I have customer loyalty discount, and military discount. Here was the "deal" I was quoted for an in-stock X3 in Mineral white with premium package, glow kidney grill, front ventilated seats, rear heated seats with rear climate control panel :

MSRP : 58,395
rebates 2,200
adjusted price : 56,195
Doc fee 175
taxes : 4615.60
non-tax fees : 311.93
Balance 61,197.53

Here are some questions I have (I know I've being screwed but I need better info).

1. Was told the "3k Military discount is only valid for cash offers. If financing it's 500"

2. That better discounts aren't possible if you are financing at 0.9%. This doesn't make sense to me... What would this local dealer care if I finance or not? They get paid either way if it's from my bank account of from "bmw financial bank"

This isn't a special car for me that I am dying to have. I just want a reasonable deal where I don't walk away from it feeling like I am being screwed. This offer feels like "we have a sucker" and frankly makes me want to go buy from someone besides BMW who might get closer to the Truecar.com's price of "what others are paying". Im not asking them to lose money but with the loyalty discount and military they are telling me 2200 off MSRP if I finance is the best they can do? Please help me make sense of this shitty deal.

Just went through a round of this nonsense in order to get my car.

Was this just an initial online quote, or were you there at the dealer ready to buy?
Do you have a trade-in vehicle?

The finance offer is irrelevant in terms of the loyalty discount - they can be combined and the loyalty is up to $1000 "subject to dealer participation" so that means go try another dealer and see what shakes.

Here is an offer that was emailed by a local to me dealer:

Price.
Drop.
Alert.

Don’t miss out on this limited-time price drop offer!

2025 BMW X3 30 xDrive image

new



2025 BMW X3 30 xDrive

$50,980

was $54,625

VIN: 5UX53GP06S9092594


This is from BMW of Pharr.
I'm surprised because they hardly ever discount at all.
You should be able to do better than the $2,200.00 discount they are offering.
Good luck and thank you for your service.

I will say that BMW has too much X3 stock (and 30i's are the majority) so you should be able to do better just based on that. In current time, why else are they offering 0.9%? They need to sell more.

LGetz1 wrote

2025 BMW X3 30 xDrive

The "2025" is the key to that deal. MY26's are now also sitting on the lot. So, I would expect that car to be aggressively discounted to move.

minus.spire wrote

Just went through a round of this nonsense in order to get my car.

Was this just an initial online quote, or were you there at the dealer ready to buy?
Do you have a trade-in vehicle?

The finance offer is irrelevant in terms of the loyalty discount - they can be combined and the loyalty is up to $1000 "subject to dealer participation" so that means go try another dealer and see what shakes.

I was ready to buy. We test drove, sat down looking at all their in-stock X3's and found the one that was closest to what we would want.

Last year I bought a 2025 X5 50e at MSRP from this dealer/salesman but that was a custom build and build slots were in demand so I didn't really try and negotiate. I felt good with MSRP on that car.

Now I told him - Im not buying a custom car here, I am not in love with the X3, and I want you to remember how well you made out last time and give me your best deal this time. I talked with him in the morning the day after deciding what car on the lot I wanted and told him all this. He then sent an offer over at 7pm last night which is what I posted. I was offended and makes me want to move away from the brand.

I have a few requests for offers in at other dealers. We will see what happens but it sure would have been nice if he had come back with an actual good deal and I didn't have to go through all the hassle of getting something that doesn't make me feel taken advantage of.

BmwJoel wrote

I was ready to buy. We test drove, sat down looking at all their in-stock X3's and found the one that was closest to what we would want.

Last year I bought a 2025 X5 50e at MSRP from this dealer/salesman but that was a custom build and build slots were in demand so I didn't really try and negotiate. I felt good with MSRP on that car.

Now I told him - Im not buying a custom car here, I am not in love with the X3, and I want you to remember how well you made out last time and give me your best deal this time. I talked with him in the morning the day after deciding what car on the lot I wanted and told him all this. He then sent an offer over at 7pm last night which is what I posted. I was offended and makes me want to move away from the brand.

