The thing that gets me most tweaked about an ADM is that many of the same dealers that justify them based on claiming that their ADM price is the "market value" of a car will sing a very different tune if you try to sell them a lightly used car of the same model. I had local dealers in CA asking 25-35k over MSRP for GT350s back in 2018 so I bought one out of state for thousands off MSRP and had it shipped to CA. I had never driven one before buying it. I got sucked into the hype on the car from the various publications so I bought one and as things turned out, I didn't really care much for it. So when I decided I wanted to part ways with the car, I called the local ADM dealers to have them make me offers. The double speak was amazing. I litterally had multiple dealers tell me they paid over MSRP to buy some of their new cars out of other dealer's inventory. That was when I looked for a new one locally. Then when I wanted to sell I was told that the new market for the car was 25-35k over but the used market for the car with under 2k miles was 35-40k lower. Wait what?? I thought I would get out of the car unscathed. I lost over $10k and I bought the car for thousands under MSRP.
As far as the car itself went, I probably would have liked the GT350 better if I didn't get the recaros because I felt that the seats were uncomfortable. As a point of comparison, I also had a boss 302 LS tucked away in storage that I used on occasion and had figured the GT350 would be an improvement on that. For me, that wasn't the case. The seats on the GT350 were a major upgrade in appearance from the 2012 boss 302 LS, but also were a major downgrade in comfort and driving position as well as ingress/egress. I also hated the fact that the GT350 has a seating position that is angled slightly inward and too far right. For people under 6ft tall this made clutch modulation over the enormous seat bolsters a chore and had me visting my chiropractor. Then there were the rattles and heat transfer from the engine bay through the firewall and the crazy amounts of vibration that the engine caused. I also felt the boss 302 had a better positioning for the gear shifter and a feel that was much more analog. The GT350 outperfomed it but it felt flat. The on paper stats for the GT350 were amazing, I just hated the reality of day to day with the car. What made me kick myself the most is that I sold an immaculate low mileage 6MT Vagon to get what in hindsight was a POS to replace it. So I sold the GT350, that I bought right, within 6 months for what was still a considerable loss.
Make no mistake about it, your ADM is added dealer profit. ADM dealers are taking advantage of people sucked up in hype and emotion who are willing to empty their wallets to buy something at any price because they have FOMO and think others are doing it so I should too before this ship sails. So what if it does? There are other ports with other ships too. You will not see that money again. If you're ok flusing it, it's your money.
I personally have reached a point in my life where buying a BW5 isn't a financial hardship but I haven't reached the point where I can stop working and have no need for future income. Because of that, I'm not willing to give a dealer more than the 10-12% gross profit margin that a sale at MSRP already allows them. Any $ of profit to a dealer is added depreciation. I'm not about preventing a dealer from making a reasonable profit and frankly MSRP is already a fat profit margin that is not justified for most regular mass market cars but I think is for this more limited production car this early in the production cycle. I think the BW5 will however eventually be offered new below MSRP, just as the BW4 already is in the first model year.
Think about ADM on a business model where floor-planning costs don't even factor in for 60-90 days. The car literally never costs a dealer a cent in finance/inventory costs unless it collects dust and yet some are asking for 20k/20% or more profit margins to turn one in an industry that normally operated at 3-5% gross margins on new sales. For me paying that amount of markup to someone who is bearing no financial risk on that unit of inventory (unless they themselves price it inappropriately) is insanity. But hey, everyone values money differently.
