13 Jul 09 Are Mazda Dealerships Giving the Real S-Plan Price Honestly?

Mazda S-plan and Mazda E-plan are both special car purchasing programs for Ford and Mazda employees, their families, friends and affiliates to purchase Mazda vehicles at a discounted price without negotiation. Some people think that these special Mazda offers are not good. We believe it is both right and also wrong assumption. Since Mazda E-plan is similar to the Mazda S-plan, we use S-plan as an example.

What is Mazda S-plan? How does Mazda S-plan work?

Mazda S-plan is a special Mazda discount program that provides car buyers a easy way to purchase Mazda Vehicles. For each Mazda car, in addition to the factory invoice price, there is a base S-plan price printed on the Mazda factory invoice. On top of the S-plan base price, S-plan holders are qualified for ALL possible incentives. Let’s take a look at the direct quote from Mazda S-plan Guideline of Mazda Official Website.

• S-Plan price is equal to the total dealer invoice price including freight and any voluntary advertising assessments and state-regulated fees. The amount is printed in the lower left corner of the factory invoice as “SPLAN”
• S-Plan prices are non-negotiable.
• The following rebates and incentives should be deducted from the base S-Plan price. All applicable incentives convert to Customer Cash and must be treated accordingly.
• All Customer Cash retail incentives.
• All Dealer Cash incentives.
• Top-level dealer engagement or stair-step programs unless noted in program rules.
• Miscellaneous rebates such as college grad or financing cash may apply as long as the specific rules and conditions are met.

Keep in mind that the true Mazda S-plan price would be the Mazda S-plan base price minus all dealer incentives, customer cash, and the most important part – Top-level dealer engagement cash or star-step program. Here is the key point. How much is the Mazda top-tier program incentive? How much is the hidden Mazda dealer incentive?

Many people think S-plan price is only at around invoice price because Mazda shoppers are not clear between the S-plan Base price and the S-plan price.

Besides, when people mention about S-plan to Mazda dealers, it is highly possible that Mazda dealerships do not apply the correct S-plan price for a Mazda vehicle with massive incentives and dealer cash. The reason is simple. They do not want to sell the car with S-plan due to the fact that they could make more money from car shoppers, compared with the processing fee of $250 from Mazda USA and their “documentation fee”.

One of our readers was looking for a 2009 Mazda CX-9 and when he was at the dealership, he showed the S-plan certificate with the salesperson, and would like to know the S-plan price for the car. The Mazda salesperson basically says the S-plan price for the car is $1,800 off MSRP, which our reader knows it is definitely a lie as the invoice of the car is at around $2,600 off already. The $4,000 dealer cash is not added into the number yet.

The salesperson finally asked out reader if the discount of $5800 is a number he is willing to pay. If the number is correct, he could present this offer to his manager. If you think $5,800 is a good discount on this car, please see how people are paying for the Mazda CX-9.

If you think that our reader could simply call Mazda USA and get more information from Mazda Headquarter, you are totally wrong about this.

Our reader called Mazda USA after the visit to his local Mazda dealer, and the response from Mazda Customer Hotline is that the whole S-plan procedure is not correct and they want our reader to go back to the dealership for their store manager. The reader went to the Mazda dealership the next weekend, and the salesperson said there is no way for them to deliver a car as they have some promotions going on. Besides, the manager is NOT available as he is working with other customers, while the salesperson refused to provide his name for reference.

The whole thing shows that

1.       Mazda S-plan price is not only at invoice, but could be an un-beatable price on Mazda cars when there are massive dealer incentives available, especially when there is volume-based bonus is given to Mazda dealer because S-plan automatically receive the top-tier volume bonus regardless if the Mazda dealership meet the sales goal or not.

2.       Mazda dealerships could provide car shoppers with fake S-plan price and have car shoppers

3.       Mazda Consumer Hotline does not know much about S-plan program.

Did you, or will you get the real S-plan price for your Mazda cars? We would like to hear from you!

Tags: Car Buying Tips, Mazda S-Plan

01 Jul 09 Mazda Incentives Watch - July 2009 : 6 & CX-7 Incentives go up

New Mazda incentives & Rebates for July 2009 are available. Car incentives and rebates for purchase are mostly the same compared with last month. Here is a simple summary.

for 2009 Mazda 6, the lower trims are still at $1500 dealer cash, but for higher trims, dealer cash for purchase has been increased to $2500.

The 2009 Mazda CX-7, with $3750 dealer cash and $500 additional hit and win bonus last month, has $4000 Mazda dealer engagement cash, but the status of volume bonus is unknown at this point.

The 2009 Mazda CX-9, dealer cash is still at $4000 this month. However, lease cash is increased, which is strange as normally, the Mazda lease incentives and Mazda purchase incentives should be on the page as either both lease incentives and buying inventives go up or go down at the same time. We suspect there is hidden bonus under the table, or like the $500 volume bonus for CX-7 last month.

The 2010 Mazda 3 has only special APR for qualified customers, while the Mazda Tribute incentives and Rebates keep the same.

Tags: car, car buying news, car incentives, Car Pricing News, Car Rebates, Mazda Incentives, Mazda Rebates