I think $1200 off MSRP is a perfectly reasonable offer. Of course this car is in a special place at the moment. It's a brand new model, has won a ton of awards, is the kind of car that a certain group of people fall in love with, and is currently in very short supply. All of those points argue for the dealer to ask a higher price. On the other hand, the car is entering a very crowded segment with well established competition that has more "brand prestige" (which is something that a certain group of people also fall in love with), and is also a sedan at a time when sales of sedans are falling fast; in addition, the manufacturer has an incentive to get the car out on the road fast so more people see it. Those points all argue for a lower price.
I took a quick look at the latest TrueCar stats... photo attached. I'm not sure how useful this information is because there are so few sales and thus data may be too thin to draw conclusions (for instance, they don't have enough data to tell us anything about the price on cars with option packages), but it makes some sense that early sales (as noted here) were a bit over MSRP as the earliest buyers should be people focused on this particular car, perhaps impressed by the awards, and willing to pay more to get their hands on it. But if this is correct and invoice is about $1500 below MSRP (base model), then the dealer should do perfectly well selling the car at $1200 below MSRP. (I'm assuming there's probably some dealer incentive -- a bonus paid to the dealer by the manufacturer -- of at least a few hundred dollars.) But you may have to wait a few weeks/a month or two, before they are willing to sell at that price.
Switching topics... re the sound system, I am curious to hear it -- for me it will be a big factor in whether I want to buy the car. I know from car shopping experience that some sound systems get "bad" reviews because the system doesn't have booming bass -- that's something a lot of people want these days. I myself prefer a more balanced system. I listen mostly to acoustic music and to me the most difficult thing to reproduce realistically is a solo piano. But... I have discovered if you have a quiet car (to me, this is the key reason to spend more for a "luxury" car) and a good sound system, then what you have is a rolling pair of good headphones.
When I "upgraded" from my old Toyota to a Mercedes GLC a couple of years ago, I couldn't believe the difference it made in my attitude about sitting in traffic. I now almost look forward to traffic jams... emphasis on
almost...
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