This may be a stupid question, but while going through the Online configuration, I noticed that if I select the Museum Delivery option, I still see a $995 line item for Destination Freight Charge...

If the car is made in BG Kentucky, and you are picking up the car in BG Kentucky, why would one be charged $995 for freight in addition to the 990 for the museum delivery?

For anyone who did the museum delivery, do you still get whacked for the $995 destination charge?

 

It's not a stupid question, but it's been asked and answered countless times.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/sear...rchid=38915198

 

You will love NCM delivery. Don't let cost dissuade you it is very memorable. Even my non car person wife loved the experience.

 

The two Chevy dealers in Bowling Green (both within a few miles of the plant) both pay $995 too. It is part of the base price of the car, but Federal law requires it to be listed separately on the Monroney (window) sticker. Everyone, from across the street to furthest corner of the US, pays the same fee.

The $990 R8C charge is a fee for the special prep, plant tour, Museum tour and 1 yr membership, and the extensive vehicle orientation you receive (the guide will stay as long as you have questions.)

If you still think I it's too expensive, then don't order it. As for me, I'll be getting my orientation in 4 days, and consider it well worth the price.

 

I have no problem with the $990 for the R8C... Frankly that to me is well worth the cost.

I just have a problem with paying for something that I am not getting. The $995 is not a lot of money, its just the principle. The fact that dealers in BG have to charge the same thing is irrelevant. They can spin it however they want, it is fundamentally the same as when I buy something at best buy and I select in store pickup, I don't pay shipping.

Hell, donate it to charity, or make the museum delivery $2,000 just don't tell me I am paying for freight when the car is moving about 1,000 feet from the factory to the museum and I am flying 1000 miles to get the car.

Anyway, sorry for asking a question that was already addressed... Should have searched first.

 

This has been posted her before from a gm employee - the 995 is a legal agreement between the dealers and the factory so the dealer farthest from the factory pays the same as someone next to the plant. It is the same a for every mfr that has a plant here - In Greenville SC the BMW dealer that can see the plant, pays the same at the dealer in Portland.

It has nothing to do with the customer...

 

Even a Porsche coming from Germany through a US port and headed for Seattle will have the same destination charge in Seattle as one headed to a dealer in the port city itself. It's just the way the industry works - this is all negotiated between the mfr. and the transport co. It's set up this way so dealers close to a manufacturing facility don't have an advantage.

My new C7 is going by truck to Ohio, then by rail to Butte, MT, then by truck back to the Billings area. I'm paying the same amount as someone who picks up a car at the BG chevy store; (or the Museum, which is basically a proxy delivering dealer - i.e, they handle all the paperwork your dealer would.).

Museum Delivery is an option, and you're paying for much more than transport.

I do wish we could stop beating this dead horse though.... It's been going on since I joined the Forum in '99, right after it launched.

 

If everyone paid a delivery fee based on the location of the dealership, the dealerships closest to the museum would get most of the business.

 

You guys are way too nice. It's a rigged game and again Corvette owners are bent over and have an added Corvette Tax to the delivery charges:

https://www.chevrolet.com/destination-freight-charges

For example from the above chart, the porker Impala with the MINIMUM weight of the lightest version over 200 lbs more than a heavy vette is only charged $875 destination charge. Even the gigantor 4,148 lb Camaro Vert has a $100 cheaper destination charge than the Vette.

The Corvette destination charge has been $1095 since 2018. If Chevy is sending out refunds making the price now $995, my check must still be in the mail.

And take a look at the chart of coming attractions (2020) prices are again going up $100 for the 2020's already id'ed.

The "destination freight charge" is the company and dealers agreeing to clip as much as they care to from customers; not an actual costs of transportation adjusted for market fuel factors and distributed according to the weight of the car shipped.

In GM's scheme, all cars are delivered to Ripoff City.

 

If you want something to complain about...how about the "DEALER FEE"...It is nothing more than EXTRA PROFIT for the dealer...Not all dealers charge it...but in Florida every dealer does....

