Anyone got an i4 M50 on order as a lease car?
Discussion
If so..
My mate, who ordered the car last Sept has suffered multiple delays (to be expected) but has now been told they still have no idea of a build date for the car and that they can no longer offer the ~£550+vat price pm, to keep the order it'll have to go upto £900pm!!
Anyone else had anything like that happen? I'd always assumed that the price was locked in once the order was signed. Doubtless the agreement does give them a get out clause if the manufacturer can't deliver, I've never heard of such a raw deal for a customer prepared to wait though. Is this normal?
My mate, who ordered the car last Sept has suffered multiple delays (to be expected) but has now been told they still have no idea of a build date for the car and that they can no longer offer the ~£550+vat price pm, to keep the order it'll have to go upto £900pm!!
Anyone else had anything like that happen? I'd always assumed that the price was locked in once the order was signed. Doubtless the agreement does give them a get out clause if the manufacturer can't deliver, I've never heard of such a raw deal for a customer prepared to wait though. Is this normal?
I’ve had one on order since Dec via Zenith.
I was status 047 - without dealer allocation until last month.
Now got a build date in Oct.
I’ve seen on various forums that the price isn’t locked until you have a build date.
I was told by Zenith at the start that the price was protected and I assumed that this was a benefit of ordering via a salary sacrifice provider.
Do you know if the order was via a dealer, broker or salary sacrifice provider?
There is a decent Facebook group - i4 M50 owners - which is a good source of info.
I was status 047 - without dealer allocation until last month.
Now got a build date in Oct.
I’ve seen on various forums that the price isn’t locked until you have a build date.
I was told by Zenith at the start that the price was protected and I assumed that this was a benefit of ordering via a salary sacrifice provider.
Do you know if the order was via a dealer, broker or salary sacrifice provider?
There is a decent Facebook group - i4 M50 owners - which is a good source of info.
TheDeuce said:
If so..
My mate, who ordered the car last Sept has suffered multiple delays (to be expected) but has now been told they still have no idea of a build date for the car and that they can no longer offer the ~£550+vat price pm, to keep the order it'll have to go upto £900pm!!
Anyone else had anything like that happen? I'd always assumed that the price was locked in once the order was signed. Doubtless the agreement does give them a get out clause if the manufacturer can't deliver, I've never heard of such a raw deal for a customer prepared to wait though. Is this normal?
This always staggers me. The list price of the car hasn't changed and I doubt the residual value has either so what possible justification do they have for such a hike other than gouging, as with limited units they'd much rather supply an over-inflated salary sacrifice car than standard lease?My mate, who ordered the car last Sept has suffered multiple delays (to be expected) but has now been told they still have no idea of a build date for the car and that they can no longer offer the ~£550+vat price pm, to keep the order it'll have to go upto £900pm!!
Anyone else had anything like that happen? I'd always assumed that the price was locked in once the order was signed. Doubtless the agreement does give them a get out clause if the manufacturer can't deliver, I've never heard of such a raw deal for a customer prepared to wait though. Is this normal?
SWoll said:
TheDeuce said:
If so..
My mate, who ordered the car last Sept has suffered multiple delays (to be expected) but has now been told they still have no idea of a build date for the car and that they can no longer offer the ~£550+vat price pm, to keep the order it'll have to go upto £900pm!!
Anyone else had anything like that happen? I'd always assumed that the price was locked in once the order was signed. Doubtless the agreement does give them a get out clause if the manufacturer can't deliver, I've never heard of such a raw deal for a customer prepared to wait though. Is this normal?
This always staggers me. The list price of the car hasn't changed and I doubt the residual value has either so what possible justification do they have for such a hike other than gouging, as with limited units they'd much rather supply an over-inflated salary sacrifice car than standard lease?My mate, who ordered the car last Sept has suffered multiple delays (to be expected) but has now been told they still have no idea of a build date for the car and that they can no longer offer the ~£550+vat price pm, to keep the order it'll have to go upto £900pm!!
Anyone else had anything like that happen? I'd always assumed that the price was locked in once the order was signed. Doubtless the agreement does give them a get out clause if the manufacturer can't deliver, I've never heard of such a raw deal for a customer prepared to wait though. Is this normal?
