Blackhawk123

All the VW/ Audi cars I have bought so far have been lot inventories. Last one was a 2014 S4 with a total discount of about 12% off MSRP (dealer + Audi rebates).

For the past couple of weeks I have been trying to negotiate a dealer discount or selling price before placing an order for a 2018 S6. Been unsuccessful so far.

I agreed with the dealers that we can't know for sure what Factory/ Audi incentives will be at the time of arrival, so I am trying to at least get a DEALER discount guaranteed.
Dealers are not responding well. I know I may be asking for too big of a discount but they won't even commit to one.

Can those of you who have factory ordered shed some light and share your experience?

Any advice would be appreciated.

plat27265

When I custom ordered my '16 S5 (I know it is not an S6 but just sharing my nego experience), I first negotiated the sale price then applied any current promotional rebates. The dealer has agreed to honor the current rebates if, by the time the car is delivered, the previous rebate is not as good as the active program. If the active rebate program is better, they agreed to honor that one.

They may not want to negotiate because AoA has not released pricing info yet.

Try another dealer and see what they say.

Blackhawk123

Thank you for the info and glad to know I'm not asking somthing that is completely unreasonable.
2018 Order Guide has been out for a while including pricing (the dealer even provided me with a copy), what exactly do you mean by 'pricing info'?

plat27265

AoA pricing to the dealer. If you say the order guide is out and it includes MSRP pricing then AoA already released the pricing info to the dealers.

cbl1

AudiClub 6% discount and all current incentives ends up being pretty decent for a custom order.

chasinfsh15

Since the pricing was not out at the time I placed my order I negotiated a dollar number over invoice w/ my local dealership...then whatever incentives are avail at the time the car came in.

patrickb

I ordered my 2017 S6 in late February of this year and it was delivered the first week in May. At the time of order, I was able to negotiate a purchase price at dealer invoice less any incentives that were in place at the time of delivery. I felt that was a very fair deal on a custom order, given how rare these cars seem to be. If the dealers you are working with won’t agree to a purchase price at time of order, then I would be talking to other dealers.

MikeS6

Like any sales environment, they are more interested in a sale that will immediately post to the monthly total, so I'm sure you'd perceive a lot of disinterest.
You should not be talking about any incentives(Factory cash) in an order negotiation, as no one has any control over those at the time of delivery. Clearly you'd use any factory cash at the time of signing, and that's it. You should just focus on a set % off of the MSRP, and agree to all other static items like, Doc fees & services provided, etc.
I could also see negotiation of your trade being difficult as well. I'd suggest asking for what ever KBB or Edmonds.com would value the car at, at the time of signing +500.00.

Silent Drone

I've heard but don't know first hand that the dealers who advertise in the Audi club mag will give the 6% off plus incentives with not much hassle. If your local dealers aren't doing that maybe you should just order one over the phone from one of those dealers. You'd have to have it shipped to you but that's not such a big deal.

I ordered a 2017 S6 last December and before I placed the order the dealer agreed to 8% off msrp and that I would get to keep the AOA incentives whatever was available at time of delivery. The car arrived in April and I took delivery on those terms with no hassle at all. Incentives in my region turned out to be 1k loyalty rebate and 2k cash incentive at the time of delivery.

Since the dealers have to order cars for their own inventory you would think that they would be happy to order one that they know you will purchase immediately when it arrives because it increases their volume and doesn't cost them anything to have to inventory until a buyer can be found. I would think that it's only when the dealer has something in stock that has been sitting for a while that they might try to steer you towards that over an order. Both do the dealers in my area have told me that they like custom orders because it saves them the hassle of inventory, and they wished everyone would shop for cars that way. The time difference between the sale now and in 4 month isn't that big of a difference to them I think.

All of this changes of course If the car you are ordering is rare and only available in limited allocations. But that's not the case with the S6 and S7 even though there aren't too many of those on the road.

Blackhawk123

Thank you all for the good info.

I got one dealer to agree to 7% off MSRP and apply any available incentives at the time of delivery on top. They agreed over email and I've been waiting a week (!) for the official quote (are these people in the business of selling cars or what?).
It's amazing to me that even though this is not an immediate sale for them, they still drag their feet with selling an $80k car, even if later in the year.

I do have the option of waiting till my current S4 lease is over and then hunt for a great deal on a 2017 with close to what I would spec S6 somewhere around the country. I don't mind traveling. The negatives on that are
a) I absolutely HATE paying for options I don't want
b) For an $80k car, I would want it in my hands fresh off the truck, not parked out in the sun for months with 120 miles of test driving on it.

Why can't this be easy?

Thanks again.