[sismic]

Apparently all australian car website hide their RRP prices on the web since this law introduced few weeks ago.

I found that it will be more difficult for us if we want to build a list of cars that falls within our budget without going to car yard or make a phone call to dealer.

Does it make dealership have more options to play around with RRP?

[bcoz]

Here's some background...
http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/Ar...ID=63298&vf=12

I reckon they will add the prices back in a few weeks when they update their websites/configurators to include state/postcode or similar.

[KingClifton]

I've always though "yeah they should have to advertise on-the-road prices" but the reality is that it has been poorly implemented and had unwanted side-effects.

Manufacturer's Web sites now must have logic to detect /ask your state and then present pricing accordingly - hence most have simply removed it and many have said you'll now need to go to a dealer for the indefinite future.

IMHO the OTR pricing should apply only to retail advertisements and not manufacturer advertising. That'd be a sensible compromise. The ACCC ought to realise that unlike that other component-pricing whipping boy, airline tickets, the retailer is differnet from the manufacturer when it comes to vehicles.

[BMW //MPOWER]

Originally Posted by KingClifton

I've always though "yeah they should have to advertise on-the-road prices" but the reality is that it has been poorly implemented and had unwanted side-effects.

Manufacturer's Web sites now must have logic to detect /ask your state and then present pricing accordingly - hence most have simply removed it and many have said you'll now need to go to a dealer for the indefinite future.

IMHO the OTR pricing should apply only to retail advertisements and not manufacturer advertising. That'd be a sensible compromise. The ACCC ought to realise that unlike that other component-pricing whipping boy, airline tickets, the retailer is differnet from the manufacturer when it comes to vehicles.

I think it's a great thing, cuts out all the unknowns!
As for needing logic to figure out which state your in, whoopty-do, it's one line of code with a logic decision based upon your IP address! $10 to some clown in India & it's fixed for every BMW website in OZ! Try watching repeat Top Gear episodes that are free for everyone to watch in the UK, they've been using such prehistoric bits of code for years!

[Beejay]

Originally Posted by sismic

Does it make dealership have more options to play around with RRP?

The removal of the pricing from the web sites is just a stunt to get more people to contact dealers for prices. Manufacturers and Dealers had years of notice that this change was coming and could've chosen to be ready for it. But they used the chance for a marketing ploy instead and to attract some attention, badly needed in a time when a lot of people hold on to their old cars a little longer.
Issues such as this have been long resolved overseas so there is really no reason to finally get this sorted in Oz. But the consumer here is usually copping it sweet ...

[bcoz]

The BMW Configurator is back on the BMW Oz website. It's an improved version with bigger images.

At the moment there is still no pricing, however, it does state "With a complete list of options, configure and price a BMW that is perfect for you", so I would expect drive-away pricing to be added later.

[Zen]

Originally Posted by bcoz

The BMW Configurator is back on the BMW Oz website. It's an improved version with bigger images.

At the moment there is still no pricing, however, it does state "With a complete list of options, configure and price a BMW that is perfect for you", so I would expect drive-away pricing to be added later.

Sweet as! Thanks for the update!

[bcoz]

After more than a year without any pricing info on their website, BMW have finally added a simple Drive Away Pricing calculator that is based on Postcode selection. It's limited to pricing for base models (without any options).

[johnnydad]

Do they make any cars without options??!

[John_01]

Originally Posted by johnnydad

Do they make any cars without options??!

You can order one if you don't mind waiting about 3 months.

[johnnydad]

I jested.

I also see now that the trusty 325i M-sport comes with an obligatory Innovations pack and the quoted 0-100km/h performance is 0.2 s faster than before in spite of identical power and torque figures. Huh?

[John_01]

Well.. For me its hard to figure why you need the Innovations pack together with the M-Sport. To me a sports version should be a light-weight cut down version (with a S54 3.2 litre inline six please), but no doubt a lot of people wouldn't agree. Anyway I suppose like any car company, the packages are carefully marketed to extract the maximum number of dollars from the prospective buyer.

[kaishang]

It does not make any sense at all. What should happen is you put in your postcode and it comes up with a drive-away price.

Several mass-market brands do this right now, so no reason why BMW can't. If they have the technology to program 5 million functions into iDrive, I'm sure they have the technology to have a web based postcode/price database. Unless they just want people to contact dealers of course.

[johnnydad]

Originally Posted by John_01

Well.. For me its hard to figure why you need the Innovations pack together with the M-Sport. To me a sports version should be a light-weight cut down version (with a S54 3.2 litre inline six please), but no doubt a lot of people wouldn't agree. Anyway I suppose like any car company, the packages are carefully marketed to extract the maximum number of dollars from the prospective buyer.

I'd have been happiest with a white (no clear coat so lighter ) 330i manual sport Touring but of course that was never going to happen