MSRP Discount

[minigoogoo]

We committed (placed deposit) about a month ago and picked up our new Airstream last Saturday. It's a 2019 International Signature 25FBT (the last Signature our dealer had and it just happened to be the layout we wanted). We did quite well (31% off MSRP), but it was an advertised special and I didn't do any real work to get it. We were just in the right place at the right time. We've had several Airstreams and I've enjoyed the process of keeping loose tabs on the market over the years. By maintaining a general feel for prices and patterns, we knew a good deal when we saw it and snapped it up.

With this most recent shopping experience, during the deepest depths of COVID, it seemed that many dealer's inventory levels were very high in March/April (keep in mind, this is coming out of the off-season and many cities/states on lockdown) and nothing I was looking at seemed to be moving all that quickly. Now, late May and early June those same dealers seem to have moved tons of inventory, at least in a certain size range. There seems to be a lot of smaller Airstreams still available, but less in the 23, 25, 27 foot range.

I don't know what they're all selling for but I would say the buying surge and inventory drops are real, at least where I've been shopping.

Hope this helps!

[DutchB]

Ordered Memorial Day Weekend. Got 12% discount and was happy because it is model we wanted coming out of dealer's 2021 allocation. Were quoted 6-8 weeks.

Our order form says "Temporary MU" under Model, is blank under Serial No and has "TEMP" under Stock No.

Is this normal when ordering one that is not in stock?

[HUDSEEZ]

I have made some calls and from what I can tell no dealerships are offering MSRP discounts at the moment due to the high demand. Has anyone else looking experienced this. While I would love 10-15% off I don't think that is going to happen given the current state of things.

[matthewk]

When we picked up our FC last week, walking through the sea of Airstreams Colonial had on the lot the vast majority of them had a sold sticker on them, buyers name, and pickup date. The tech said they were delivering several a day. I suspect if the market keeps up like this getting a new one will be a challenge regardless of discount.

How many do they make annually?

[gypsydad]

Originally Posted by matthewk

When we picked up our FC last week, walking through the sea of Airstreams Colonial had on the lot the vast majority of them had a sold sticker on them, buyers name, and pickup date. The tech said they were delivering several a day. I suspect if the market keeps up like this getting a new one will be a challenge regardless of discount.

How many do they make annually?

Thats a good question for Patrick at Colonial! I know when we visited the factory last year, they said at one time they were building 120 or so a month, but had dropped back to around 90-100, as I recall? Likely QA issues in those larger build runs.

[ZeGermans]

Originally Posted by matthewk

When we picked up our FC last week, walking through the sea of Airstreams Colonial had on the lot the vast majority of them had a sold sticker on them, buyers name, and pickup date. The tech said they were delivering several a day. I suspect if the market keeps up like this getting a new one will be a challenge regardless of discount.

How many do they make annually?

Also they were shut down for a few weeks, ran at lower capacity and still may run low...

Also take that into consideration when banking on a huge used sell off in a year or two... between some end up liking camping or having been contemplating anyways and with covid finally pulled the trigger and lower than normal supply during this surge... we will have to wait an see but my feeling is it may not get as much of a buyers market with used units as some may wish...

[wordofbabb]

New to the forum and was reading this thread today. We live in the Seattle area and went to the Airstream Adventures Northwest dealer to look at the new International 27FB with a rear hatch they had in the new Coastal Cove Seashell interior layout update.

We started talking about ordering one off their allocations in Coastal Cove Aqua instead with a twin option. We added in the 2nd AC, Solar package, Rear Hatch and Convection Microwave. We also asked if we could upgrade the twin mattresses to the Tuft and Needle.

I got a total of $123,575 after some small fee for them and our 10% Washington sales tax. They wanted to negotiate the pricing and have us put down some money to hold the spot. That was all fine. We plan to pay in cash for the trailer. The sales person goes to the finance person and comes back out telling us we summed up the build sheet wrong. There was a new price and the MSRP discount was 2% under.

I told him to take it back since it looked like the money guy added in the bunk option we didn't want or check off. That was the exact delta of our price vs their price. He comes back out and has the same MSRP discount and I said I plan on paying cash and this is all you can do for me? He asked me what I wanted and I told him at least 10%. He laughed and told me it was a seller's market and I was lucky to get that much off.

This is the second time we have gone to look at an Airstream at this dealer and each time the experience is just terrible. Their sales people know less about the trailers than we do from the research online when asking questions. I have low confidence in any of the discussions we have on service being done and this place is a 5 star rivet dealer and in some massive conglomerate on the west coast with like 5 other dealers.

Anyway, not sure if people are getting any MSRP discounts currently. I wanted to post my experience here and ask if anyone recommends other dealers in the nation. At this point we will travel anywhere for a small road trip and to get a decent price on an Airstream we want to order. If this is how it is during the market right now then I guess we will wait.

