Hello? I'd Like To Buy A Car

Okay, I promise to back-off the Cooper stories soon... but for now you'll just have to deal with it!

Going into ordering/purchasing a Cooper, I expected it to be not your typical automobile buying experience.  With a car that you have to get on a wait list for, you are just not going to experience the usual things.  You know what I am talking about... walking into a car dealership is pretty much the equivalent of being a fresh piece of meat, dripping with blood, jumping into a shark tank.

Not so at a MINI dealer.  When we checked things out last month, we were asked if we needed assistance... we said we were just looking around and that was it.  For the rest of our visit, we were virtually invisible.

But this time around, I was 95.5% sure that I wanted a Cooper... just had to test drive one to make sure... if I liked the ride, I was ready to start signing my life away.

So go up to the counter, say I want a test drive and am told that I would have to wait 30-45 minutes... did I want to come back tomorrow at a scheduled time?  Ummm... no.  We had just driven 30 miles to get to the dealership, so I wasn't about to go home.  So we waited...  a salesprson came around and asked if we needed assistance, told him I was waiting for a test drive and was promptly left alone.

Unlike other dealership experiences, this particular one has a designated "test driver"... so you don't go out on the road with a salesperson.  There was only one driver, so thus the wait... which did end up being just short of 30 minutes. The driver guy gave me a couple of "here's this, here's that" features of the car... but otherwise it was a fairly non-conversational test drive.  I opted to get on the freeway with hopes of "flooring it"... but thanks to the weekend traffic never quite was able to get up to speed... though I did manage to unintentionally hit 60+ mph on one road... so I still got the feel of it.

So we get back... test driver asks if I want to speak to a salesperson... I say "yes"...and guess what the 3 salespeople are now with other folks around the showroom.  So we wait another 20+ minutes for a salesperson.  When one does, I hand over my "build your own" print-out... discuss the whole wait list, order, production, etc. process... hand over the $2k deposit and that is pretty much it... we'll call you.

I guess it goes without saying, but there is no negotiating at MINI dealer... which is totally fine with me, I hate bargaining.  No 0% financing, no manufacturer cash-back, no "employee pricing."  I am thinking it must be nice to be salesperson here... customers wait to see you and it is pretty much a "take it or leave it" scenario pretty much with everything else.

So that's it.  I should say that my experience at the dealership was just fine... the staff was friendly and it was a stress-free, and not a negative experience at all.  Weird, strange, unusual... yes.  But with only 75 dealerships in the entire US, going in to a MINI dealer you should know that you are the pursuer and not the pursued.  But it is still odd to be ready to plunk down some serious cash (well at least for me!) and pretty much have to wait in line for the privilege.

UPDATE: Just thought I'd respond here to CLH's comment about if there were any Coopers available to "drive off the lot" as seen in My Fair Brady.  Yes, I would say there were maybe a dozen cars (far less inventory than a typical dealership I would think) that likely could have been purchased on-the-spot. 

But personally, I think half the fun of a Cooper experience is "making it your own."  There are literally thousands options to pick and choose from... and the likelihood of finding one that is even close to what you may want I would think would be nearly impossible.  Interestingly enough, a lot of the floor models were on the high-end of the price range... so if someone really wanted one NOW, they could get a very nice one... and also pay a pretty nice price for it.  Personally, I am pretty content to wait to get my "dream" Cooper... and also save up some more $$ in the interim to put down on it!

Comments

[CLH]

So, how come on "My Fair Brady", Adrien what's-her-face went to the Mini Cooper dealership and drove home with one? Could you have just taken what they had?