I suspect that on this occasion BMW simply can't make the expected number of cars in a reasonable timeframe and/or the lease company oversold their allocation on the expectation further discounted units would come their way. But world events being what they are, none of what is normal has happened..
Anyhow, without the manufacturers discounts I would say that £900 ish isn't that shocking for a car specced to approx £60k. Most people only take a lease car when they are discounted though. My £82,000 iPace is leased for less than £500pm..
TheDeuce said:
It's more that when he ordered BMW would have been offering discounted units to the lease companies to push the car - manufacturers do that to get cars on the road quickly and also to ensure production lines are running at 100% at launch.
I suspect that on this occasion BMW simply can't make the expected number of cars in a reasonable timeframe and/or the lease company oversold their allocation on the expectation further discounted units would come their way. But world events being what they are, none of what is normal has happened..
Anyhow, without the manufacturers discounts I would say that £900 ish isn't that shocking for a car specced to approx £60k. Most people only take a lease car when they are discounted though. My £82,000 iPace is leased for less than £500pm..
If it's an M50 it'll be closer to £70k.I suspect that on this occasion BMW simply can't make the expected number of cars in a reasonable timeframe and/or the lease company oversold their allocation on the expectation further discounted units would come their way. But world events being what they are, none of what is normal has happened..
Anyhow, without the manufacturers discounts I would say that £900 ish isn't that shocking for a car specced to approx £60k. Most people only take a lease car when they are discounted though. My £82,000 iPace is leased for less than £500pm..
They'd rather he cancel, hence the crazy hike. I've seen gross cost quotes on M50's with a few option via salary sacrifice of £1100+ a month. Lots of profit to e made there and far easier to manage.
Long time lurker here 
Ordered an I4 M50 in December and last week I was told by Vertu Leasing that it was delayed until next year... and the price was going up by £180 per month so I had to cancel. Initial ETA was end of May this year...
The deal I got in December had a good discount at the time so the price increase they requested last week was 8K+ over the 4 year lease that I went for. Leaser blames BMW for the increase and said they wouldn't honour the price or discount that I originally agreed - fair enough, everything has went up in price but after all that time waiting it was a real kick in the teeth and leaser didn't really care in the end to be honest - not like they'll lose out to be fair.
What annoys me is, the order number is still valid and the car is still being built (I would check weekly on BMW Genius and was always told it was status 047 unallocated) - So someone gets the car with the increased cost and the leaser makes more profit - win win for everyone except me. The BMW dealer was also Vertu so same group and no doubt had a factor in things.
In the end I went with an In-Stock Tesla Model Y which I ordered exactly one week ago and have confirmed delivery next week - this is via Zen Auto and it was registered June (I can even see the car in the Tesla app so I know its "real"). Nowhere near as good a deal as the M50 but nothing I can do about it now - 8 months of waiting down the drain.
Ordered an I4 M50 in December and last week I was told by Vertu Leasing that it was delayed until next year... and the price was going up by £180 per month so I had to cancel. Initial ETA was end of May this year...
The deal I got in December had a good discount at the time so the price increase they requested last week was 8K+ over the 4 year lease that I went for. Leaser blames BMW for the increase and said they wouldn't honour the price or discount that I originally agreed - fair enough, everything has went up in price but after all that time waiting it was a real kick in the teeth and leaser didn't really care in the end to be honest - not like they'll lose out to be fair.
What annoys me is, the order number is still valid and the car is still being built (I would check weekly on BMW Genius and was always told it was status 047 unallocated) - So someone gets the car with the increased cost and the leaser makes more profit - win win for everyone except me. The BMW dealer was also Vertu so same group and no doubt had a factor in things.
In the end I went with an In-Stock Tesla Model Y which I ordered exactly one week ago and have confirmed delivery next week - this is via Zen Auto and it was registered June (I can even see the car in the Tesla app so I know its "real"). Nowhere near as good a deal as the M50 but nothing I can do about it now - 8 months of waiting down the drain.
rico83 said:
Long time lurker here
Ordered an I4 M50 in December and last week I was told by Vertu Leasing that it was delayed until next year... and the price was going up by £180 per month so I had to cancel. Initial ETA was end of May this year...