I have a few requests for offers in at other dealers. We will see what happens but it sure would have been nice if he had come back with an actual good deal and I didn't have to go through all the hassle of getting something that doesn't make me feel taken advantage of.

You were ripped off last year and they are trying to do the same to you again. On your custom order X5 you should have been around 8-10% discount and in that same region once again for a custom order X3. Just forget even dealing with them and contact one of our resident brokers and they will be able to take care of you.

BmwJoel wrote

Now I told him - Im not buying a custom car here, I am not in love with the X3, and I want you to remember how well you made out last time and give me your best deal this time. I talked with him in the morning the day after deciding what car on the lot I wanted and told him all this. He then sent an offer over at 7pm last night which is what I posted. I was offended and makes me want to move away from the brand.

They probably have no idea what "best offer" means to you, so they're just starting with a high ball.

I would recommend formulating your own bottom line price - that is the amount you will be financing after everything is totaled up: price, discount, rebates, tax, fees, etc. Then, you can tell them what you want to pay for the car, all in.

It's been mentioned that a broker can do 8-10% off msrp, but be sure to subtract the broker fee and shipping costs from the total discount, to get the real % off. The dealer doesn't have a broker fee and doesn't need to ship the car to you.

Compare BOTTOM LINE pricing of the total amount you will finance. Don't fixate on discount from msrp alone.

Example - if the dealer just includes the official $1000 rebate then you're at 5.5% off. The true broker discount after fees and shipping is likely to be 6-8% off, not 8-10%. You are closer than you think.

Have an offer ready, make it. See what they come back with. Be ready to give your final line in the sand, see if they agree, if not, walk out. Maybe do the broker deal if no one can match what they're offering.

minus.spire wrote

Example - if the dealer just includes the official $1000 rebate then you're at 5.5% off. The true broker discount after fees and shipping is likely to be 6-8% off, not 8-10%. You are closer than you think

Rebates aren't included in discounts, they are on top of discounts.

You are correct though, one needs to consider the entire deal.

TurtleBoy wrote

Rebates aren't included in discounts, they are on top of discounts.

You are correct though, one needs to consider the entire deal.

Can you explain better what the difference is between a discount and a rebate?

I've been working with another dealer and he's been much more transparent. He did say though that if I paid cash then the $3,000 military discount applies, but if I went financing then it drops to a $1000 loyalty + 500 military rebate.

The second dealer did pretty good I think. Out the door cash price was 55k. 60 months financing added 2k to the total cost of ownership.

BmwJoel wrote

Can you explain better what the difference is between a discount and a rebate?

I've been working with another dealer and he's been much more transparent. He did say though that if I paid cash then the $3,000 military discount applies, but if I went financing then it drops to a $1000 loyalty + 500 military rebate.

The second dealer did pretty good I think. Out the door cash price was 55k. 60 months financing added 2k to the total cost of ownership.

The discount is the reduction from MSRP that the dealer gives. There are no rules for qualifying, specific amounts etc. Rebates come from BMWFS and there are specific rules regarding the amount, qualifications, stackability, etc. Whenever discounts are talked about they never include rebates since not everyone qualifies for them.

As far as military goes, he is correct, or at least close. If you finance or lease with BMWFS then the amount is $500. If you use cash or outside financing then you would get the full $3k. In order to get loyalty you need to finance with BMWFS but since the full domestic military incentive is greater it is better to skip BMWFS and go with cash/outside financing.

Interesting stuff - I bet the 0.9% (and the 1.49% for 72) would stomp outside credit though.

TurtleBoy wrote

The discount is the reduction from MSRP that the dealer gives. There are no rules for qualifying, specific amounts etc. Rebates come from BMWFS and there are specific rules regarding the amount, qualifications, stackability, etc. Whenever discounts are talked about they never include rebates since not everyone qualifies for them.

As far as military goes, he is correct, or at least close. If you finance or lease with BMWFS then the amount is $500. If you use cash or outside financing then you would get the full $3k. In order to get loyalty you need to finance with BMWFS but since the full domestic military incentive is greater it is better to skip BMWFS and go with cash/outside financing.

