When you give up on waiting...

Pepa, you don't give up, you find a dealer with a quicker delivery time (at MSRP). You don't have your location in your profile or people could possibly point you to other dealers. Also, be aware that not all the packages are available in every region. Make sure you aren't waiting for the one that will never come.

 

When i was fed up with waiting i started to call around to other dealers within a radious. I eventualy found one just over 100 miles away that made we wait only 2 weeks to get mine. So my advice is to call around and put yourself on other waiting list. When you get your car, make sure to call them back and take yourself off the list.

As for the other option. What car to get instead. Well, what's important to you. For me, i needed to be able to carry at least 4 people at a time. At times i would have to carry 6 - 5 gallon jugs of water. I would need room for shovels, picks, bricks, small lumber, ladders. My prius is truly a multi purpose car all the time. If i knew i was not gong to have a family in the next 8 years ( i like to try to plan a secure future ) then i would purchased the insight. So, it's all about how your life style is and what you plan on using these cars for. The prius also helped me a lot because i did business in Real Estate. The GPS address lookup came in handy.

Either way, good look with the wait. Have you been calling them to see what's going on with the wait. I had my dealers cell phone and would bug him at least once a week with a fake newbie question that i already knew. Just to make sure he knew i was still there.

 

Go to Toyota.com...build your Prius... using your zip code have dealers contact you.... be flexible to colors... not knowing what option package you are looking for, you might be flexible in that too.. I picked three colors and one option package... got my car in about two months... I live in the Denver CO area, not only did get mail from all the dealers in the area.. I found that by working with an internet manager the experience was easy..

Bob Andersen

 

:? I bought mine "lightly used' (4,400 mi - like new - all invoices, manuals etc.) on eBay. You often find Dealers around the U.S. listing cars on eBay, both new and used. Then, you also get some protections against misrepresentation and if you order a CarFax report (for used car) you get a buyback warranty as well.

Also, check "For Sale" section on PriusOnline.

 

Pepa,

I'm still waiting (since May - wow, that's going on 7 months now also). When I started I was 53rd on the list (I am *trying* to be loyal to one dealership) and now I'm 30th. My salesperson told me on my monthly call - yes, we're seeing an impact from the increased production. Instead of 3 cars a month we now get 4! At this rate, I'm halfway there. Yeesh.

This whole ordering process for the Prius really does suck, and it totally seems to me that California dealerships have these things "flying" out the door in like 2 weeks, while here in NY it's just impossible to get one. I've often entertained the idea of giving Asif as Stocktown Toyota a call, flying or driving out to CA and then driving back to Rochester. I'm not there yet....but my wife is starting to get antsy about the wait. She's looking at the Pontiac Vibe for its AWD capability as an alternative and Toyota's own Corolla as well (once she found out it gets 40 MPG on the highway). For now, I'm hanging in there....yeesh.

[email protected]

 

Mike,
I really see no reason to be loyal to 1 dealer. True it isn't their fault if they don't get a lot of Prii. However is isn't YOUR fault either. The dealer isn't going to cut you a great deal, dicker against other dealers you have lined up or anything else. You haven't noticed them working the region to find you and the other 29 before you a car now have you?

Treat it like any other new car purchase. Contact a bunch of dealers and find out who will give you the best deal. In the case of a Prius, it is the dealer who can get you one at MSRP faster than the other dealers.

If you really like this dealership, as a consolation, you can tell them than they get the service money. I really don't think they will go broke if you don't wait another 7 or 8 months to buy a Prius from them.

 

Wasn't someone on here needing to sale their prius?

 

You just are dealing with the wrong dealer. I got mine in 3 mo's. I have been driving it for three weeks. I just talked to the dealer and he said that he is getting one every week. His name is Andy
bartkowiak @ Gates toyota in South Bend, In 574-237-4999. He charged me list price. give him a call, Good luck.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"51651)</div>

Pepa here is the thread... Fr. Bill is a nice man...if you are in ILL or close

http://www.priuschat.com/forums/im-depress...html?highlight=

 

This sounds REAL familiar. (If you search this forum, you can read all the sordid details).

Just before Labor Day, after being on a list for more than a year, and with my commute car acting up, I pretty much had an Accord picked out (the Insight or Civic didn't interest me), and someone on this forum suggested I contact "rural dealers" in the area (N. California), so I made a last-ditch effort.