The deal I got in December had a good discount at the time so the price increase they requested last week was 8K+ over the 4 year lease that I went for. Leaser blames BMW for the increase and said they wouldn't honour the price or discount that I originally agreed - fair enough, everything has went up in price but after all that time waiting it was a real kick in the teeth and leaser didn't really care in the end to be honest - not like they'll lose out to be fair.
What annoys me is, the order number is still valid and the car is still being built (I would check weekly on BMW Genius and was always told it was status 047 unallocated) - So someone gets the car with the increased cost and the leaser makes more profit - win win for everyone except me. The BMW dealer was also Vertu so same group and no doubt had a factor in things.
In the end I went with an In-Stock Tesla Model Y which I ordered exactly one week ago and have confirmed delivery next week - this is via Zen Auto and it was registered June (I can even see the car in the Tesla app so I know its "real"). Nowhere near as good a deal as the M50 but nothing I can do about it now - 8 months of waiting down the drain.
Sorry to hear you had the same experience.Ordered an I4 M50 in December and last week I was told by Vertu Leasing that it was delayed until next year... and the price was going up by £180 per month so I had to cancel. Initial ETA was end of May this year...
The deal I got in December had a good discount at the time so the price increase they requested last week was 8K+ over the 4 year lease that I went for. Leaser blames BMW for the increase and said they wouldn't honour the price or discount that I originally agreed - fair enough, everything has went up in price but after all that time waiting it was a real kick in the teeth and leaser didn't really care in the end to be honest - not like they'll lose out to be fair.
What annoys me is, the order number is still valid and the car is still being built (I would check weekly on BMW Genius and was always told it was status 047 unallocated) - So someone gets the car with the increased cost and the leaser makes more profit - win win for everyone except me. The BMW dealer was also Vertu so same group and no doubt had a factor in things.
In the end I went with an In-Stock Tesla Model Y which I ordered exactly one week ago and have confirmed delivery next week - this is via Zen Auto and it was registered June (I can even see the car in the Tesla app so I know its "real"). Nowhere near as good a deal as the M50 but nothing I can do about it now - 8 months of waiting down the drain.
I don't think the lease company makes more money from the same car though, they just lost the BMW discount.
I've seen the model y's in stock too, definitely one of the best deals right now but I fully understand it's not the same proposition as the i4. What a crap situation this is... I've leased for over ten years and never seen this sort of thing happen before. My mate who ordered the i4 is gutted/frustrated - not least because he now has to start over and find and wait for another car
On the flip side, the model y is a decent all round car and I expect once the frustration has subsided you'll be thankful it was available. At least you're not stuck taking a step back to ICE.
TheDeuce said:
Sorry to hear you had the same experience.
I don't think the lease company makes more money from the same car though, they just lost the BMW discount.
I've seen the model y's in stock too, definitely one of the best deals right now but I fully understand it's not the same proposition as the i4. What a crap situation this is... I've leased for over ten years and never seen this sort of thing happen before. My mate who ordered the i4 is gutted/frustrated - not least because he now has to start over and find and wait for another car
On the flip side, the model y is a decent all round car and I expect once the frustration has subsided you'll be thankful it was available. At least you're not stuck taking a step back to ICE.
Yep, I know what you are saying;- The "starting over" is frustrating and there's not a lot available just now (unless you can wait until next year) - Proper first world problem to have that's for sure! I don't think the lease company makes more money from the same car though, they just lost the BMW discount.
I've seen the model y's in stock too, definitely one of the best deals right now but I fully understand it's not the same proposition as the i4. What a crap situation this is... I've leased for over ten years and never seen this sort of thing happen before. My mate who ordered the i4 is gutted/frustrated - not least because he now has to start over and find and wait for another car
On the flip side, the model y is a decent all round car and I expect once the frustration has subsided you'll be thankful it was available. At least you're not stuck taking a step back to ICE.
I have to say, I went for a test drive at Tesla Glasgow (my wife and I got 30 mins each so we had a good time to test it properly) and it was enjoyable! ok, not quite M50 but practical and put a smile on our faces - The whole experience was very pleasant too and so much better than the other dealerships around Glasgow...