Great stuff! Thank you, this really lines up well with everything I've learned. I've been looking at outside financing (Because I'd rather keep my money invested) and the best rates I've been seeing are in the 4% range for 60 months. So 0.9% financing with $1,500 dollar rebate works out to a better deal than a stacked $3,000 but at 4.5%.

minus.spire wrote

Interesting stuff - I bet the 0.9% (and the 1.49% for 72) would stomp outside credit though.

Your post brings up two points that people need to keep in mind. First of which is that dealers are allowed to mark up the base rate 1% so even if BMWFS advertises it as .9% many dealers will make it 1.9%. Some that do markups will drop it as part of negotiations however many will not. That needs to be considered when comparing deals since the additional interest reduces the dealer discount. In that same vein, for leases dealers are allowed to mark up the base MF .00040.

The second point is to make sure one looks at the total cost of each financing option when deciding which way to go. Using the OP's numbers as an example, let's assume the after discount amount of the vehicle is $58. The first of two options would be to use BMWFS financing at .9% for 60 months and get a $500 loyalty incentive and a $500 military incentive. The second option would be to forgo BMWFS financing and take the $3,000 military incentive. Since the purchaser would be eligible for the military incentive we will use NFCU's rate for 60 months which is 4.29%.

For simplicity we will ignore TTL and just use the cost of the vehicle. In the first option $57k will be financed resulting in total loan payments of $58,313.49 and the second option of financing $55k will have total payments of $61,207.35. If one would be using cash then you would need to use your opportunity cost.

This is a good example of where a bigger discount may not be the best deal.

minus.spire wrote

Compare BOTTOM LINE pricing of the total amount you will finance. Don't fixate on discount from msrp alone.

Example - if the dealer just includes the official $1000 rebate then you're at 5.5% off. The true broker discount after fees and shipping is likely to be 6-8% off, not 8-10%. You are closer than you think.

Have an offer ready, make it. See what they come back with. Be ready to give your final line in the sand, see if they agree, if not, walk out. Maybe do the broker deal if no one can match what they're offering.

Really helpful post. Thanks!

BmwJoel wrote

Great stuff! Thank you, this really lines up well with everything I've learned. I've been looking at outside financing (Because I'd rather keep my money invested) and the best rates I've been seeing are in the 4% range for 60 months. So 0.9% financing with $1,500 dollar rebate works out to a better deal than a stacked $3,000 but at 4.5%.

Sounds goods. I was creating an example showing that while you posted. Good job.

Well I ended up getting 8.5% off of MSRP from the dealer and 0.9% financing. I close on the transaction tomorrow. Overall I'd say I did very good this transaction.

There was another much smaller dealer that would have done almost 11% off MSRP. I feel like this dealer just wanted the car off the lot for some reason because it seems like 11% off eats any profit they had. Came down to the options on the car were not what we really wanted.

Getting a pretty base X3 with the only options being DAPP and the Premium package. A HUD was a minimum requirement which requires the premium package. We could have got one without DAPP and a couple other unimportant options or even just no extra options... But I really love DAPP on my '25 X5 so that's the way we went.

BmwJoel wrote

Well I ended up getting 8.5% off of MSRP from the dealer and 0.9% financing. I close on the transaction tomorrow. Overall I'd say I did very good this transaction.

There was another much smaller dealer that would have done almost 11% off MSRP. I feel like this dealer just wanted the car off the lot for some reason because it seems like 11% off eats any profit they had. Came down to the options on the car were not what we really wanted.

Getting a pretty base X3 with the only options being DAPP and the Premium package. A HUD was a minimum requirement which requires the premium package. We could have got one without DAPP and a couple other unimportant options or even just no extra options... But I really love DAPP on my '25 X5 so that's the way we went.

Congratulations. Good luck, enjoy and be safe.

Congrats BmwJoel !
Did you go with the 30 or 50?

I’d say 8% off and 0.9% financing is pretty good so long as they didn’t tack on a buncha BS fees!