That's funny, there's a dealer selling a (2017, yes, not 2015) 328d for $38,651:
http://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-...archRadius=0&makeCode1=BMW&modelCode1=BMW328D
And, base to base isn't a fair comparison when you're comparing a higher-end car that has more equipment standard.
The MSRP sticker on that car is $43,600, have you called and actually verified they have the car? This is a well known ploy to get buyers in the door, you advertise a car you do not have, we just sold it(LOL) to try to sell you the car they do have...
The cars I saw in denver were all $45-47k minimum, with loaded cars $55-60k+....
the base cars are what the auto makers sees as the cheapest price they can passably offer that engine in our market!
All of those options are added as a way to get the base price to the minimum make money point to passably offer the diesel option in the US market. That is why we are not offered the TDI below that threshold price!
BMW does exactly the same math, they add ($X) amount of options to the diesel model to have the car well equipped enough to make the diesel option feasible for the US market....
Chevy did exactly the same thing with the Cruise TD they recently sold here, a minimum option package to push the price high enough to recover the added costs to pass our stupid overzealous emissions......
Those options cost the auto maker pennies per unit to a few dollars, option are pure profit that automakers can charge for and make real profits from...
Options costing manufacturers next to nothing have for years been used for massive amounts of profit.... And recently in specialty models like diesel offerings are now there to just to pad the price to the point to make the car sell-able here & recover the added costs related to offering a diesel option here! Nothing more....
Again the only real comparison that is fair, what is the base price to base price comparison, that tells you how much more those emissions cost to offer the car here.......
It comes down to this, today no one in the US would buy these cars at anything close to their base price without all of these options added to them. Options which cost the automaker very little to add, options that are added to all offered today diesels here to make the cars appear to have more value than it actually does to make up for high costs related making a diesel pass our stupid overzealous emissions rules........
VW's, Audi's, MB's, BMW's, ect w/diesel option'd....all current diesel models base price has almost nothing to do with how the car is equipped, but is a real measure of what emissions equipment costs to make the car legal to sell here....
You want to know how much more has been spent on getting the diesel certified for sale here, look at the cheapest model offered here.....
Look up what the car costs in other markets that do not have our strict emissions regs....figure in the difference more for the diesel option'd car there you have it....they figure out how much they can charge for the car, and how much in added options will be required to make up the rest of emissions certification & design will cost...there you will get the base price....
that is how much more has needed to have been spent to get that diesel engine to pass our e-test.....