With orders for the all-new Ford Focus RS hot hatch quickly filling up, some amount of dealer markup is inevitable.
Inevitable, that is, unless you exercise your smarts and diplomacy to negotiate a more fair price. Jalopnik‘s Tom McParland recently did just that for a client, and he shared a bit of insight on the process in a recent post on the website.
According to McParland, there are essentially just two steps to securing a new Ford Focus RS at or around MSRP: 1)find a high-volume Ford dealer, and 2)talk to the fleet manager there. The first step is important because, with a special, low-volume car like the new Focus RS, the buyer needs to ensure that he or she finds a dealer with an open allocation or two. McParland said that he spoke to several dealer contacts who wanted to help him, but the dealerships at which they worked sold low enough volume that they had no open allocations left for 2017.
Once a dealership with an open allocation is found, it’s time to speak to the fleet manager. Mr. McParland says that fleet managers are usually compensated differently than regular salespeople, making them more likely to sell a Focus RS without the markup as they tend to care more about sales volume than sales price.
With a little bit of legwork, Mr. McParland says he was able to secure a new Ford Focus RS for his client at MSRP, and have it shipped directly to the client’s local dealership in California for free, even though the dealer through which he brokered the deal is based in Pennsylvania. Of course, it always helps to be well-connected and have contacts at dealerships across the country, but even without those connections, you, too, can get a 2017 Ford Focus RS at MSRP by talking to the right people – provided that there are enough left unsold.
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