New Fiat/ Miata 124 spider ---- what the?

Why not purchase the car regardless of the stereo, and find a good local company to install a stereo that you like? You can get a whole lot of aftermarket stereo for $4,000 or even $1,400.

 

2017 USA Fiat 124 Spider sales:-

Jan - 240
Feb - 302
Mar - 419
Apr - 465
May - 564
Jun - 510
Jul - 450
Aug - 382
Sep - 343
Oct - 248
Nov - 268
Total - 4191

 

2017 Europe FIAT 124 Spider sales:-

Jan - 622
Feb - 496
Mar - 1199
Apr - 712
May - 911
Jun - 863
Jul - 665
Aug - 422
Sep - 1012
Oct - 259
Total - 7161

 

What did you end up doing?

Matt

 

Nothing yet. I'm in Europe from Oct to Jan 1, so I don't want the car until I get back. I have been following the inventory and I have a reminder on my google calendar to get looking again at the end of this month. I was back in AZ for a week back in Oct when I drove them and talked to two dealers at that time and got a sense of the discount/price they were looking for.

Oh, I did look into some do-dad that supposedly allows one to "add" siriusXM to the cars that lack that feature. It looks like a bit of a pain to have it installed, but it does look like it will work with the OEM system/interface:

https://www.vaistech.com/product/gsr-093-w-tuner-kit/

So, I will open up the search to non-sat radio cars.

 

That's not a great trend...but then they won't let anyone order a car, don't have a good grasp on what inventory is coming and when, and the model year change over was happening from September onward. So I imagine some buyers just slowed down and waited to see the 2018s (new colors, different option packages). For example, there are two new colors that I'm hoping to see when I get back in town and start my search again...I hope one of the local dealers have them in stock (there are 4 dealers IIRC in the greater PHX area).

 

Thank you for the update!

Matt

 

Does anyone here have an AUTO transmission 124 Spider? I'm seeking any and all comments/feedback on that transmission. Even if it was only a test drive. Comparison to the stick version especially welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

I finally got a 124 Spider. I web surfed and used the phone to try to find one. It wasn't easy. I could find cars with trim/options I didn't want with good discounts. Or I could find cars close to what I wanted for small discounts. And the cars that were close to what I wanted were several states away. I got really tired of all the looking around and just settled for one. Here's my shopping experience:

Searching the Market:
I wanted an Abarth manual with the sound package. I found one, but it was in Houston and couldn't get a deal done (amazingly the dealers were literally swamped with activity and just too busy over the past 4-5 days to deal with long distance, extra effort sales. Even the local dealer was swamped and made buying it a bit difficult.

So I settled for the color I wanted (silver) with a stick shift, but its a base model (the "classica"). Its only got 1 option called the "technology package" which is simply a bluetooth enabled center stereo thingy with back up camera. An Abarth with the sound would have been $8000 more (33%). So I just couldn't bring myself to pay that much more for a car that only stickers for $4500 more. (the bigger price delta is because most dealers simply weren't discounting Abarths much. A couple of dealers were, but they didn't have what I wanted).

My thinking wasn't super inspiring (or perhaps even rational), but I figured its just a spider to keep in my scottsdale place for use 3 months per year when I'm here and it will sit the other 9 months. So I wanted something cheap and something under warranty so that I wouldn't have to worry about it starting or failing or whatever.

So this 124 Spider is super basic, but its a spider and will serve the purpose of tooling around the Phoenix area in the winters.

Strange Pricing Variation
The FIAT dealer network is pretty odd in its price diversity for such a small network:
- There is a dealer in Boise that is selling these things for $7000-$9000 off sticker (I tried but missed on a $32k Abarth on sale for $23k.).
- The dealer in Gilroy, California offers $6-8k off on some days, and then changes the prices down by $2-3k the next and then back the following day.
- Two dealers told me that their profit margin from "invoice" was only $1800 on the cars (something like 5%). I call BS of course, but they were adamant and wouldn't sell me the cars for more than $1800 off.
- The dealer in Scottsdale has the cars listed for a few thousand over sticker this week!
- Most dealers are discounting, but being obtuse about which rebates are in their numbers.
- There are way too many rebates and it can be confusing
- Many dealers are sitting on cars for long periods of time because they won't discount...