[NoResults]

A year ago I had a similar experience with Airstream Adventure NW in Portland, Or. They did not want to deal on an order and I had done business with them before.



I left and ordered from a dealer in California. Took delivery in Reno, Nv as I was not paying sales tax.


I had a minor issue that I took to them and there service was good.


Dave

[vintageracer]

First mistake was telling them you were paying Cash!

Never tell a selling dealer how you will be paying for a trailer, truck or car until you have tried negotiating a better deal up front. If you want to tell em something tell them you want finance the trailer with the least amount of money down even if you do not want to finance the item at all to git the best deal. You can always change your mind and pay Cash at the end of the deal.

Typically the largest profit made on selling an expensive asset such as an Airstream trailer is made on the financing of trailers, trucks and cars. When you tell em upfront "I'm Paying Cash" the price of the trailer, truck or car goes UP as the selling dealer is losing arguably the most profitable part of the deal.

When it's a Seller's Market why would I as a seller want to sell to you a very hard to git Airstream trailer and not make the most money possible? The answer to that question is easy. I would not!

YOU may think paying Cash gits you a better deal however that notion left the trailer, truck and car business many years ago!

Now days it's "All About The Money"!

[overlander63]

I remember a couple of decades ago when Honda released their revised Odyssey for 1999, they were so popular they were sold as soon as they hit the lot. Dealerships were charging up to a $4k "market premium" over MSRP for them. I was able to use some connections to get a "deal" for my friend of "only" MSRP, and they gave him a good allowance on his trade.

My point is, MSRP is the SUGGESTED retail price, and while you may not like it, a dealer, or dealers, can, and some have, sold for above that amount in the past. I'm not going to tell anybody to suck it up and enjoy it, but if a dealer can sell for full retail, why would they give anybody a discount, and lose that money?

[Shiny16]

Originally Posted by vintageracer

First mistake was telling them you were paying Cash!

Never tell a selling dealer how you will be paying for a trailer, truck or car until you have tried negotiating a better deal up front. If you want to tell em something tell them you want finance the trailer with the least amount of money down even if you do not want to finance the item at all to git the best deal. You can always change your mind and pay Cash at the end of the deal.

Typically the largest profit made on selling an expensive asset such as an Airstream trailer is made on the financing of trailers, trucks and cars. When you tell em upfront "I'm Paying Cash" the price of the trailer, truck or car goes UP as the selling dealer is losing arguably the most profitable part of the deal.

When it's a Seller's Market why would I as a seller want to sell to you a very hard to git Airstream trailer and not make the most money possible? The answer to that question is easy. I would not!

YOU may think paying Cash gits you a better deal however that notion left the trailer, truck and car business many years ago!

Now days it's "All About The Money"!

THIS THIS THIS. I don’t know why so many think cash will lead to a bigger discount.

[Acheron2010]

I had a Tennessee dealer give me the used car salesman routine, and while on the lot, called Patrick at Colonial in New Jersey, who immediately gave me a price and a when can you be here question. I made the trip, was treated like royalty and got a fine trailer. The guy next to me getting an FC27 was from Texas, and had a similar experience. For us, it was definitely worth the drive to get the customer service.

[JonDNC]

Two comments

1) bought from that Tennessee dealer there’s only one, and had the opposite experience a year ago, the took their time to show us all the options (had most models on the lot) and once we chose one made then purchase experience easy and got a reasonable discount for that time.

2) I think it’s a very different experience today. Just went to their website and they have 2 trailers listed one new one used. At this time last year they probably had 20ish.
If I was buying today I don’t think I’d expect the same discount, but would expect great customer service on anything I bought. FWIW

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by Shiny16

THIS THIS THIS. I don’t know why so many think cash will lead to a bigger discount.

I think because they equate financing with credit cards which when used, take a % of the sale as a fee to the credit card institution. In the world of vehicle financing, the dealer earns part of the finance charge you pay. I used to work for a bank and maintained some of the loan software. In many cases you sometimes were better off in getting a loan from the bank directly than going through the dealer. In today's market there a lot more manufacturers who maintain their their own financing entity so you can see more $0 or below market financing rates. But typically I don't believe Thor has type of entity. I did finance my trailer through the dealer which at the time used GE Credit. It definitely was a lower rate than the bank was offering. And I did get a good deal off MSRP. But that was late 2003 and the world was in a different place.

Jack

[JonDNC]

If you’re a cash buyer as said above don’t tell, just finance thru the dealer, make a payment or two so they get their commission and pay it off. Everyone wins. We did this and made that commission dialog part of the discount negotiation I.e. know your getting money from the bank so.....

