Protege 5 Incentives

[P5w3kids]

You don't have a few things on that car: alarm, wheel locks, cargo tray, bumper thingee, cassette player. All of these can be dealer installed if you want them. I didn't get the autodim mirror, but now wish I had. With the standard mirror in the flipped position you see the moonroof switch module and headliner. The roof rack is dubious. People complain that it creates wind noise, but I can see how it might be useful.

I personally paid my dealer $35 in labor to take the chrome wheels off. I was credited $400 for the wheels, which is the invoice price. But this was before taxes, so I actually saved close to $400 on the wheels (saved $24 in taxes at 6%). If the dealer is altering the price by $400 after taxes, then theyre using the $30 or so in taxes towards their labor. Which isnt bad.

That doc fee is reasonable. Some dealers charge $300 or more.

Edmunds includes dealer incentives but not customer incentives in TMV. That's just how they do it. Remember, TMV is an average. You should be able to do a bit better.

At $17,500 the dealer would be giving you the car right at invoice minus their bonus cash. You might be able to get this low, but I doubt it. I wouldnt expect you to get lower than $17,700 with the wheels, $17,300 without them.

I dont know whether $300 is worth calling a few other dealers or not to you. Other dealers might also hit you with a larger doc fee, so be sure to handle this up front.

With good credit you should be able to do a bit better than 4.49%. I recently did 4.05% including gap insurance. On the other hand, the difference between these two rates is maybe $3 a month.

The dealer should be able to give you a better price if you finance through them, because they get a kickback. Ask about this. Even if the rate is bad you can probably pocket the savings and then refinance a few weeks later. I got an additional $250 rebate by financing at 5.66% through Mazda Credit. This rebate might still be available. I then refinanced at 4.05% two weeks later. Just be sure to line up your refi in advance, as I think some places charge a higher rate for a refi. The cost to me to refinance ended up being $36 in courier and title fees. This doesnt sound like much, but it will take five months of interest savings to earn it back.

I assume you're not eligible for the $500 student rebate. You are if you're going to graduate college within 6 months, already did graduate within the last four years, are in graduate school, or received a graduate degree within the last two years.

The final thing to be aware of is that the price went up $100 at some point even after the 2003.5 change. If you're looking at a car before this change, you should save another $90 or so.

 

[P5w3kids]

If you do the kickback/rebate then refi route, make sure the loan can be paid off early without a penalty.

 

[rktktpaul]

The dealer should be able to give you a better price if you finance through them, because they get a kickback. Ask about this.

Very True!! I came in to the dealership knowing what rate financing I could get at a bank. Mazda credit actually did better than the best bank quote I received. That plus Mazda Credit ranks highest in a survey of all auto credit plans.

 

[shareef777]

Oh how the tides have turned. The dealer that I mentioned before wouldn't go below $18k OTD (my own loan). So maybe if I do finance through them, assuming they offer the same or lower APR, I could get it for the $17.7k OTD. In either case I should be fine right?

Here is were the turned part comes in. I got a call from another Mazda dealer (mind you they CALLED me even though I never contacted them) offering the same car except in blue w/ NO roof rack, and get this ... low $16 OTD. I asked for an exact price but all he would say is low 16s. Well damn the highest low 16 is $16.5k. Only thing is I don't want to drive to him to find out its a catch. It's 45 min away.

What you guys think?

 

[Bijou-MP5]

go for it...our p5 looks even better without rookrack 45mins of worth driving

 

[cej22]

My girlfriend just picked up a 2003.5 P5 with leather, ABS package, moonroof package and roof racks for $6250 off the MSRP, no trade-in. We're pretty happy about that deal.

 

[Mr. Win]

14 an change with 0.0 no sunroof (to tall) or abs on any of that crap about a year an a half ago

 

[P5w3kids]

$6750 off? I've been trying to figure out how they swing this. Anyone have the inside scoop? Does this require financing through Mazda Credit or through some other lender?

On a loaded P5 the margin is about $1,500. The main rebate is $2,500, the dealer cash is either $500 or $1,000 depending on the region, the grad rebate is $500, the Mazda Credit rebate (still in effect?) is $250. This gets us to $5,750. Where's the other grand?

Is there an owner loyalty rebate for people who already own a Mazda they bought new? There is one on the 3, but is there one on the P5 as well?

 

[cej22]

I'm pretty sure the dealer is simply losing money on the deal, but would rather move it off the lot as 2004 approaches. In my area there is $1000 in dealer cash and the $2500 rebate. The $500 college rebate was not available to us.

I never would have thought we could get that deal until we saw it advertised in the paper. The dealer we purchased from called the advertising dealer posing as a customer in order to confirm the discount and they reluctantly agreed to match it. The finance manager told us they were reluctant because their kickback wasn't as high as the other dealer's due to their lower volume of sales, but confirmed that both dealers involved would lose money at that price.

The deal did not require financing through Mazda, though we did opt to go through them after they matched the rate from the local credit union. They didn't mention anything about a Mazda credit rebate. I am not aware of any loyalty program on the P5, but my girlfriend wouldn't have qualified even if there were.

 

[P5w3kids]

Mazda's holdback is two percent of the car's MSRP, or roughly $400. It doesn't vary by dealer size.

However, they get other bonuses for hitting their sales targets, volume, customer satisfaction, etc. that might get them near break-even on the car. I just don't know how large these are. I know my salesman said he got roughly a $100 bonus if I gave them excellent marks on the CSI survey.