I used the method of contacting dealers on the Toyota Website, plus made a few calls - and got one call back immediately (we don't have any but we'll look around). As it turned out, I was extremely lucky, and was able to find a car in very short order. (< 1 week). My commute car had gone from making funny noises to losing the transmission (thankfully in the parking lot of the service place). I was needing to do something real soon.

I had actually visited this particular dealership recently (like within the previous week) and asked one of the salesmen if they might have one unspoken-for, and he said 'at least a year', but then I got a call 'out-of-the-blue' from one of the internet guys (same dealership) who said he had JUST gotten an allocation sheet, and might be able to help - (he didn't initially seem to know exactly what I was looking for, so I'm not real sure how he got my name and information. He initially called my home and talked to my wife, then called me at work. After they checked their orders, nobody was signed up for the particular color/model I wanted, and they allocated it to me - I had to wait a few days for it to get shipped up from So Cal, but it came pretty quickly. I'm not sure, but I don't think I had even put their name into the system (because I believed the guy on the lot. The guy may not have known, but I think the game they play is that they say it'll be a year hoping you'll buy something else TODAY). The dealership is not the closest one to my home, but it IS the closest one to work!

Even after buying my car, I've probably had 3 or 4 calls and emails from dealers with cars. I've had several emails and calls from some dealership in Greely Co (who I didn't even contact) offering to sell these -you might try them, but I don't have a clue what price they might be asking, (or even if they still have cars) since it wasn't of interest. Incidentally, I paid MSRP, not some inflated price.

I believe the cars can be found today if you beat the bushes a little bit for them, especially if you can be flexible on colors. (I was flexible on colors, but wanted a BC package!)

If I were you I would go to the Toyota website and put in any dealerships that are within an acceptable radius to you tonight, maybe call a few and talk to the Internet folks (they should give you pricing over the phone), and wait and see what happens over the weekend. You might be surprised.

I've seen at least two Priuses with paper plates in my little town (pop about 2000) in the last couple of weeks. One of them turned out to be a coworker (we had compared notes on photovoltaics recently, as it turned out - I overheard him at the coffee station discussing mileages around 46 to 48, which limits the field substantially. (Hi Ken, if you see this!)).

Good luck,



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pepa\";p=\"51588)</div>

 

Hey Folks,

I've been looking for a new Prius for about 5 days. I could have bought 10 of these cars in the process of looking for a specific color/pkg. that I really wanted (which I finally found). There is not a single one that I would have had to pay more than MSRP for. Some were within 50 miles, some much farther, so there would have been some shipping or travel cost. In the midwest, Toyota appears to dump the dark colors. Lots of red, black and some blue. White is very difficult to get up here. Anyway, my point is simply get on the phone and find one. They are all over the place. Call the fleet manager within a day or so of allocation and find out what they are getting that doesn't fit the list. Also, check with the smaller town dealers first. They have short lists. They may only have 2-4 people waiting. Toyota appears to be building to efficiency, not to orders. The dealers get what's built, not necessarily what people are waiting for. This means better odds of getting an car in a smaller town because the dealer has less chance of getting someone to take a car that doesn't meet the order requirements. When you don't get to the right person, you get the same rhetoric... long list, 6 - 8 months, blah blah....check around and get your car. Good luck.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(thomasfxlt\";p=\"51715)</div>

Where is "up here"?

 

Anywhere in the Midwest. Minnesota specifically. Red, black, some silver. Most of the white cars I found were on the coast. East, West, South.

I did find a white one allocated for Dec. in North Dakota, pkg.4. I wanted a #6 and went to Wash. St. to get it.

 

I would look in more rural areas. I got mine in Helena Montana where my son goes to College. I drove the car home to Washington about 600 miles. I waited 4 to 5 weeks for the car in August. I was on a waiting list in Olympia but wanted a car this year. At that time the tax credit was going down on January one. Look around you could be surprised.

 

Just fo grins, I decided to see if I could find one in the Chicago area.

I don't know if it's for real or not ('mileage' seems to vary on these internet inventories...), but Naperville Toyota (I tried that one because it was the first one that came up with my brother's (Lisle) zipcode) shows two Priuses (prii?) on their web inventory. Doesn't say what trim, a red one at 26666, and a WHITE one at 23676. Might not hurt to give a call. (630-357-1578)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pepa\";p=\"51588)</div>

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pepa\";p=\"51751)</div>

Depending on the light conditions, the "green" looks more like a dark silver than green.

Congratulations.