Thunder, a newish member who's been lurking for a while came to me just yesterday with this message:


Thunder wrote on 04-08-2003 04:53 PM:
Hi there- I'm new to the board & been lurking for about a month, and it seems as if you know quite a bit about what's going on in Canada- just 2 quick questions....

I put a downpayment on an RX-8 today ($2K)- 2 questions- do you think mine is a pre-order, cause my dealer wasn't even sure if they had an allocation. Second, he charged me 1100 for freight (over mrsp) is this reasonable?

Thanks for your help.



...and thus i replied:
wakeech wrote on 04-09-2003 08:46 AM:
hoooooly jeepers, you mean you paid this fellah $2k, non-refundable for a car he doesn't know if he's getting or not??? AND he's charging you over MSRP, and he's not shipping your car to you?? yikes...

i'm gonna throw this PM up in a thread: the boys'll wanna see this, and could help you far more with this than i can (as i've never bought a car, and i'll not be buying this one).

glad you came forward with this, we'll get you some help.

regards,
Andrew Keech

well, c'mon guys (Smoker, Quick, ZoomZoom...you all know who you are) i need a hand here.

umm... need more hits... moving to lounge.

Clarifying: The deposit is fully refundable. It was the first "preorder" they got, but they are also not sure how the 700 cars are being allocated. I said no deal if not mine is not one of the first 700. More lurking revealed that a 1100 freight charge is reasonable. I am paying MSRP, but traded my clean 1994 MX-3 GS and was (mostly) happy with what they gave me for that. All in all, I'm walking away not feeling ripped off at all. In fact, ive been Zoom Zooming all day!!

Now I'm just confused about this pre-order allocation thing. I asked the dealer to get me a VIN ASAP.

Thanks for your help.

Interestingly, I have been told that the "700" is in fact a pretty fictional number... my understanding now is that there could be more if there are firm orders to support importing more, or there could be less if the situation seems to support importing less.

Also, dealers have been told that Mazda Canada will accept orders for specific RX8s on April 21st, and they will then be submitted to Mazda in Japan on the following day.

Dealers will, however, most likely be geting a certain number of RX8s as a "take what we give you"; others (presumably arriving later) will be the "made to order as per your April 21st submission".

This is the situation as I understand it. Where is Thunder located?