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by JonDNC

If you’re a cash buyer as said above don’t tell, just finance thru the dealer, make a payment or two so they get their commission and pay it off. Everyone wins. We did this and made that commission dialog part of the discount negotiation I.e. know your getting money from the bank so.....

An interesting point but if you pay like you said above, the dealer usually doesn't win. What happens normally is the dealer is provided the lump sum commission from the finance charges from the lender once the paper work is signed. However if the loan is paid off early, the financier does a charge back to the dealer and retrieves the "unearned" commission that was advanced to the dealer. It's called unearned interest. As part of the financing deal between the dealer and the lender they charged back a portion of that commission due to the loss of the unearned interest due to early payoff. So there is no windfall for the dealer if you pay off early. So if the dealer gave you a 60 month loan, he only earns 2 months of the proceeds. The finance takes back the other 58 months of the commission that had been advanced to the dealer.

If you do this, examine that contract carefully to verify you can pay that loan off early. Many contracts have a minimum term of payment required. If you payoff early, there may be a prepayment penalty that insures a minimum amount of interest be paid.

Jack

[JonDNC]

An interesting point but if you pay like you said above, the dealer usually doesn't win. What happens normally is the dealer is provided the lump sum commission from the finance charges from the lender once the paper work is signed. However if the loan is paid off early, the financier does a charge back to the dealer and retrieves the "unearned" commission that was advanced to the dealer. It's called unearned interest. As part of the financing deal between the dealer and the lender they charged back a portion of that commission due to the loss of the unearned interest due to early payoff. So there is no windfall for the dealer if you pay off early. So if the dealer gave you a 60 month loan, he only earns 2 months of the proceeds. The finance takes back the other 58 months of the commission that had been advanced to the dealer.

Not my concern [emoji6]

If you do this, examine that contract carefully to verify you can pay that loan off early. Many contracts have a minimum term of payment required. If you payoff early, there may be a prepayment penalty that insures a minimum amount of interest be paid.

Would never ever sign a loan with prepayment penalty. [emoji56]

[daleyocum]

Back when the market wasn’t crazy, I got 21% off MSRP through Airstream Adventures NW (Oregon) but only after getting bids from other dealers out of state and then going back to them with those bids. I ended up getting the best price from the Airstream dealer in Los Banos, CA and from RVOne in Florida. Since I’m in Oregon (without a sales tax) the CA dealer was going to tow it up to the border and do the handoff there. Turned out I could buy local with that bid in hand, though.

In today’s market I’m not sure what you can get, however.

I paid cash but I can see financing it and then paying it off after a payment if that makes a difference on the price.

You could also explore starting over and buying it in Portland if that allows you to avoid sales tax.

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by JonDNC

An interesting point but if you pay like you said above, the dealer usually doesn't win. What happens normally is the dealer is provided the lump sum commission from the finance charges from the lender once the paper work is signed. However if the loan is paid off early, the financier does a charge back to the dealer and retrieves the "unearned" commission that was advanced to the dealer. It's called unearned interest. As part of the financing deal between the dealer and the lender they charged back a portion of that commission due to the loss of the unearned interest due to early payoff. So there is no windfall for the dealer if you pay off early. So if the dealer gave you a 60 month loan, he only earns 2 months of the proceeds. The finance takes back the other 58 months of the commission that had been advanced to the dealer.

Not my concern [emoji6]

If you do this, examine that contract carefully to verify you can pay that loan off early. Many contracts have a minimum term of payment required. If you payoff early, there may be a prepayment penalty that insures a minimum amount of interest be paid.

Would never ever sign a loan with prepayment penalty. [emoji56]

Understand! I just was trying to clarify your comment earlier about it being a win/win for the customer and dealer if you go with a loan and pay it off right away. From my experience in the financial industry, dependent upon the relationship of a dealer and the financier, there may be negative financial component to a dealer if the buyer pays back a loan very shortly after purchasing a vehicle. So a dealer is not going to take a chance giving back his profit margin that he wants.

I really don't think one can assume that a financing deal will procure you a lower price on a trailer negotiation than a cash deal. These guys weren't born yesterday and for them to offer you a price incentive for taking a loan only to lose money with an early payoff seems to be something they would sniff out fairly quickly.

If they don't have minimum terms for the loan or prepayment penalties written into the contract, you can be assured that they will not be giving you a discount on the price of a trailer due to the fact that you are getting a loan through them.

The loan income I see is really icing on the cake when making a sale. Much like adding an extended warranty plan when you buy the trailer, or charging for add on items that are called dealer prep fees. I dare say that any of those add on items will not better the deal you will get from the dealer.

Jack

[drairstream]

I’d wait. Have a feeling this market won’t hold up.