What I bought and my deal:
I bought from Bill Luke in Tempe, the owning family member helped me (he is the director of the FIAT part of the business I guess). I got a $27,285 sticker for $5500 off of that. But even that was complicated. There are many factory rebates. I qualified for 3 of them totaling $2500. So the dealer gave me a $3000 discount + the incentives, provided I let them finance me (would have been only $2000 if I paid cash - the bank pays them something like $2000 amazingly for getting me to take a loan). There are no pre-payment penalties on the loan, so I'll be paying it in full later this month and it will cost me $150 in interest.). In the end having the car local such that I could drive over and buy it was a huge factor. Getting one via the internet or phone from another state proved impossible during the year end rush. So I had to buy local. The price I got was likely 90th percentile good, but there are two dealers with better prices (the Gilroy and Boise ones). But, they literally didn't even answer the phone over the past few days and I wasn't going to get one from them.

Conclusions
Anyways...ugh....total old-school buying experience. There are more "car salesman" antics that you could likely guess and I'll spare you re-telling them, I'm just relived its over. I get the car tomorrow morning. I only saw it for a couple of minutes after signing the papers. Its "meh". The Abarth would have been cool, but it was way too much hassle to find one for a decent deal and I couldn't justify paying 33% more for one. Hopefully I like the darn car...I'll post up some driving thoughts once I actually drive it.

 

Ummm...nevermind

I returned the car today (the dealer had a 48-hour return policy, $250 fee is all).

I drove it home for 40 minutes and it was way too small inside for me. While I knew it would be cramped, I did not know the seat back side bolsters were so narrow that they basically cut into my back about 4 inches in from the side of my torso on both sides. Painful after 30 minutes!

The dealer was very, very professional and took it back no questions asked, no trouble, unwound the deal (they hadn't submitted paperwork to anyone yet) and only charged me the disclosed $250 return fee. So basically I had an overnight test drive/rental for $250, which enabled me to figure out the car is a no go for me.

I really like the car other than that. It was perfect for what I wanted, but simply could not be comfortable and thus couldn't drive/own it.

Back to the drawing board...

 

2017 USA Fiat 124 Spider sales:-

Jan - 240
Feb - 302
Mar - 419
Apr - 465
May - 564
Jun - 510
Jul - 450
Aug - 382
Sep - 343
Oct - 248
Nov - 268
Dec - 287
Total - 4478

 

Don't see many standard transmissions. Wonder when the used ones will be under 17k?

 

Re manual transmission, currently likely around ~350 out of 1250 new cars in the USA market for sale: https://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchresults.action/?mkId=20060&mdId=33484310&rd=99999&zc=85251&stkTypId=28880&searchSource=QUICK_FORM

(I'm including 50% of the "other/unkown" category as many are sticks.)

So perhaps 25% range are stick shift...

Re pricing, discounts on new ones (2018 model year) are still very small (think $1000-3000 with few exceptions). And while the last of the 2017 Classica's are selling in the $20-24k range, but Lusso's and Abarths are $25k to $34k range (depending upon options and dealer discount).

There are "only" 160 used ones on Cars.com at the moment (I'd venture cars.com is at least 50% of the market). Asking prices start at $20k. I'd say its a year before the lowest MSRP used classica's sell for $17k range regularly. It will be a couple of more years before Abarth's and Lusso's dip there. The dealers really did hold the line on new prices with the exception of perhaps 100-200 2017's that sold in the past 2 months as they closed out the model year after the 2018's showed up.

 

2018 USA Fiat 124 Spider sales:-

Jan - 183

 

Off 24% from 2017. Wonder if it was the frigid weather?

 

2017 Europe FIAT 124 Spider sales:-

Jan - 622
Feb - 496
Mar - 1199
Apr - 712
May - 911
Jun - 863
Jul - 665
Aug - 422
Sep - 1012
Oct - 259
Nov - 295
Dec - 375
Total: 7831

 

2018 Europe FIAT 124 Spider sales:-

January - 408

 

2018 USA Fiat 124 Spider sales:-

January - 183
February - 223

 

2018 Europe FIAT 124 Spider sales:-

January - 408
February - 335

 

2018 USA Fiat 124 Spider sales:-

January - 183
February - 223
March - 325
Total: 731

 

2018 USA Fiat 124 Spider sales:-

January - 183
February - 223
March - 325
April - 337
Total: 1068

 

I'd go buy a used Boxster S, I had a 500 abarth had to change out so much in the engine (clamps, hose, diverter valves) because of faulty design. I also had a 2017 Miata RF, also a better car (though mine had quite a bit done to it).