I'm looking forward to next week when it arrives and will be good to have something secured for a few years. I'll maybe see if I can go with an M50 in a couple of years if things have settled down a bit.
Also, you wouldn't believe it but maintenance on the Tesla is 50 per month... the M50 was fully maintained for 11 quid a month!! makes me cry!
rico83 said:
TheDeuce said:
Sorry to hear you had the same experience.
I don't think the lease company makes more money from the same car though, they just lost the BMW discount.
I've seen the model y's in stock too, definitely one of the best deals right now but I fully understand it's not the same proposition as the i4. What a crap situation this is... I've leased for over ten years and never seen this sort of thing happen before. My mate who ordered the i4 is gutted/frustrated - not least because he now has to start over and find and wait for another car
On the flip side, the model y is a decent all round car and I expect once the frustration has subsided you'll be thankful it was available. At least you're not stuck taking a step back to ICE.
Yep, I know what you are saying;- The "starting over" is frustrating and there's not a lot available just now (unless you can wait until next year) - Proper first world problem to have that's for sure! I don't think the lease company makes more money from the same car though, they just lost the BMW discount.
I've seen the model y's in stock too, definitely one of the best deals right now but I fully understand it's not the same proposition as the i4. What a crap situation this is... I've leased for over ten years and never seen this sort of thing happen before. My mate who ordered the i4 is gutted/frustrated - not least because he now has to start over and find and wait for another car
On the flip side, the model y is a decent all round car and I expect once the frustration has subsided you'll be thankful it was available. At least you're not stuck taking a step back to ICE.
I have to say, I went for a test drive at Tesla Glasgow (my wife and I got 30 mins each so we had a good time to test it properly) and it was enjoyable! ok, not quite M50 but practical and put a smile on our faces - The whole experience was very pleasant too and so much better than the other dealerships around Glasgow...
I'm looking forward to next week when it arrives and will be good to have something secured for a few years. I'll maybe see if I can go with an M50 in a couple of years if things have settled down a bit.
Also, you wouldn't believe it but maintenance on the Tesla is 50 per month... the M50 was fully maintained for 11 quid a month!! makes me cry!
Be thankful for what you've got etc etc.
I can't imagine what could justify £600p/a maintenance payments on the Tesla. Can't you sack off the maintenance? You'll be handing it back before it needs so much as a set of brake pads I'd have thought? Not sure what service costs are but can't be much. My iPace just had it's 21k mile service and it was just £160+ vat for the service and particle filter.
rico83 said:
Also, you wouldn't believe it but maintenance on the Tesla is 50 per month... the M50 was fully maintained for 11 quid a month!! makes me cry!
Absolute joke. We ran a Model 3 for 2 years and 20k miles and it didn't cost us a penny in maintenance. How on earth are the justifying £2400 over 4 years? SWoll said:
rico83 said:
Also, you wouldn't believe it but maintenance on the Tesla is 50 per month... the M50 was fully maintained for 11 quid a month!! makes me cry!
Absolute joke. We ran a Model 3 for 2 years and 20k miles and it didn't cost us a penny in maintenance. How on earth are the justifying £2400 over 4 years? 
Anyway, don't tick the maintenance box for an EV. There's not enough maintenance to worry about.
There are a number of factors at play here.
1. BMW allowed pre-orders to be placed by customers in many countries such as in the UK, US and elsewhere. Pre-orders were allowed to be placed from June 2021 and were supposed to guarantee your place in the queue. In reality, the way BMW handled the pre-orders was odd in that pre-orders were assigned to your nearest local dealer irrespective of whether that dealer had a production allocation (or slot). It further appears that BMW did not assign priority production slots to those dealers who had pre-orders so that their place in the production queue was assured.
2. Official ordering i.e. the BMW AG production order system came live on the 11th November 2021 and production slots began to be assigned - again it looks like BMW did not take fully prioritise pre-orders. By this time too, orders had flooded in from various other sources as the car both in i4 E40 form and i4M50 form proved to be very popular. I think BMW underestimated the demand for the car particularly in M50 form(and their pricing differential made M50 attractive) and even prior to the Russia-Ukraine war had more orders than they could satisfy. The Russia-Ukraine war makes things even worse and the continuing chip shortage/China logistics issues also made things worse. The result has been production backlogs/delays as parts supply for JIT production suffers. BMW have attempted to alleviate some of these issues by removing electronic features from the car particularly in E40 form but even the M50 has been effected spec wise.
