[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by tranzformer

What matters is that the STI is not excluded now. Doubt this car will be either. Not sure why you think most dealers won't accept it since SOA reimburses them the difference.

Well of course it's not excluded now. The car has been out for quite awhile now.

It was excluded when it first hit the US. If the BRZ is excluded, then I'm sure 7 years later it won't be excluded anymore too. IIRC it lasted for 6-12 months on the STI from the release in 04.

Also, the reason why is simple. If you are a subaru dealer and there's enough demand for the car to sell it at full MSRP or even over MSRP, why would you accept the minor money from Subaru while losing potentially thousands? Some dealers won't care, or won't be in a market where the car has lots of demand, but some markets I would not be surprised at all to see it rejected.

One thing I haven't found is what Subaru pays to the dealer, but I believe it's just the 2% under invoice and not the difference between invoice and MSRP. So the Dealer will get a check for, say $450 on an invoice of $22,500. Now let's say the MSRP was $24,000 and the "regional market adjustment" that some idiot would pay is $2,000. So instead of making $3,500 they make $450 (and that's assuming you don't neg the $450 as a 50/50 split, etc).

In the STIs case, by the time you could use the VIP pricing you could easily buy one for the same money by walking into a dealer.

For $20 going with LNT for the chance of using the VIP program is still a worthwhile risk and I'm sure a lot of people here will be able to use it (assuming Subaru doesn't pull the "limited availability" card which if the 1-2 cars per dealer per month is true there's a fair chance they'd pull that card...), I just expect it less in the high demand markets for this car.