Dealer On Board

[jwhitehouse]

I'm the Don Davis Nissan EV Sales Leader, located here in Arlington TX. I've seen a couple of comments about dealer attitudes encountered, and I wanted to put my two cents worth in.

Welcome aboard!

How's your discount for early reservation holders? I'm looking for a reason to buy from Texas dealer - care to provide one?

Thanks!

I hope we'll see the market for the vehicle expanding, rather than available discounts. The lease program appears the least expensive, least exposed, way to drive one though.

I agree - expanding the EV market is a very, very good thing! That was a very 'politician-like' sidestep of my question, though. I'm guessing that means you'll not be discounting Leafs for the early reservation holders? :lol:

My personal plan is that the value of the vehicle easily surpasses the price point. I am soooo looking forward to getting a hold of one. Dealing with pricing generally in a public forum, or discounts, makes me think of an eel weir and I'd rather not swim in that direction...if you know what I mean. Ultimately, everyone who acquires a LEAF is going to make a personal value judgement. My advice is to buy locally whenever you can, buy from people you like, stay within your means, and buy things you really enjoy.

 

[jwhitehouse]

I haven't seen status-change-emails. And where might one find that magical "production checklist" you speak of ? :roll:

That's a problem...I, a "dealer", does not have access to a customers' dashboard, so I have never seen what they're talking about. There are, however, a couple of different levels to the dealer dashboard and one level has a checklist. It is not a production checklist, but it does tick off items for a coordinated project timeline. Reservation to charging dock assessment to order to charging dock installation and on through delivery. There is also a layer that shows me email communications (not content, just that emails went out.)

You should be able to check with EV Sales Leader at your designated dealership for information regarding emails Nissan has sent. If you're not seeing things they are sending, you may want to check the email address they have on file, or your filter settings, or even your email provider. IF your designated dealer is close to you, you might sit down with their EV person and log into your dashboard so thay can see it too.

 

[garygid]

Has ANYBODY gotten an email every time their delivery status changed?

Some of you have reported MANY status (date) changes.

 

[LakeLeaf]

I'm the Don Davis Nissan EV Sales Leader, located here in Arlington TX. I've seen a couple of comments about dealer attitudes encountered, and I wanted to put my two cents worth in.

Welcome aboard!

How's your discount for early reservation holders? I'm looking for a reason to buy from Texas dealer - care to provide one?

Thanks!

Welcome aboard Don.

I think you'll find, this being the Internet age and all, that the several dozen dealers who have provided a straight forward answer to a question like Andy's such as "I will give you $1000 off MSRP" or "I will give you $1500 off MSRP", or "I will give you 5% below invoice" have received the vast majority of the Leaf sales to date.

As other Texas dealers come on line, a few there will understand this isn't a go into the dealer and sit down and negotiate a sales price type vehicle purchase.

Good luck with your sales, and welcome to the board.

 

[LEAFer]

I haven't seen status-change-emails. And where might one find that magical "production checklist" you speak of ? :roll:

That's a problem...I, a "dealer", does not have access to a customers' dashboard, so ... There is also a layer that shows me email communications (not content, just that emails went out.)

You should be able to check with EV Sales Leader at you designated dealership ... IF your designated dealer is close to you, you might sit down with their EV person and log into your dashboard so thay can see it too.

Thanks for those suggestions. I'll do that. Maybe even later today.

 

[jwhitehouse]

[/quote] I think your comment about Nissan's poor production information process certainly makes sense and I suspected the communications rabbit hole we're stuck in is not something that hiring a few staffers can fix. I mean, the LEAF dashboard seems geekily autistic. Lot's of shiny but a total abhorrence of real contact to customers. But to recommend the website chat line!!?? That's been a constant source of mis-information and sleight-of-hand jive for months IMO.[/quote]


Perfectly valid opinion...I have been accused of having a particularly high tolerance for bureaucracy, and an ability to surf large human organizations for information that should be readily available. I have not used the chat line, or call center, to a large extent, but when I did, I got the information I needed quicker than I thought would be the case...so my opinion IS anecdotal, and could change with a long and frustrating encounter or two. The chat line and call center are focused lines of communication, however, and will continue to improve over time.

 

[Jorel]

I'm the Don Davis Nissan EV Sales Leader, located here in Arlington TX. I've seen a couple of comments about dealer attitudes encountered, and I wanted to put my two cents worth in.

Welcome aboard!

How's your discount for early reservation holders? I'm looking for a reason to buy from Texas dealer - care to provide one?

Thanks!

Welcome aboard Don.

I think you'll find, this being the Internet age and all, that the several dozen dealers who have provided a straight forward answer to a question like Andy's such as "I will give you $1000 off MSRP" or "I will give you $1500 off MSRP", or "I will give you 5% below invoice" have received the vast majority of the Leaf sales to date.