 

The OP is guilty of thinking logically here. Regarding the union contract, its makes no difference whether the transport distance is 1 mile or 3000 miles, every vehicle gets hit with the averaged national wide freight charge. NCM is just another receiving dealer in this regard.

 

This is the transport union ripoff. GM doesn't get a cent of the transportation charge

 

You mean that the unions have their hand in the till and are forcibly taking money for themselves? Oh, gasp!

Say it isn't so!

 

Impalas do not have the same packing materials for shipment as do the Corvettes. As well, if that is the "Corvette Tax" what is the over $1600 freight charge some pick-ups are being charged? There are far better items to get excited about.

 

Actually that is not exactly true. Transportation charges are actually an estimate agreed to between the manufacturer and the transporter that takes into account several variables. Some years there is money made and some years there is money lost for the manufacturer. The idea is to break even if possible. It is usually pretty close.

 

Thats a terrible analogy and you clearly don’t have any idea how retail works.

the “cost” to deliver the goods to your local Best Buy’s is already factored into the cost you pay at the store. A $20 trinket only cost $6.50 to make, and cost BB $12 to buy and have it distributed to each local retail store. The cost, or destination fee as you call it, is already factored into that $20 price you pay at the store. It is only when you buy online and pay shipping on top of that from a retail store, is when you’re being ripped off and double charged.

Unlike the trinket you buy from retail, auto manufactures have to disclose the cost associated with getting your vehicle to its destination. That cost is spread across the entire production run, otherwise you’d have people in Anchorage, Alaska paying $5,000 to have their car freighted vs people living in Bowling Greens paying next to nothing.

All the manufacturer’s do that.

 

Lots of truth in that.

The way you know it is a racket is that you still have to pay the "destination charge" even if you arranged to drive to the factory & pick up the car yourself.

Not sure if they still offer it, but Audi, Mercedes and BMW used to have a program for US military personnel to buy new vehicles in Germany at a significant discount. It was possible to buy a new car, enjoy it for a nice vacation in Europe and then bring it (US specifications, of course) back home with you at the end of your tour. My girlfriend did it with her then-new Audi TT and my dad did it with his Volvo back during the 1980s.

I lived in Germany as a kid when my dad was stationed there. To this day, I regret never having toured the BMW factory near Munich. (We only lived a bit more than an hour away from it.) I think that would have been very cool as a teenager.

 

In the past the delivery fee was fairly directly related to distance from factory. Living in Arizona in the 1960s, my dad would buy Oldsmobiles near the factory in Michigan, saving a bundle on shipping, and drive them to Arizona, drive for a year, sell them to a guy who appreciated year old Oldses, fly back to Michigan and repeat the process. He didn't lose any money on the deal as he bought the cars near cost from an old Army buddy in Michigan and first registered them in Nebraska along the way, so that by the time they got to Arizona they were used cars and taxed as such. The so-called "destination fee" is partly a way of evening the playing field for dealers in different parts of the country and eliminating this sort of finagling. I am sure that a lot of interesting politicking went into it.

BTW, I've bought cars within sight of the Sterling Heights Chrysler corp plant, and they arrived by auto hauler even though it would be faster and easier just to have someone from the dealership go pick them up and drive them over. Another deal of some sort I am sure. I don't know if the museum delivery cars are "shipped" from the factory or not, but I'll bet someone does.

 

When I last checked a decade ago you could still pick up a BMW in Germany on European delivery plan for a discount on the U.S. price, drive it around Europe for three weeks or so (insurance cost included) and then have it shipped to the US. Check the BMW configurator on line and you can see if this still works.

 

My girlfriend did that with her 2016 Audi TT (purchased late in 2015) that she bought in Germany and brought it back to the USA with her in 2017. She was a DOD civilian working in Belgium at the time. She is also a retired LTC.

It would be a great way to buy a car and take a nice vacation around Europe.