Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I am going to buy my first pontoon boat. After testing a few, it looks like the Avalon with the waveglider package and the verado 250 will be the winner. I come from performance boats and have followed that market, however, I am having a heck of a time trying to figure what to offer for this boat. I have found a good price breakdown for the south bay, but not avalon. They claim I am getting a boatshow price. Is that the price or do I start with 20% below and negotiate? My gut tells me the "price" should be about 10% below what they are offering. Any help or thoughts is greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Mitch

That's the $64 dollar question, isn't it. Here's my recent experience of working with one number for boat, motor, and galvanized trailer combined.

Starting with the combined dealer list price, his boat show offer was 9.2% less.
My offer was 5.5% less than the boat show price.
So, from the dealer list, I received consideration of at least 14.3%, a little more actually if you consider the extra "elbow grease" service the dealer gave after the sale.

In hindsight, I might have been able to get to 17%. I think I read something over in the Bennington forum that suggested 20-25%. That seems pretty deep considering beginning of the season.

When I purchased my center console 14 years ago, it was end of season and the dealer discounted 24.2% on boat, motor, and trailer.

I just finalized my deal on a Crest 250 with a 300 verado pro and galvanized bunk trailer. I payed 22% off list price if the list was true. I sent the contract to a dealer closer to my home lake who sells crest, he said no I wont beat it , I wont even meet it.

This is not the car business where every dealer in the U.S. pays virtually the same price. The marine business has volume discounts and other discounts to dealers that order boats on a rotating 12 month basis so manufacturers can keep their factories running 365 days of the year. Every dealer pays a different price.

Some boat manufacturers purchase outboard motors in great bulk, and they can afford to pass on some of their fleet purchasing discounts to the end purchaser. Not every boat manufacturer gets the same deals from the outboard manufacturers either.

And the list price vs. actual dealer cost is different between dealerships due to every dealer being cut a different deal. And different manufacturers have different MSRP's. So in reality, percent discounts is not the way to buy a boat.

Now if you want to compare prices on Avalons, go to TandMMarine.com--the biggest Tahoe/Avalon dealer and the largest pontoon boat dealer in the U.S. He buys boats from Tahoe where dealers have gone out of business and factory overstocks--and sells at very fair prices. He stocks hundreds of boats at all times, and prices are online. It's too bad T&M is so far from the rest of the U.S.--north of Minneapolis.

What happened with mine, is that the boat was close to exactly what I wanted at the price listed so I began requesting things without negotiating price. Upgraded the stereo, Went from a 115 to a 150. Made them throw in the aluminum trailer, GPS, and Spare prop. When all said and done it came out to $9 Grand worth of extras. Then they gave me more than I paid for my trade in.

Thanks for the information. I will play it out.

Cheers