courtesy delivery charge out of region

What would be considered an acceptable courtesy delivery charge to the customer for a dealer swap out of region? From the national locator I found several cars exactly like what I want in California, and one on the East Coast, but i am in Texas and my local CA indicated a transportation charge of roughly $1000 would be incurred to get the car here as part of a swap.

Can that be right? Otherwise I would be going to a car he has here which is OK in the config I want, but grey interior which I don't like at all.

What ??!! what you are describing is a "dealer's trade" and Frankly dealer's don't normally trade cars that far away (unless the sales involvs a HUGE amount of gross profit ) How did you get access to the "national locator"?? The database that's linked to nationwide inventory of BMW are usually very well "safaguarded" away from custumers for the precise reason that to sell you something in their inventory or sell you something that you'd take w/ some compromise on your side (i.e. closer "tradeable- range") In another word, if your SA provided you w/ the access to the inventory search list, he must be REALLY honest or dumb (or both ) . Because now he has a custumer who wants a car 1,500 ~ 1,800 miles away. And yes,.... shipper will cost that much if not more ( They are about $1k each way via enclosed car-carrier).

A "courtesy delivery" is when you order a car from ONE dealer but prior to delivery to dealership, they ask BMW to instead of ship the car to the selling dealer, ship it to another. What you are asking is NOT Courtesy delivery.

hope this helps,

beewang

Ah, that makes sense then. No, we just sat down in his office and he did a locator search on his computer for cars in the config I was interested in to see if any were available nearby from dealers they often swap cars with. The only ones we found however were on the coasts and that's when he told me that was a nonstarter because the transportation fee would be about $1k. That seemed awfully high to me, but what you're indicating is that it's actually about right so he was being straight with me, that's cool. I'll probably go with what he found nearby then, it's not exactly what I want in terms of colors but it looks like that's the best I'm going to be able to do.

Thx.......

Have you consider flying to either the west/east coast and driving back? Would be cheaper than $1000.

I notice that you are in Lubbock, Texas. What dealer are you working with? I went all the way to Wichita Falls to order my 330Ci (I live just outside of Oklahoma City) because Ralph at Pistacco BMW was so great to work with. $2,900 net difference (price/trade-in) from local OKC dealer.