BOYCOTT Scion's FIRST 86 Sign-Up List

[devinclfalcons]

How long do you have to decide if you want the car if you get selected? What extra goodies do you get other than being forced to pay MSRP?

[mines13]

Originally Posted by switchlanez

My opinions are formulated on facts which I am also stating. The final MSRP should be decided after they get their cumulative analysis results in maybe a couple weeks to a few days before the public announcement (opinion). Like right now they have a price window approved or mandated by Toyota execs, but there's still a fudge factor/wiggle room to work with bound by a threshold.

I am open to seeing your facts and the sources for said facts that you claim you are basing your opinions on. Your response in itself claims several things that you openly admit are not, indeed fact. Simply put, there is as much a chance of this having an effect on final MSRP as it does having NO effect on final MSRP.

[switchlanez]

^Facts: Toyota corporate executes business on a quarterly schedule. Japan and Portugal announced prices by Q1 start; Scion announced First 86 instead. Businesses take market conditions of the quarter preceding the launch into account for their product launch strategy. Not every consumer on Scion's lists can/will afford the FR-S at launch. Those lists contain data related to demand. Price is based on demand. If demand expectation is overshot, price becomes inflated. PRODUCT PRICE GENERALLY DOES NOT CHANGE AFTER IT HAS BEEN PUBLICLY ANNOUNCED BUT CAN CHANGE INTERNALLY ANYTIME BEFORE ANNOUNCEMENT.

I'm sure there's more I missed, but my opinions were extrapolated from the above. I don't have access to or am too lazy to dig up the sources (college textbooks, other members' posts, internal business schedules from past & present employers: Toyota, Cisco, Kyocera, HTC, etc.).

[Zaku]

I'm with you switch and feel the same way, in fact I just had a term paper for my business class if I can find that info I'll be sure to post it. But honestly I've always been neutral with Scion and Subaru I just hope they'll try to fair with the MSRP. Because if they trip players like Hyundai will have more cards to play.

[switchlanez]

^

Originally Posted by mines13

Simply put, there is as much a chance of this having an effect on final MSRP as it does having NO effect on final MSRP.

Agreed. Considering First 86 is something we individuals have direct control over signing up, our collective action may have an impact (even if miniscule) on MSRP. Or it may not! The disparity on this forum community certainly doesn't help. It's better to be conscious about the *possibility* than dismiss it altogether in carelessness, ignorance, arrogance, whatever. What other things do we have direct control over that may impact MSRP? Anybody? I challenge you to name just ONE thing.

Do the nay-sayers really believe Scion will completely ignore the number of entrants? That's valuable statistical data! Each entry is a near perfect statistic. Why near perfect? Entrants need to consider there's a $500 deposit required upon selection and will have to pay MSRP. We didn't have to make such commitments in order to 1) get hyped about this car, 2) join Scion's mailing list, or 3) join this forum <-- data drawn from these 3 things require extensive *subjective* analysis to extrapolate convoluted statistics that are fuzzy at best (btw a convolution is a mathematical operation in statistics. I've done them and they're ugly). Metrics taken from First 86 or from deposits made at dealerships are discrete and *objective* tick marks; much closer to perfect data for compiling a demand forecast.

Also consider this key fact: First 86 starts and ends tomorrow and FR-S launches in Spring (March 20ish-May 20ish). What will Scion corporate be doing between January 12th and March 20ish? Pull 86 names from a bowl then twiddle their thumbs and sit on their hands? Tinkering with data and tweaking price figures will not halt the production line in Gunma.

[The Robot Cow]

You know that toyota could have just decided to keep this a japan exclusive car. I for one dont see the reason for the drama behind this event. If you're mad about not being the first 86 people to own the Frs, oh well. Its not like there'll only 86 Frs to be sold here in the Usa. Like the others have said, Scion isnt pointing a gun at your head forcing you to buy this car if you are selected. Chill out, its not the end of the world. Im sure that the car's price will not be too far from the Brz but its not gonna cost as much as a Ferrari as some of you are making it seem like.

[Jeff Lange]

I like the idea. There are already a bunch of people who have preordered/placed a deposit with a dealer, why not get your car a few weeks earlier. You are basically entering for a chance to take delivery before it goes on sale to other people. What's wrong with that?

I still don't understand the problem with them not announcing pricing yet either. Once they announce the price you will know it. It will be before you can buy the car.

Just like almost every other car ever.

Jeff

[chate]

if they announce pricing right now, the hype goes away if its too high. People start looking around and realizing what they can buy for the same price thats at least as good as this car is.

The Longer they wait and closer to launch it is, the less time people have to argue about why its too high or what a better alternative is (new or used)...
Less speculation/discussion about price will allow more people to say "i wanna go check it out" without the preconceived notions and make decisions based on the seat-of-the-pants feel of the car (which we know from reviews is awesome)...
When the average person is at the dealership and they love the way the car handles, and car they expected to cost 25k stickers at 28k, its going to come down to financing and negotiation and the dealers LOVE that, they will readily convince plenty of people to justify buying it because "its only a difference of like 20 bucks a month!!" in the monthly payment...over 72 months or 84 or whatever the crazy lengths of financing are these days...and
Voila, you just paid >30k after tax etc on a car you walked in expecting to pay <25k for, plus interest for TFS WIN!!

[mines13]

Originally Posted by switchlanez

^

Agreed. Considering First 86 is something we individuals have direct control over signing up, our collective action may have an impact (even if miniscule) on MSRP. Or it may not! The disparity on this forum community certainly doesn't help. It's better to be conscious about the *possibility* than dismiss it altogether in carelessness, ignorance, arrogance, whatever. What other things do we have direct control over that may impact MSRP? Anybody? I challenge you to name just ONE thing.

