Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad135
Honestly...BMW needs to separate the 1er and 3er pricing by a larger margin. And I don't mean make the 3er more expensive.
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While I think there is probably room for the 1 to drop maybe 3-5k, I (am in the minority) believe it is the 3 that should cost a bit more. We know 3s are discounted for the US market, so if you upped it's price by 3-5k and dropped the 1 (never gonna happen) by the same amount, then all of a sudden the 1 gains market in the US as the true entry point to BMW rather than the current "but for a few more K I can just have a 3!?!" spot it currently holds (also needs the hatch models to fill the practical role of the 3).
Now to support that I think the 3 needs to start acting like a real luxury car (better quality leather, better audio, less cheap looking plastic, etc..). At the same time they could drop some of the luxury items (or at least make more of them options) from the 1 to get it's price a little bit lower.
Where I see the even bigger issues (price-wise) is with the additional 1 and 3 models (e.g. the 18s, 20s, 23s, and 25s) many of us wish we available here. As long as the 128 and 328 are as low as they are, there isn't room for BMW to bring them in and stay above the magical 30k "luxury brand" limit without them all being clustered together. If there is only a 1k diff between a 118 and a 128, who is really going to take the smaller engine (we already argue incessantly about the "cheapness" of jumping up to the 135)?