All good things to those who wait... I just arrived home to a message from a local dealer (not the one I ordered through due to dealer preference) that said: "Nissan has officially taken off the dealer mark-up and all 350Zs will be selling for MSRP". Don't know whether Nissan really had anything to do with the mark-up to begin with, but once one dealership starts under-cutting the others by removing the markup ($4000 here in Houston), others are sure to follow. Call your dealers and check it out; could be good news for some waiting on orders who could get one off the showroom floor sooner. Don't know what this says for the state of Z sales though...

 

"Nissan has officially taken off the dealer mark-up and all 350Zs will be selling for MSRP."

If that is what they said, it is a lie. Car manufacturers are prohibited by law from dictating the sale price to dealers. Nissan does not benefit at all from markups and that is why they have discouraged markups from the start. Manufacturers can use indirect pressure like Nissan has done w/ the Z (i.e.: give msrp dealers greater allocations).

So to translate the above line: "We can't get over sticker but we don't want to say so. Please ignore what jackasses we acted like because we had a hot car. Buy from us . . . please!"

 

Exactly. However, these things tend to have a trickle-down effect nontheless, and anyone should be able to walk into their dealer and buy one at sticker very soon. Are sales slowing down that quickly, I wonder?

 

Maybe it's feeling the competition from the G35 coupe. I know most dealers in the bay area (CA) are offering to sell them for MSRP.

 

1. Economic down turn. Prime is at 4.25% with 6 month Treasuries trading at a whoopin 1.25%

2. Competition especially from G35 S which I still can't understand why that is being released the same year.

 

Get this. Here in Phoenix where the sun shines and the snow rarely falls the dealers are adding a Desert Package for Approx. $2000.00 over MSRP. Coming from the midwest, this is as good as Ziebart.

And I might add, those are still on the lot.

 

Seems that the inventory situation is starting to turn in Northern Virginia. There are 3 Z's at Brown's Sterling Nissan today and I have never seen one there before. There were Z's at Brown's in Faifax and at Rostenthal's at Tyson's. I suspect that we will soon see pricing below the suggested retail on the sticker.

I also saw 6 G35's at the Rosenthal Infiniti dealer at Tyson's Corner yesterday after work (next to the Nissan store). They all had a $2,900 supplemental sticker price for 'high-value' add ons such as paint protection, etc. I am guessing that a serious buyer could cut through the $2,900 pretty quickly and get below MSRP. I took a long look at the styling and feel that while it might be for some people, I am much more drawn to the Z's lines.

This is a far cry from the $45,000 price tag that Rosenthal had on two very lightly used Z's 6 or 8 weeks ago. Wish I had taken a picture of that, because I don't think we are going to see too much of that in the near future.

 

David MacDavid on I45 called me. I ordered through Sterling-McCall. They were generaly nicer, let me test drive two Zs (6mt & auto), and don't bolt on the front plate mount and spray on their $900 paint protection as soon as the cars roll off the truck like Davad MacDavid does.