Do the nay-sayers really believe Scion will completely ignore the number of entrants? That's valuable statistical data! Each entry is a near perfect statistic. Why near perfect? Entrants need to consider there's a $500 deposit required upon selection and will have to pay MSRP. We didn't have to make such commitments in order to 1) get hyped about this car, 2) join Scion's mailing list, or 3) join this forum <-- data drawn from these 3 things require extensive *subjective* analysis to extrapolate convoluted statistics that are fuzzy at best (btw a convolution is a mathematical operation in statistics. I've done them and they're ugly). Metrics taken from First 86 or from deposits made at dealerships are discrete and *objective* tick marks; much closer to perfect data for compiling a demand forecast.

Also consider this key fact: First 86 starts and ends tomorrow and FR-S launches in Spring (March 20ish-May 20ish). What will Scion corporate be doing between January 12th and March 20ish? Pull 86 names from a bowl then twiddle their thumbs and sit on their hands? Tinkering with data and tweaking price figures will not halt the production line in Gunma.

Something that Scion has no control over is what Subaru decides to sell the BRZ for. It is a safe bet that the lesser equipped FR-S will be less costly then the BRZ. At this point they know ballpark within a grand or so what the BRZ will start at, (comparable to the price of a base WRX) they have to work against this. If they are tweaking it a few hundred dollars this way or that way, it has no effect on my ability, likely your ability, nor most anyone's ability to purchase this vehicle. If one is sweating a $500 (possibly) swing on the retail price, they can't afford it and have no business purchasing the car. We can speculate till we are blue in the face, and once the figures are released, no matter how fair the price, some will still complain. I think it would be foolish to expect a significant bump from that WRX baseline. You are savvy enough to know that for this to be a success, they will have to contend with Subaru, Ford and Hyundai on the pricing front as well. In real life, when it gets down to the actually parting with money, people tend to put more weight on price then they do on emotion.

[miata]

Damn.. $25000 can buy me 700 tank full of gas for my Miata.
That's enough gas until I retire in 20 years.

[pastuch]

Originally Posted by miata

Damn.. $25000 can buy me 700 tank full of gas for my Miata.
That's enough gas until I retire in 20 years.

But the FRS will get substantially better MPG than your Miata. My NA only gets maybe 24mpg combined. It's 21 years old though...

Edit: OMG, If I date a 20 year old girl right now then my Car will be older than my girlfriend... Time to get on it!

[tripjammer]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lange

I like the idea. There are already a bunch of people who have preordered/placed a deposit with a dealer, why not get your car a few weeks earlier. You are basically entering for a chance to take delivery before it goes on sale to other people. What's wrong with that?

I still don't understand the problem with them not announcing pricing yet either. Once they announce the price you will know it. It will be before you can buy the car.

Just like almost every other car ever.

Jeff

+100000000

[colHolm]

Originally Posted by chate

if they announce pricing right now, the hype goes away if its too high. People start looking around and realizing what they can buy for the same price thats at least as good as this car is.

The Longer they wait and closer to launch it is, the less time people have to argue about why its too high or what a better alternative is (new or used)...
Less speculation/discussion about price will allow more people to say "i wanna go check it out"

Have you seen all the price speculation and comparisons on this forum alone? All that stuff has been done!

I think a lot of the serious buyers have a price point in mind. Where the actual pricing lands in relation to that will only require a slight reevaluation for these people based on finance/lease rates and actually driving the car.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lange

I like the idea. There are already a bunch of people who have preordered/placed a deposit with a dealer, why not get your car a few weeks earlier. You are basically entering for a chance to take delivery before it goes on sale to other people. What's wrong with that?

I still don't understand the problem with them not announcing pricing yet either. Once they announce the price you will know it. It will be before you can buy the car.

Just like almost every other car ever.

Jeff

Here's my opinion on the pricing and option lists that everyone wants, and my feel on the reasoning so many feel strongly about it.

First, I think it'd created by the fact that you can get basically the same car from two different manufacturers, which leads to inherent competition between the two based on pricing and option/feature availability. This determines which dealership (at least for those early adopters) gets the deposit on the car.

The problem is people are having to "blindly" sign up for at least one, if not both, and that’s annoying for those people. If pricing and option lists were provided the consumer could make an *intelligent* choice regarding what they want. That’s why people (myself included) want pricing. I’m on the list with the local Subaru dealer, and I will shoot for one of the first 86 slots. If they would have released pricing/option lists I can guarantee you that I would only sign up for one (either Subaru or Scion) but right now I have no way to make that determination so I have to waste my time, the dealers time, and possibly Scions time by signing up for both. I will buy one as early as I can get one simply because I want one, but I can’t plan for which one I want, how much I’ll want to put down, what options, etc currently, and from a pre-order perspective, that annoys the heck out of me. Even VW can figure out pricing months in advance of a car going on sale (like that did with the new Golf R). It’s not rocket science. They determined the pricing and released it well before release (AFAIK it’s still not released but soon). That pricing and options list/options pricing made me decide that the car was simply not worth the money to me so I was able to avoid wasting my time, in addition to the time of a sales guy at the VW dealership.

Granted there are also some that, without ever driving the car, have set a “value” to the car that IMO seems unreasonably low (i.e. some of the $19k, $21k max type posts we’ve seen), those people probably just want the price so they will know not to plan on buying an ft86 variant for at least a year until they can snag a used one.