pulling out of the stealership. I don't plan on driving these cars to the ground, at 50k miles I'm done and the car gets traded in anyway.......

When we bought the 2001 (in the DC area) we sent e-mails and/or faxes to the local dealers in our area and asked them to quote a price and delivery date. We gave them our phone number and e-mail.

Of the seven we sent to five responded. Some were arrogant and said we don't "mark-up". Some responded with a good price but then tacked on inappropriate fees when we pushed them to provide a final total price. Two, Tischer and Passport, came down to the final.

We ended up with Passport. They delivered the car on a flat bed; we did the final paperwork in the living room and never once entered a dealership.

We tried the same thing when ordering a 2007 last year (Passport was the clear winner) but we cancelled when BMW kept changing options availability on us (wait until June for Napa Tobacco? No thanks I'll wait until October).

We'd like to go with our local dealer (VOB) but their sales department usually wants over $1,000 more than anyone else.