3. Lease companies and other bulk buyers tend to buy from a small select number of BMW dealers who specialise in lease deals. These dealers ended up with a lot of orders and very few or no production slots (BMW status 047 means no production slot) This concentration of sales to these BMW dealers means the timescales for lease customers getting their cars is likely to be very long.This observation is born out by lots of lease company customers detailing their production delays on many different i4 forums both here in the UK, the US and Europe etc. It also looks like BMW have prioritised production slots to retail sales rather than lease/bulk buy sales as I guess they will make more profit out of these sales.
4. The information flow between customer, lease company, BMW dealer, BMW UK and BMW AG is not great even when supply is good. When supply is constrained and demand is high then the lines of communication are full of confusion. Lease companies exist to sell and it looks like a lot of them have been taking orders without thinking how they were going to deliver. If you don't have a production slot (i.e. BMW status code 047) then you don't have a car to sell. When supply is good then lease companies could get away with this tactic as supply would ensure that a production slot became available but when supply is constrained and demand is high then that assumption is false and leads to the situation we see here. Lease companies are responding to this shortage by upping the lease price so that they make more profit out of limited supply. When ordering a car, a lot of customers fail to understand that in supply constrained times, a dealer who has a production slot is the dealer to order from rather than someone saying they can get you a car.
1. BMW allowed pre-orders to be placed by customers in many countries such as in the UK, US and elsewhere. Pre-orders were allowed to be placed from June 2021 and were supposed to guarantee your place in the queue. In reality, the way BMW handled the pre-orders was odd in that pre-orders were assigned to your nearest local dealer irrespective of whether that dealer had a production allocation (or slot). It further appears that BMW did not assign priority production slots to those dealers who had pre-orders so that their place in the production queue was assured.
2. Official ordering i.e. the BMW AG production order system came live on the 11th November 2021 and production slots began to be assigned - again it looks like BMW did not take fully prioritise pre-orders. By this time too, orders had flooded in from various other sources as the car both in i4 E40 form and i4M50 form proved to be very popular. I think BMW underestimated the demand for the car particularly in M50 form(and their pricing differential made M50 attractive) and even prior to the Russia-Ukraine war had more orders than they could satisfy. The Russia-Ukraine war makes things even worse and the continuing chip shortage/China logistics issues also made things worse. The result has been production backlogs/delays as parts supply for JIT production suffers. BMW have attempted to alleviate some of these issues by removing electronic features from the car particularly in E40 form but even the M50 has been effected spec wise.
3. Lease companies and other bulk buyers tend to buy from a small select number of BMW dealers who specialise in lease deals. These dealers ended up with a lot of orders and very few or no production slots (BMW status 047 means no production slot) This concentration of sales to these BMW dealers means the timescales for lease customers getting their cars is likely to be very long.This observation is born out by lots of lease company customers detailing their production delays on many different i4 forums both here in the UK, the US and Europe etc. It also looks like BMW have prioritised production slots to retail sales rather than lease/bulk buy sales as I guess they will make more profit out of these sales.
4. The information flow between customer, lease company, BMW dealer, BMW UK and BMW AG is not great even when supply is good. When supply is constrained and demand is high then the lines of communication are full of confusion. Lease companies exist to sell and it looks like a lot of them have been taking orders without thinking how they were going to deliver. If you don't have a production slot (i.e. BMW status code 047) then you don't have a car to sell. When supply is good then lease companies could get away with this tactic as supply would ensure that a production slot became available but when supply is constrained and demand is high then that assumption is false and leads to the situation we see here. Lease companies are responding to this shortage by upping the lease price so that they make more profit out of limited supply. When ordering a car, a lot of customers fail to understand that in supply constrained times, a dealer who has a production slot is the dealer to order from rather than someone saying they can get you a car.
Edited by Mahalo on Saturday 30th July 11:27
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