The law is it if you drive it off the Assy line home you still pay delivery charge it is the same all over the country if not people in Oregon would pay say 3000 dollars someone in Kentucky would pay 200 dollars to be fair to everyone the fee is uniform and must be paid by everyone. The money the museum gets is for its operations upkeep and expansion. It's a non profit as a museum GM does not own it. They contribute to it like you and I do to support it
If you don't enjoy the museum experience don't do it. Oh and the selling dealer gets the profit of you for buying the car not the museum. GM makes it money selling to dealers not us They want us to buy from dealer so dealer can order more Corvettes.
z51vett
Doug

Huh?

I have no idea who owns the museum. I assume it's a 501(c)3.

I do know that GM does not own any of the businesses to which they deliver cars and charge a delivery fee.

Excellent explanation!
I'm happily looking forward to my museum experience on July 15th. One more "bucket list" fulfilled. :woohoo:

I live in St Louis which is a easy 4 hour drive from the museum. I'm considering the museum delivery. I would fly to Nashville and take advantage of the Enterprise one way car rental to the museum to avoid having 2 cars coming home.

I look forward to reading about your experience.

GM is not getting the Museum Delivery Fee, the Museum is. GM does not own the Museum, it's a private, non-profit company and these fees are one of their big fund raisers. So, GM is no delivering it twice. GM is delivering the car to the museum and charging the (federally mandated) destination fee that every other Corvette in the country is also paying. The museum is getting the money from the "Corvette Museum Delivery" option.

Dave

For sure I'll post-up my experience. I'm taking the "long way" home thru Michigan and around the lakes visiting friends & relatives...it'll be a 1,500 mile chance to scrub in the tires and get a few bugs splatted on the car! :thumbs:

Yea, I could of had Kerbeck drop ship it to a local dealer here but what fun would that be. I'd guess the majority of readers here are adventurous and look for the "max" experience in their lives. Even my "non-auto" friends are totally blown away that you could do what the museum offers.
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Clearly, I misunderstood your post.

Laborsmith

:eek: It is kinda poor when you look at the total process. You are paying a delivery charge (same as to Washington state) and really getting nothing. If you could have your car displayed at the Museum then after all the fan fare the car would be transported to the delivery dealer, price would make sense.

Calif hardly sees any corvettes, no allocations,no cars.....seems funny, one of the farthest
locations has no cars.....good weather all year round,

Exactly, and how much does it cost them to run it over to the museum? $10?

Solution: GM pays the carrier $10 to deliver it to the museum, and pays $885 to the museum.

Problem solved. Museum delivery included in destination charge.:thumbs:

Michael

Many here really can't get it through their head that delivery fee is federally mandated, every delivery pays the same regardless the distance. It has nothing to do with GM or the Museum.

And the museum does get the bulk of the $990 after the dealer takes $118.80 for doing nothing and GM takes it's cut.

IMHO the customer should be charged the amount the museum gets with nothing taken off the top by either the dealer or GM.

Well, that's not entirely true, you take $118.80 off the top and I'm sure GM takes it cut too. The museum is probably lucky to net $600 on the transaction, which is all we should be paying. The dealer and GM is already making a handsome profit on the car, pass the entire delivery fee to the museum.

I am relieved that so many are concerned about museum delivery pricing and warning me in advance. I did the math for some airline tickets, rental car, hotel, tip, some museum shirts etc? I checked the box. The price is what it is. It's your choice. It helps to support the Corvette legacy and I'm happy to contribute to this once in a lifetime opportunity for me...(the wife said I will not be writing a check of this size when I retire).
It appears there are openings for 7-8 delivers a day. Seems to me the delivery experience would be diminished if the prices went to a "Walmart" level with 30 people lined up waiting to take delivery.

You are seriously misinformed.

When did this equal fee start because a long time ago that was not the case ????? This is my 50th year of owning cars !!!! Wayne

I've been here for over 21 years and it was a law when I started here.

Personally, I think the $995 delivery charge when the car is picked up at the museum is a crock of #%*% but what do you expect when the feds stick their noses into something? It is what it is.

That said I sprang for museum delivery and was thrilled with the experience. Worth every penny and it supports the museum. The fact that the museum is self funded it a major plus and in my mind characteristic of the true American character.

Do it, you won't regret it!

:rock:

http://www.autotrader.com/research/a...-explained.jsp

Let's get the bad news out of the way first: That destination charge listed on every new car's window sticker is something you'll have to pay. According to U.S. law, car delivery -- transporting the vehicle from port or assembly plant to dealer showroom -- is always listed as a separate line item on a new-car window sticker. Automakers may use different names to describe it, but it always works the same way, with buyers covering the cost.