As other Texas dealers come on line, a few there will understand this isn't a go into the dealer and sit down and negotiate a sales price type vehicle purchase.

Good luck with your sales, and welcome to the board.

I agree 100%. I'm still searching for a Texas dealer who is willing to price the car similar to Rairdon's, Fontana's or the other CA and WA dealer pricing (up to $1500 below MSRP and up to $450 off cost to ship the car to you). If I don't find a reasonable Texas dealer soon, I'll just order from one of the out of state dealers and pay the extra costs to ship the car to me. It's a matter of principle at this point. Maybe I can find a couple of other forum members with orders on dates similar to mine and we can make the shipping more cost effective?

Don't know why most Texas dealers seem to be acting this way. Don't they realize if they would price these cars similar to the prices being offered by out of state dealers they would become instant heroes on this forum and have more orders from forum members than they can imagine?? In this "new Internet age" the old dealer tricks just don't work anymore.

Sorry - rant off.

 

[Gonewild]

Your point are correct. We in AZ had the same problem and we got a group to go to Rairdon about 10 cars to get free shipping if we can get half on a truck.

AZ dealer now only are $300 below invoice. They cry-ed to Nissan to stop the out of state sale so you may have more trouble then we did trying to do the same.

 

[AndyH]

Welcome aboard!

How's your discount for early reservation holders? I'm looking for a reason to buy from Texas dealer - care to provide one?

Thanks!

I hope we'll see the market for the vehicle expanding, rather than available discounts. The lease program appears the least expensive, least exposed, way to drive one though.

I agree - expanding the EV market is a very, very good thing! That was a very 'politician-like' sidestep of my question, though. I'm guessing that means you'll not be discounting Leafs for the early reservation holders? :lol:

My personal plan is that the value of the vehicle easily surpasses the price point. I am soooo looking forward to getting a hold of one. Dealing with pricing generally in a public forum, or discounts, makes me think of an eel weir and I'd rather not swim in that direction...if you know what I mean. Ultimately, everyone who acquires a LEAF is going to make a personal value judgement. My advice is to buy locally whenever you can, buy from people you like, stay within your means, and buy things you really enjoy.

From one commissioned sales person to another, I do understand your point of view. That's an pre-internet sales style/attitude, though. As others have already pointed out, we know list and hold back and other price details, and we've been exchanging info from dealers nationwide.

I bought my last two cars from out of state dealers and have no trouble continuing that when it's appropriate. I was happy to find a Texas dealer that understood the modern marketplace and had made the transition to the information age - and gave them my order.

The bar in Texas is currently $800 under MSRP - Thanks again Eddie and Texas Nissan of Grapevine.

---
"You can have everything in life that you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." Zig Ziglar, Plano, TX

 

[Coffee_Slurry]

Tip: If your sales model depends on your customers NOT talking to each other, not sharing notes, and not having rapid access to info, then it's doomed.

Old-school car salesmen see each buyer as an island, comfortably assured that they won't compare notes with the buyer that just walked out. "Here's your special offer, but don't tell anyone." Good luck with that.

The LEAF is the closest I've come to buying a car from Amazon.

 

[LakeLeaf]

AZ dealer now only are $300 below invoice. They cry-ed to Nissan to stop the out of state sale so you may have more trouble then we did trying to do the same.

It will be interesting to see if Nissan changes a policy to prevent people from ordering out of state. I'd guess if this happens, and the pricing in a state is then artificially high because of lack of competition or dealer collusion, there may be some consumer complaints filed. We have seen already what type of pricing the free market brings, so I'd expect to continue to see that in other states, or see lots of consumer complaints to gov't agencies.

 

[jwhitehouse]

AZ dealer now only are $300 below invoice. They cry-ed to Nissan to stop the out of state sale so you may have more trouble then we did trying to do the same.

It will be interesting to see if Nissan changes a policy to prevent people from ordering out of state. I'd guess if this happens, and the pricing in a state is then artificially high because of lack of competition or dealer collusion, there may be some consumer complaints filed. We have seen already what type of pricing the free market brings, so I'd expect to continue to see that in other states, or see lots of consumer complaints to gov't agencies.

I do not work with the Nissan distribution system, but dealers are allocated a certain number of vehicles per month, and can only get more by picking up declined allocation from other dealers. The LEAF is distributed in a similar fashion. I can't say it's a science, but it is a formula based on previous business. Nissan really doesn't have a problem with people purchasing vehicles across state lines, at least not that I've seen, but they do like their allocation models. I haven't seen any real dealer collusion in years, and when I did, it wasn't Nissan. There are, however, some pretty large auto groups out there that may have multiple dealer points. Generally, and certainly here in DFW, the competition is pretty fierce, but not cut-throat-un-friendly-like on a personal level.