On our 4th Prius!

Just drove home a nautical blue Prius 3, after lots of price comparison and research to get the best deal here in Northern Virginia. Great experience buying this one! It replaces a 2005 burgundy Prius. My husband drives a 2008 charcoal Prius that replaced the awesome dark green 2003 Prius I got originally - which really did look like a turtle, but I love the bold dark colors! So glad we got our used Prius appraised at Carmax first...we got the dealer's wholesaler to match their offer which was $1500 more! Nice to have the trade in value cover our whole down payment, and reduce the payments! Loving the new car smell, and the new tire smell filling the garage! Looking forward to perusing the chat forums...

 

Reply to WJTracy above: I searched online inventories at many dealerships, and went back and forth (email, some phone conversations) with Koons Tyson's (where we got the 2003), Koons Arlington, Ourisman a Fairfax, Springfield, Miller in Manassas (who were nice, but didn't have the version I wanted on the lot), and finally ended up going with Jack Taylor Alexandria - which neither of us had heard of before. They had two or three of the exact version I had decided I wanted. The internet guy, Andrew Mitchell, was really straightforward, and quoted a pretty good "out the door" price when I asked, and after a day or two I was able to get another few hundred off, before we even visited. When we got there, I had him figure the final price again, and then he handed us off to a salesman (William) who did our test drive and wrote everything up. Turns out the finance guy, Van, lives not too far from us, in Woodbridge, and he was very easygoing and efficient with the paperwork. We had gotten our other two Prii at Lustine, but, if you live here you know their sleazy reputation, so we avoided them completely. This is definitely the best time of year to buy! A couple of the dealerships I searched had sold out of blue 3's before we were ready to visit, so we crossed them off our list...and we were fully prepared to go to Koons Arlington if we hadn't gotten the price and trade in valuation at Alexandria that we wanted.