Freight, delivery or destination charges ensure that the buyer pays equally to cover the cost of delivering a vehicle to a dealership, regardless of whether the dealership is nearby or far away from the vehicle assembly plant. For example, a Kia Optima buyer in Seattle is not required to pay more for the vehicle than a buyer in Atlanta, who's thousands of miles closer to the West Point, Ga. plant where the Optima is built.

Instead, Kia passes the cost on to buyers with a delivery charge of $800, regardless of where the seller is located. The fee is not included in the MSRP. Instead, it's typically listed as one of the last items on the window sticker, right above the total price.

Fees vary depending on brand or even model. Larger, heavier or more expensive models can be more costly to move for the automaker. That cost is passed on to the consumer through the destination charge. For example, a high-end luxury vehicle may require more careful protection before making a trip by rail or truck. Wrapping the car in protective film or transporting it in a closed truck adds costs, which result in a higher destination fee. Imported vehicles don't necessarily have higher delivery fees than domestically built ones, because only car delivery inside the U.S. is covered by the fee -- foreign automakers usually cover the cost of getting their vehicles to U.S. ports.

Although there's no getting around a delivery charge at the negotiating table, new-car shoppers can prepare for it -- and avoid surprise -- by considering it when researching vehicles. Typically, fees are about $700 to $1,000. Be sure to add that to a vehicle's MSRP when budgeting for your next new car. Upon negotiating a sale price, keep the delivery fee in mind to ensure a budget-friendly deal.

I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying.
So if the price for the museum delivery experience was reduced, and more people could afford it and participate in the experience as well, you would enjoy it less. Is that what you're saying? :leaving:

:iagree:

Just got back from picking up my C7 from the Museum and it was a great vacation! Well worth the money IMHO.

Yes! If I wanted the mass market approach they have that now. For $7.00 you can take the plant tour in a group now. The R8C supplies you with a personal guide for the day. If you had to share your guide with say 5 other buyers to go over your car and help you setup the functions where's the exclusivity there? The guide would stand in the parking lot with a bull horn and shout instructions to everyone.
You are assuming that for a reduced cost that you will still get one on one service?

It appears they have capacity and employees for 7-8 deliveries a day. In marketing you price your product high enough to fill your capacity but not low enough to where you are turning too many people away.
If they were failing to attract enough people at $995 they would lower their price. If they were turning people away......raise the price to $1,200.
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Earlier in this thread a poster asked when the change took place. I admit I can not recall but believe in the mid 1970's. Also, and this could be wrong, but I am thinking some of the American companies started doing it (at the mild requests of dealers located thousands of miles from assembly plants who believed they were losing sales for no other reason than the price difference) before there was a law.

Now someone who knows for sure might be tempted to post.

Laborsmith

I don't know who you are talking about, but there is no law that says what GM has to do with the Destination Charge after they get the money. They could easily pay for the extremely low cost to get the car a 1/2 mile down the road to the museum, and then give the balance to the museum itself. Now the museum delivery is reasonable, and no extra charge.

Problem solved.

Michael

I found this on ask.com:

"Why do we still have the destination charge?"

"Because the government mandates it. Back before the early 80s destination charges differed and car dealers played shady game (shocking I know) where they'd make tons of money by setting their own destination charges of whatever they wanted and not having it in the price. The government then decided it would be a requirement that the dealers list a destination charge separate from the price for all new cars clearly on the window sticker. All fine until sometime in the 80s the manufacturers went to a combined standardized destination charge (aka they averaged their shipping costs and set the charge based on model, not location). However, the government never reacted to this so the destination charge is still required by law even though it's the same everywhere in CONUS."

This is about the time I thought it changed, and I found a window sticker for a 1976 Toyota that I bought new. The port of entry was San Francisco. The dealer was just south of there, and the "inland freight and handling" was $54.75. So, I'm pretty sure the standardized shipping charge started in the early 80's.

It has to be standardized...every dealer in the country has to have the same cost of sale per vehicle. It is no more complicated than this. It's the way retail vehicle distribution works....end of story.

Absolutely agree. I am not sure why this is so hard to comprehend.

995 Destination
 

It’s a union agreement!


iQUOTE=cg02175;1586672525]I think it is really stupid for GM to charge customers the $995 destination fee if you are picking the car up at the museum in Bowling Green.

If you want to pick up a corvette at the museum you still have to pay the $995 destination fee on top of the $995 museum delivery fee.

Anyone else think this makes no sense? Maybe another way for GM to squeeze out another $1,000[/QUOTE]

Many threads have covered this subject. Yes, you pay both when you take museum delivery. :seeya