 

[lasermp5]

I got mine for 14.5 out the door after labor day. If I waited a couple of more months, maybe I could of got leather?

 

[cej22]

btw, listing OTD prices isn't very helpful to those who are shopping and trying to get a good price. There are a lot of regional variables in TTL. We also can't determine how good of a deal you got unless you list what your MSRP was and whether or not your deal was dependent upon a trade or special financing.

 

[james5377]

I never would have thought we could get that deal until we saw it advertised in the paper.

Hey cej22, was I the one who direct you to the newspaper ad on the San Francisco Chronicle about the dealership at Royal Motors?? Where did you get the P5 finally?? Just curious here...

whoo... another P5 owner in the bayarea!

 

[cej22]

It was you, James. I gave you props in the other thread where you provided the info. Marina Mazda in Capitola had the exact color and options my girlfriend was looking for so we headed down there with the Royal ad in hand. They were very cool, albeit understandably reluctant to match the price.

 

[dnquark]

Hi all,
I wasn't really thinking about getting a new car, but seeing all these insentives has me thinking...

Still, though, there's one 2002 P5 at a local Acura dealership with 16K miles; pretty much no options and an asking price of $12000. That's a rip-off, since Edmunds shows a base model 2003 for ~$13,000 with grad/2500 cash rebates.

So if I were to negotiate, what do you think would be a decent price for the car?..

And dang, I wish I were still in the Bay Area, what's with those deals flying around there (But then, I wouldn't have wrecked my Civic in the snow and wouldn't be shopping for a P5...) I'll be visiting SF on Jan. 5th, though. Hmmm... a cross-country trip in a P5?...

--l

 

[P5w3kids]

The Acura dealer probably has too much in the car. My experience suggests that even if you confront them with a logical argument for why they should sell you the car for $X, if they have more than that in it they'll hold on to it figuring that eventually some idiot will come along.

$13k seems high to me for a new base car. I'd expect to pay no more than $12,500 figuring $3000 in rebates, $1,250 in margin, $1,000 in dealer incentive. And maybe as low as $12,000 if you can find an early model year car (sticker was $360 lower). And that's leaving the dealer some profit. The Bay Area dealers appear to be willing to take a slight loss, for a price on a base car around $11,000. (I'm still hoping to see the actual numbers for one of those Bay Area deals. Anyone? I guess I'll float a separate post.)

So, what's a used 2002 worth? I'd say $9500 tops.

 

[P5w3kids]

On the Bay Area cars with $6250 off ($6750 with student rebate), what do the actual numbers look like: MSRP, actual price before TTL?

What are they willing to take off a base car?

 

[cej22]

I don't have the contract with me but the car was $19,335 MSRP. 5 speed with leather, ABS package, moonroof package, and roof racks. They gave us $3750 off that price, then added TTL. Then the $2500 rebate is applied after that total towards the down payment. Very standard contract. $45 doc fee, $5 tire fee, then I remember DMV registration being about $145. Sales tax is 8.25% in our county.

Like I said, the price match was done off of Royal Mazda's ad in last Saturday's SF Chronicle which was offering the $6750 discount on all remaining P5's. Stock around here is moving though. Marina sold two of their last four P5s while we were there last night. Other local dealers were only advertising $5500 off MSRP, so Royal was undercutting the advertised price by quite a bit. An inventory search on Mazda's website shows that there are still 93 P5s scattered among 13 dealers within 50 miles of my zip (94306) so there appears to still be a decent selection to choose from, though the two Marina sold last night still show up on the inventory search so I don't know how often they update that.

Of course you'd have to talk to a dealer yourself to see what they could do off a base car.

 

[P5w3kids]

I bought the same car minus the rack at Mazda's S-Plan price for $13,348, right at invoice pretty much and with student and Mazda credit rebates, and you still smoked my price big time.

If the Mazda Credit rebate could be added to this deal (assuming no financing kickback is already included) then that would take it to $7,000 off. My car's sticker is $100 lower because it's from early in 2003.5. Add it all up, and with that kind of discount I could have gotten my car for $11,985.

I did have a trade which clouded matters. I pretty much had to fall for something Car Buying 101 says to avoid--combining the car and trade-in negotiations. I had to because I was doing S-Plan, which fixes the new car price. (One way around this is to have the dealer throw in freebies, but I didn't want any of the possibilities; the standard warranty is long enough for me at 6,000 miles a year.) I didn't even think of exploring a non-S-Plan price because it's usually higher.

To cut to the chase, I got about $1,000 more for my trade than its likely wholesale value. Thus I really paid $12,348 for a car with an MSRP of $18,985, still well over your awesome deal.

The only problem with this reasoning is that like every fool out there I want to believe that they didn't give me money for the trade I could have had them take off the sticker because that suggests I should have sold the car myself. Which I would have, but there were issues I didn't want to pass on to a private buyer...

 

[james5377]

An inventory search on Mazda's website shows that there are still 93 P5s scattered among 13 dealers within 50 miles of my zip (94306) so there appears to still be a decent selection to choose from, though the two Marina sold last night still show up on the inventory search so I don't know how often they update that.

my car still shows up on www.mazdausa.com website for almost more than a week before its gone.... I guess its better that check with the dealer whether they still have the particular car in stock before actually going there....