2010 Prius due in Colorado about Jun 16

It took awhile, but we finally have a due date here in the middle of the country. Liberty Toyota in Colorado Springs just called to say their first shipment will be here "about" June 16.

The best news is that my car is on it, exactly what I wanted! Winter Gray Metallic Type II, with carpeted floor mats, bumper applique, and nothing else. $100 under MSRP.

I'm not completely sure what region we're in, but I think my car is coming thru Portland.

 

Cool, keep us posted!

 

No, it was $499 below MSRP before the dealer fee, so $100 below MSRP after. The dealer fee is a completely imaginary number so I only paid attention to the price after. I'm not really sure why they post a sign like that.

Glad you were favorably impressed with the car. I might make a run down there this weekend to try it out.

 

Oops I misspoke. Just looked at the paperwork and it's $500 under MSRP, so the final number is $101 under. The $399 is then stated after that, with sales tax so it totals $428.53.

But as I said, the number $399 doesn't really mean anything as long as you take it into account when comparing prices with other dealers. They could even quote prices in Yen and it would be fine as long as you take it into account. I suspect that after Consumer Reports and others started getting people thinking about invoice cost as a benchmark, maybe dealers started adding these mandatory fees to try to hold the line against people coming in to demand invoice, but without shopping around.

But fees like this aren't really extra profit, just extra revenue. Profit still depends on having enough volume to cover your overhead, and higher prices reduce volume. At least, that's how I would look at it if I were a car dealer.

 

Thank you for the heads-up on the finance guy, I'll watch out for him. My salesperson is Jen, the internet manager. So far this has been an easy and straight-forward transaction.

But because of all the great info on Prius Chat, I haven't been relying on the salesperson much for information. I would love it if I could order a car online the way I order a computer from Dell. Makes me wonder how much of a future the car dealer business model really has. As car dealers go Liberty seems pretty decent so far.

 

I spoke with Stevinson early on. I found the salesperson to be evasive and not honest in his answers to my questions. I guess he was trying to convince me that it's impossible to buy a Toyota for under $3-5k over MSRP, and he had a really elaborate story to tell. I couldn't convince him that I don't have time for all that c**p. I actually talked with several salespeople like that at Denver-area dealers and wondered how they stay in business treating their customers like that. I ended up buying for under MSRP in the Springs.

 

Of all the dealers I called and didn't buy from, the Stevinson guy is the only one who has followed up, and he has called repeatedly. He has one demo car, as all the dealers apparently do, and he is eager to sell it to someone. No takers, apparently.